CHAPTER IX SOME PEOPLE ARE HAPPY—IN DIFFERENT WAYS

Tony Strife reached Shovelstrode in a state of reckless and sublime uncertainty. She was quite uncertain as to whether she meant to confess or not. Precedent urged her to do so. Whenever she did something of which she was not sure her parents would approve, it was part of her code to confess it. Quite possibly her people would not blame her, they might even be grateful to Mr. Smith, as they had been on a former occasion. On the other hand, they might shake their heads at the picnic part of the business. Who was Mr. Smith, that he should go picnicing with their daughter?—and she would not be so confident in answering as she had been before.

During their short interview on East Grinstead platform it had not been possible to take more than a superficial view of him, either with eyes or mind; but the close contemplation at Brambletye had impressed her with the conviction that he was "rather queer." He evidently did not belong to their set; not because he was poor—they knew several people who were poor—but because of a certain alien quality she could not define. It was not, either, because he was not a "gentleman," though she had her occasional doubts of that, alternating with savage contempt for them. It was because his manner, his look, his behaviour, had all been utterly different from what she was used[Pg 98] to, or had met at Shovelstrode. She felt that if her parents were to question her searchingly, her answers would be unsatisfactory, and she would not be allowed to meet him again, as he had suggested. And she wanted to meet him again; he had interested her, he had attracted her by that very "queerness" with which he had occasionally repelled her. She wanted to tell him more about her school, to have more of his strange confidences, hear more from him about Furlonger, see again that hunted look in his eyes. Only one of her memories of him was tender—that was when his infinite suffering had called to her out of his eyes, and she had answered it in a sudden new and divine surge of pain. She caught her breath sharply as she went into the house.

Yes—she had decided at last—she would keep her secret—her first of any importance. She would not risk interference with what looked like a glowing adventure kindled to brighten her exile. Besides, there was another consideration. If Awdrey were to hear of it, she would at once begin to weave one of her silly romances—make out Mr. Smith was in love. Ugh! Tony's shoulders shrugged high in disdain.

It would be quite easy to give an account of her afternoon which did not include her adventure. She would tell how her tyre had punctured, how she had tried in vain to mend it, and had at last come home on foot. Her concealment did not afflict her, as she had at first imagined. On the contrary, it gave her a strange, new feeling of importance and independence. For the first time[Pg 99] a certain warmth and colour crept into her thoughts, a certain pride invaded the shy dignity of her step.

That night she dreamed that she had gone to meet Mr. Smith at Brambletye. She saw the two capped turrets against a background of shimmering light. Mr. Smith took her hand and looked into her eyes in that strange, troubled way which called up as before an answering pain. He said something she could not remember when she woke. Then suddenly a dark shape seemed to rush between them and whirl them apart. She cried out, and Mr. Smith seemed to be answering her from a great distance: "Don't be frightened—it's only Furlonger—it's only Furlonger." But the fear grew upon her, the darkness wrapt her round, and, struggling in the darkness, she awoke.

All that day she wondered if she would meet him. She prowled round Shovelstrode with her dog, ignoring an invitation from Awdrey to "come for a stroll, and hear the latest about Captain le Bourbourg." She was used to being alone during her holidays. It was her habit to walk with Prince in the little twisting lanes round her home. She never went far, but she used to spend long hours in the fields, gathering wild flowers and leaves for her collection, or making Prince go racing in the grass. A rather forlorn little figure, she had gone through the days unconscious of her forlornness. But to-day she felt it—because she was expecting some one who did not come. She did not meet him in any of those thick-rutted lanes, nor in Swites[Pg 100] Wood, nor on the borders of Holtye Common where she went for blackberries.

She began to wonder if he would ever come, or if her glimpse of a world beyond the strait boundaries of her life had been but a flash—a sudden haze of gold in the ruins of Brambletye. She felt her loneliness, the blank of having no one to speak to about school, the strange tickling interest of confidences outside her experience. That night as she knelt by the bed and watched the moon behind the pines, she added to her prayers a stiff petition that she might "meet Mr. Smith again."

Tony's belief in prayer was quite mechanical, and when the next day she saw her shabby friend on a stile at the top of Wilderwick hill, she in no wise connected the sight with those few uncomfortable moments on her knees.

"Good morning," she said simply; "I'm so glad to see you."

Nigel smiled at her. At first she had wondered a little whether she liked his smile—to-day she definitely decided that she did.

"I hoped we'd meet again," he said.

"So did I," answered the virginal candour of sixteen.

