Chapter XVIII Ariadne in Naxos
Lady Randolph wisely said nothing, but she wrote to Mark. He replied by return of post.
“I love her devotedly, but I have an almost incurable disease: the result of neglect. Don’t let my people know of this. I had the presumption to believe that the sacrifice of the flesh was a sort of burnt-offering to God. The folly of it is hard to bear. Many men here are in a like self-crippled condition, and the doctor in charge, a good sort, makes scathing remarks. David Ross warned me several times; as did his successor at the Mission. Betty, of course, must never find out the truth, which I could not withhold from you, my kind friend. You can best serve her and me by finding her a good, faithful husband, such a fellow as Harry Kirtling, or Jim Corrance.... She is made for the happiness which marriage brings. I can take comfort in the thought that another may give her what is not mine to offer.”
Lady Randolph’s eyes were wet, as she locked up this letter. Mark had not mentioned Archie as a possible husband. “That would break his heart,” she muttered to herself.
Betty and she returned to London, where, during the month that followed, Betty’s simulated high spirits and inordinate appetite for excitement provoked a warning.
“If you don’t bend, you’ll break.”
“I am broken in pieces, like Humpty-Dumpty, who ought to have been a girl. Men don’t break when they tumble off their castle walls. I’ve stuck myself together, but I’m a cracked vessel.”
Lady Randolph wrote a note that evening to Mrs. Corrance. She had faith in the balsamic virtue of the atmosphere in and around King’s Charteris, and she knew that Jim spent two days out of each week with his mother. Mrs. Corrance begged Betty to pay her a visit.
“Shall I go?” said Betty.
“I need a rest-cure,” Lady Randolph replied pointedly.
So Betty went down into the pleasant Slowshire country, where the warmth of her welcome gave the girl a curious thrill. The kisses of the gentle, grey-haired woman sounded deeps, although they could not touch bottom, for the motherless girl has deeps unplumbed by any fellow-creature. Tea was set out in the pretty old-fashioned drawing-room with its freshly calendered chintzes, its quaint Chelsea figures, its simple dignity of expression. Mrs. Corrance possessed some Queen Anne silver, which she had used daily ever since Betty could remember anything. It sparkled softly like the rings upon the white hands that touched it, shining with a subdued radiance of other days. Betty saw the same quiet glow in her old friend’s kind eyes: the peace on the face of age which passes the understanding of youth.
Hitherto she had regarded Mrs. Corrance with grateful affection, but as one to whom the wind had been tempered, one who lived in a fold seeing little beyond save Jim. Betty had always thought of her as mother. Now, she found herself wondering what part this quiet lady had played as sweetheart and wife. Tempests might have raged and died down, before she (Betty) was born. Mrs. Corrance’s mind, like her house, was full of charming nooks, cosy corners, so to speak, wherein a tired spirit might take his ease, but perhaps there were also bare chambers into which none was allowed to enter. Into these, if they existed, Betty felt a shameful curiosity to go.
While they drank tea Mrs. Corrance asked no questions. Betty listened with interest to an account of Jim and his doings in the markets of the world.
“He would like to instal me, me, my dear, in a fine house in some fashionable quarter.” She laughed, and Betty laughed too, seeing that the mother was delighted secretly that her son should desire to lavish his wealth upon her.
“Do you despise the world, that you live out of it—always?” said Betty.
“I love the country,” replied the elder woman evasively; then she added, as if the possibility had just occurred to her: “I hope you won’t find it very dull here.”
“Not with you,” said Betty, slipping her hand into her friend’s.
Next day, Mrs. Samphire drove over from Pitt Hall. She looked pinker and plumper than ever, and her hair—arranged in Madonna bands—gave her the vacuous expression of a stout Dutch doll. When the name was announced, Betty rose to fly, but Mrs. Corrance entreated her to remain. While Betty was hesitating, fearing the voluble tongue of Mark’s stepmother, the lady herself bustled across the lawn to the chestnut tree beneath which Mrs. Corrance was sitting. In a moment the pleasant silences were shattered.
“How cool you look! And this is dear Betty Kirtling. We never expected to have the honour of seeing so smart a lady in our humdrum circles. Thank you, my poor husband is only so-so. The doctor has prescribed golf. We have laid out a small links in the park. I think golf such a charming game—don’t you? I love to look on at it. You agree with me, I’m sure.”