"You don't think me queer, then?"

"Ye-es. But I like it."

"Could we be friends?"

"Yes—rather!"

He held out his hand. He was smiling—but suddenly as her hand took his, she saw the old wretched look creep into his eyes, together with something else that puzzled her. Were those[Pg 101] tears? Did men ever cry? She found herself feeling frightened and vexed.

Nigel crimsoned with shame, and the fire of his anger licked up the tears of his weakness. The next moment he was looking at her with dry eyes—and, strange to say, from that day his childish fits of weeping troubled him less.

He and Tony turned almost mechanically down the narrow grass lane leading past Old Surrey Hall to the woods of Cowsanish. They did not speak much at first—indeed, a kind of restraint seemed established between them. Nigel wondered more than ever what had made him seek her out—this na?ve, shy, rather limited little girl. All yesterday he had been struggling with a desperate need of her. He could not understand why he wanted her so; she was not nearly as sympathetic as Len and Janey, she was not so interesting, even, and yet he wanted her.

At first he had thought it was her ignorance of his past life which made her presence such refreshment—the blessed fact that with her he had a clean slate to write over. After all, though Len and Janey had forgiven, they could not forget—for them his muddled sum was only crossed out, not wiped clean. With Tony he could start afresh from the beginning, not merely where his miserable blunder ended. And yet this was not all that drew him to her. He felt deep down in his heart a subtler, more compelling attraction. What brought him to Tony was a development of the same feeling that had made him catch up the unlovely Ivy in his arms and find her sweet. It was[Pg 102] a fragment of that strange, new part of him, which had been born in prison, and frightened Len and Janey—the child.

He could not remember that before his dark years he had felt particularly young for his age, or cared for young society; but now his heart seemed full of irrepressible torrents of youth. He wanted to be with boys and girls, to hear their shouts, to share their laughter, to join in their games—not as a "grown-up," but as one of themselves. Why did every one expect him to have grown old in prison? Sorrow does not always make old, it often makes young. It sends a man back pleading to the forgotten days of his youth, struggling to recapture them once more, and bring their carelessness into his awful care.

To-day he lost his troubles in finding grasses and leaves for Tony's collection. After a time her constraint wore off. She chattered to him about school friends, lessons and games, daring adventures and desperate scrapes. That day he found such a mood more sweet to him than any glimpse of pity or understanding she could have shown. He might want her compassion—the woman in her—sometimes, but only transiently; what he wanted most was the child in her, for it answered the sorrow-born child crying in the darkness of his heart.

They scrambled in the hedges for bloody-twig and bryony, they gathered the yellowing hazel, and bunches of strange pods. Nigel was able to tell her the names of many plants and bushes she had not known before—he was wonderfully [Pg 103]enthusiastic, and loved to hear about the botany walks at school, and the other collections she had made, which had sometimes won prizes.

It was past noon when they turned home. The distances were dim, hazed with mist and sunshine. A faint wind was stirring in the trees, and now and then a shower of golden leaves swept into the lane, whirled round, then fluttered slowly to the grass. Some rain had fallen early in the morning, and the hedges were still wet, sending up sweet steams of perfume to the cloud-latticed sky.

Nigel spoke suddenly.

"Do your parents know about me?"

"They know about East Grinstead, but not about Brambletye."

"Shall you tell them?"

"No—I don't think I shall. I—I'm not at all sure what they'd say if they knew all the facts."

"Nor am I," said Nigel grimly.

"Besides, I hate telling people about things I really enjoy—it spoils it all, somehow. You don't think it's wrong, do you?"

"No—why should it be?"

"I don't know—only whenever a thing's absolutely heavenly, one can't help thinking there's something wrong about it."

"Well, I don't see why there should be anything wrong about this. I'm lonely, and so are you—why shouldn't we be friends?"

"I've never done anything like it before. It's funny that father and mother are so awfully particular, for they don't bother about me much in[Pg 104] other ways. I'm nearly always alone when I'm at Shovelstrode. Father's busy, and mother's not strong, and Awdrey has so many people to go about with."

"And when you come back from a long walk, no one asks you where you've been, or whom you've met?"

"I'm not supposed to go for long walks by myself—only to potter round the estate—and no one ever asks me any questions."

Her voice was rather pathetic—in contrast to her proud assurance when she talked about school.

"We'll meet again," he said impulsively.

"I hope so—I hope so awfully. To-morrow I've got to go over to Haxsmiths in the car with Awdrey, but I've nothing else all the rest of this week. I wanted father to take me to Lingfield races on Saturday, but he can't."