Mrs. Corrance tried to lift this interjectional babble out of the rut.
“I suppose,” she said reflectively, “that with us middle-aged women looking on at games is an inherited instinct. We have always looked on—haven’t we? But Betty, I expect, likes to play golf.”
Betty, however, unkindly said nothing, while Mrs. Samphire bleated: “Oh, yes, I do like to see the Squire play golf. Although, when he misses the ball, he does—well, I mustn’t tell tales out of school—must I? How is dear Lady Randolph? Did you have a large party for Ascot? Was the Prince there? I have seen your name in the Marlborough House lists. Really, I wonder you speak to me at all.”
“I haven’t said much yet—have I?” said Betty. “Last time we met you were suffering horribly with neuralgia. Is it better?”
“I’m a martyr now to dyspepsia. I’m trying light and colour, Babbit, you know. If your poor, dear uncle were alive, how interested he would be. I’m wearing red next the skin.”
“In July?” ejaculated Mrs. Corrance.
“And I’ve changed the paper in my boudoir, which used to be a depressing blue, to bright yellow. All the water I drink is acted upon by a red lens. I want Mark to read Babbit. He has had a sort of breakdown. You heard of it?”
“A breakdown?” exclaimed Betty. “Did you say a—breakdown?”
Light flashed upon her. Why had she not thought of this? Her thoughts crowding together clamoured so shrilly that she could barely hear Mrs. Samphire’s querulous reply.
“We learned, quite by chance, that he was in a sanatorium in Sutherland. He ought to have come to Pitt Hall.”
“Have you asked him?” said Betty in a low voice.
“He would come to us if he wanted us.”
Shortly after Mrs. Samphire took her leave.
“Can Mark be seriously ill?” said Betty.
Mrs. Corrance’s clear eyes lingered for a moment on Betty’s flushed cheeks; then she said tranquilly: “It is not impossible. If so, I don’t blame him for going to Scotland.”
“He ought to be at Pitt Hall,” said Betty. “I think I shall take a brisk walk.”
Two days later Betty met the Squire in Westchester. She soon discovered that he was hurt because his son had not come home.
“Perhaps he was anxious to spare you—and others. That would be like him.”
“Yes, yes; he’s the best boy in the world. But I’m sure there’s nothing serious the matter. We Samphires are as hard as nails.”
“If he—died up there without making a sign.”
The Squire stuttered and choked.
“God bless me! you alarm me. I must write at once. I shall insist on his coming home. Has he taken you into his confidence, my dear?”
“No.”
“Um! I thought once that—well, I shall write.”
Betty felt that her heart was beating.
“He will pay no attention to a letter. Why not go to him yourself, Mr. Samphire?”
“By God!—I will.”
Betty smiled faintly, for the Squire, when he set his mind to a thing, was easily turned aside.
Then she went her way; and Mrs. Corrance noted in her diary that Betty seemed quieter, more like her old self.
On the following Saturday Jim arrived from town, exhaling and exuding Capel Court. He strolled with Betty through lanes, where they had picked primroses and blackberries long ago; and the familiar trees and hedgerows stood like sentinels of the past, guarding simple joys, which Betty told herself could never return. Jim reminded her that a missel-thrush had built in the old pollard close to the village pound, and that the eggs, when about to be blown, proved addled.
“You were very keen about eggs,” she said.
“I’ve always been keen,” said Jim. “By Jove!—it was a sell about those eggs. Well—I still collect eggs, and some are addled! That Cornucopia mine, for instance....”
He plunged into a description of a mining deal which had proved disastrous.
“But I got it back, and a lot more in six weeks.”
“Which excites you most—winning or losing, Jim?”
“One gets accustomed to winning,” said the successful speculator, “but losing is heart-breaking, particularly when you are unable to guess what the loss will be.”
“Ah,” said Betty. “What do you do with your gains?”
“Let ’em increase and multiply. The mater won’t live in a better house, I mean a larger, and she refuses, in advance, all the presents that I’ve not given her.” He laughed, then he continued in a hard voice: “That question of loss interests me.”
He looked at Betty, who slightly lowered her parasol and made no reply.
“I never forget my losses.”