"Do you like race-meetings?"

"I've never been to one in my life. I wanted so much to go this time—I'm generally at school, you know, and it seemed such a good chance; but father has to be in Lewes, and Awdrey's spending the week-end in Brighton—besides, I couldn't go with her alone, one wants a man."

"I'll take you if you like."

"You! Oh!"

"Shouldn't you like it?"

"I should love it—but if any one saw us ... father would be furious."

"No one shall see us—we won't go into any of the enclosures and risk meeting your friends. Do let me take you."

[Pg 105]

Tony flushed with pleasure and fright. This was adventure indeed.

"I'd love to go. Oh, how ripping!"

When Nigel reached home that morning he went straight to find Janey. There was something vital between him and his sister—each brought the other the first-fruits of emotion. Janet might find Leonard a tenderer comforter, more thoughtful, more demonstrative, but there was not between them that affinity of sorrow there was between her and Nigel. Not that she ever told him, even hinted, why she suffered, but the mere glance of his eyes, so childish yet so troubled, the mere touch of those hands coarsened and spoiled by the toil of his humiliation, was more comfort to her than Len's caresses or tender words. Nigel could repeat the magic formula of sympathy—"I too have known...."

He felt, unconsciously, the same towards her. But it was more happiness than grief that he brought her. He had acquired the habit of eating his heart out alone, but happiness was so new and strange that he hardly knew what to do with it. So he ran with it to Janey, like a child to his mother with something he does not quite understand.

To-day he found her in the kitchen, sitting by the fire, and watching some of her doubtful cookery. Her back was bent, and her arms rested from the elbow on her lap, the long hands dropping over the knees. Her face, thrust forward from the[Pg 106] gloom of her hair, wore a strange white look of defiance, while her lips quivered with surrender.

He sat down at her feet, and leaned his head against her lap. He vaguely felt she was unhappy, but he did not try to comfort her, merely took one of the long, hot hands in his. She did not speak, either—but her heart kindled at his presence. She knew that he had been happier for the last two days, though yesterday he had also seemed to have some anxiety, fretting and questioning. His happiness meant much to her. All her happiness now was vicarious—Quentin's, Leonard's or Nigel's. In her own heart were only flashes and sparks of it, that scorched as well as gladdened.

Life was a perplexity—life was pulling her two ways. She seemed to be hanging, a tortured, wind-swung thing, between earth and heaven, and she could hardly tell which hurt her most—her sudden falls down or her sudden snatchings up. Earth and heaven, brute and god, were always meeting now, clashing like two ill-tuned cymbals.

Her shame was that her love and Quentin's had not been strong enough to wait. She had looked upon it as an exalted spiritual passion, and it had suddenly shown itself impatient and bodily. It had fallen to the level of a thousand other loves. Sometimes she almost wished that it had been a more despised lover who had won her surrender—better fall from the trees than from the stars.

Moreover, her sacrifice had not won her what she was seeking, but something inferior and makeshift. What she had dreamed of as the crown of[Pg 107] love had been a life of kingly, fearless association, the sanctification of every day, an undying Together. That was still far away. Borne on an undercurrent she had till then hardly suspected, she and Quentin had been washed into the backwaters of their dream. She had only one comfort, and that was paradoxically at times the chief of her regrets—Quentin was happy. Unlike her, he seemed to have found all he had been seeking. She was still unsatisfied, her heart still yearned after higher, sweeter things, but again and again he told her he had all his desire.

"I am in Paradise—Janey, my own Janey. We climbed over the gates, and we are there—together in the garden"—and his lips would burn against hers, and even the tears brim from his fiery, sunken eyes.

She never let him think she was not happy. She meekly and bravely accepted the vocation of her womanhood—if he was happy, all her wishes, except certain secret personal ones, were gratified. For his sake she put aside her dreams, and fixed her thoughts on what was, forgetting what might have been. She broke her heart like a box of spikenard, that she might anoint him king.

A shudder passed through Janey, and Nigel's head stirred on her knee. He lifted it, and looked into her eyes—then he drew down her face to his and kissed it.

"You're tired, my Janey."

His voice thrilled with a tenderness that carried her back to the days before he went to prison.

[Pg 108]

"No, dear, not tired—but I've a bit of a headache."

"I'm so sorry. Oughtn't you to lie down?"

"No—it will go."

"Poor old sister!"

He put up his hand and laid it gently on her forehead. Then suddenly he hid his face.

"Oh, Janey, I'm so happy!"