“Because they have been few?”
“Because they have been heavy. The fellows in our market would tell you that I have a very serious failing: I don’t know when to let go.”
“I call that a virtue: in a word, you don’t know when you’re beat.”
“No,” he said steadily. “I don’t know when I’m beat.”
A silence followed, during which the tamer of bulls and bears decapitated a few dandelions. Betty watched him out of the corner of her eye. A certain dexterity and ruthlessness in Jim’s use of his cane had significance. Then she found herself wondering what Jim looked like when he was a boy. She could not recall her old playmate, being obsessed for the moment by the man beside her. Some men always retain the look of youth—Mark was one of these; others would seem to have been born old; many, like Jim Corrance, assume early a hard and impenetrable crust of middle age. Jim’s face was thin and lined, although he had the square figure of an athlete. One could not picture him as a rosy-cheeked urchin, nor could one believe that he would grow feeble, and bent, and white-haired. And yet, despite his strength and success, Betty felt poignantly sorry for him. And being a woman she showed her compassion in a score of inflections, gestures, which were as spikenard to the man who loved her.
“I wonder you are so nice to me,” he said presently; then as she raised her delicate brows he added quickly: “I’ve cut loose from so much you revere. It’s a pill for the mater, but I couldn’t play the humbug. I look at life as it is: as it appears, I mean, to me—a place where the devil takes the hindmost.”
“And those in front——”
“Oh—I dare say the devil takes them also—later.”
Betty changed the subject, not because it was distasteful, but for the subtler reason that she feared her own thoughts, which stuck in a slough of despond. For the rest of the walk they prattled gaily enough of the pranks they had played as boy and girl. Jim’s face insensibly softened, so that Betty caught a glimpse of the Harrovian. Then, at the mention of Archie’s name, the talk flowed back into the present.
“I never asked you what you thought of that wonderful sermon of his.”
Jim admitted surprise. “Old Archie has come on,” he added. “He’s a plodder, and he’s good to look at, and he means to ‘get there.’”
“To get—where?”
“To the bench of bishops.”
“I used to underrate Archie, but there’s a lot in him.”
“A lot of him, too. Oh—you needn’t frown, Betty. I think that Archie makes a capital parson; and I dare say he’ll personally conduct a select party of you Slowshire people to heaven.”
“How bitter you are, Jim.”
“I won’t be bitter when I’m with you,” he promised. “I say, there’s the bush where we caught the Duke of Burgundy fritillary. I saw it in the old cabinet the other day. You nailed it with your hat and gave it to me, although you wanted it yourself. I felt a beast for taking it, but I adored you for being so unselfish.”
“You offered me your Purple Emperor next day.”
“And you refused it,” said Jim quickly.
“So I did. I must tell everybody that I have refused an Emperor.”
“Not to mention smaller fry. Three months ago I thought you meant to marry Harry Kirtling, and he thought so too, by Jove!”
“You dare to insinuate that I encouraged him?”
“You have a way with you, Betty.” He glanced at her ardently, but she looked down, faintly blushing, as he continued: “You are not one of these modern young women who can stand alone.”
“That is true,” she said simply. “I am not strong enough to stand alone, and I admire in men the qualities lacking in myself. We had better go home; your mother will be waiting for her tea.”
Jim said no more, but in the evening he asked his mother if she had any reason to suppose that an understanding existed between Mark and Betty.
“When she refused Kirtling, Pynsent and I made certain she was engaged to Mark. Now he has gone to the uttermost ends of the earth, and she never mentions his name to me.”
“Nor to me,” said Mrs. Corrance. Then she touched her son’s shoulder very gently. “Do not make ropes out of sand, dear.”
Jim went back to town on Monday morning, but he returned to King’s Charteris the following Friday, and walked once more with Betty in the lovely woods which lie between Westchester and the New Forest. Naturally and by training an acute observer, although a keener judge of men than women, Betty puzzled him. He saw that she was slightly contemptuous of the material side of life, although willing to listen by the hour to his presentment of it. This, however, might be a phase, a mood. He felt assured, now, that Betty would have married Mark had he asked her to do so, and he lay awake at night wondering whether she would marry anybody else. For the rest he determined that he must make haste slowly. He would give the girl the fellowship she craved without defining its elements. That she was grateful for such abstinence her manner proved. She became at once open, candid, a delightful companion.
Meantime the Squire had not left Pitt Hall. When he met Betty, he said, with some confusion, that the “Madam” (as he called Mrs. Samphire) had opposed so long a journey; one, moreover, which was like to prove a fool’s errand. He excused himself by complaining querulously of an estate which exacted constant supervision. His face was even more florid than usual, and his manner less complacent. When Betty mentioned this to Archie (who rode over from Westchester on a well-bred cob), he expressed a fear that his father was losing money.
“He spoke of going North,” Betty said, after a pause. “If Mark is really ill, surely he ought to be nursed by—by his nearest and dearest?”
Archie betrayed astonishment.
“Ill? Really ill? I’ve heard nothing of serious illness, not a word. How do you know, Betty?”
“I have guessed,” she answered vehemently. “He has slipped away to—to die, perhaps!”
Archie showed a most lively concern.
“No, no, you exaggerate. Look here, Betty, if someone ought to go North, I’ll go.”
“Oh, Archie—if you would.”
“Dear old Mark! Of course I’ll go. It happens that I can get a week’s leave. I’ll bring him home with me.”
He spoke in a warm, sympathetic tone, kindling Betty’s gratitude and affection. Never had she liked Mark’s brother so well.
“You can spare the time, Archie?”
“Yes, yes; I’m so glad you spoke to me. By the way, I’ve a piece of news for you—great news, too. I am commanded to preach at Windsor.”
“Oh, Archie, I am pleased to hear that. It will mean so much—won’t it.”
“Yes.”
She asked questions: Was the date set? Had he a theme? and so forth. “You know,” she continued gravely, “I shall never forget your Westchester sermon. Many sermons touch one, but that gripped. Often, I’ve not been quite fair to you, and now I’m horribly ashamed of myself. You forgive me?”
“My dear Betty! I say—was there so great a difference between that sermon and others I have preached?”
“Why, Archie, how modest you are! Don’t you know that you climbed to the heights that Whit-Sunday? Before, you seemed to be rambling about on the comfortable plains. Oh, I know we can’t scale mountains every day. Lord Randolph said as much——” She paused.
“What did Lord Randolph say?”
“He did not intend that it should reach your ears.”
“Betty—you will do me a favour by repeating what he said as he said it. I am not thin-skinned.”
“Well, he said that beer was good liquor, and that spirits should be used sparingly. You couldn’t preach such a sermon as that every Sunday.”
“Not I,” said Archie.
“The great thing is that you can stir up hearts when the occasion comes. I feel sure you will surpass yourself at Windsor.”
“I wish I felt sure, Betty. Well—I’ll do my best to persuade Mark to return with me, but he’s obstinate as a mule where his health is concerned. Shall I give him any message from you?”
“You can give him—my love.”
She spoke with assumed lightness of tone. Archie found a phrase.
“A man would travel farther than Sutherland to receive that.” Then he took his leave, gravely smiling.
“He’s a good sort,” said Betty.
None the less she told herself that her intuitions in regard to men were fluid. Again and again she tried to grasp them, to mould them into permanent form, into definiteness; always they flowed away—peaceably sometimes, with a sweet melodic cadence, as of a Scotch burn, but more often roaring, like the same burn in spate; in either case leaving but a small silt behind.
The two days following Archie’s departure she spent alone in the woods (for Mrs. Corrance seldom left her pretty garden), seeking from Nature an answer to the problem in her heart. The great oaks and beeches preserved an inviolate silence in those languorous July days, but the pines seemed to have a message for an attentive ear. Their sighs were, perhaps, the warning voices of the innumerable dead, hushed and (to most mortals) inarticulate. Here and there amidst this rich pastoral country Betty found sterile acres where even the hardy fir failed to find sustenance. These patches in the landscape had a weird fascination. Betty perceived beauty, dignity, in their subtle, faded tints, their delicate greys and shadowy browns. Once upon a time, doubtless, these barren spots had bloomed, too luxuriantly, perhaps; in due time they would bloom again in splendid resurrection. In the centre of one of the stony places a young birch tree of great beauty stretched slender limbs toward the green paradise which encompassed it, inclining slightly to the south.
“I am like that birch,” said Betty.