After My Fashion (11 page)

He did not attempt to bring into honest daylight the queer
shadowy motives that tumbled over one another, like shifty humpbacked weasels in a rabbit hole, down there in the darkness of his hidden mind. But somehow by not actually clearing off, by not leaving Selshurst altogether, he satisfied the scruples of one part of his nature, while by offering the girl nothing but this profound silence he made a definite break with what had begun to occur between them, and in a queer sort of indirect way hit back at the meddling Canyot.

It was all the more easy to hide himself like this just because that ‘threatening letter', as he called it, of the impulsive painter had quite definitely broken up the special kind of sentimental attraction he had begun to feel for the young girl. In those first days he never thought of her without thinking of buttercups, and celandines; but now whenever he thought of her he thought of that ‘choosing definitely between us'; until the fair face of the maiden floated, in his mind, above a horrid iron prong, that jerked and prodded him into that lamentable arena of duty where decisions are made!

One morning, however, after more than a week of this recluse existence, his whole line of action was scattered to the winds by a letter from the girl herself.

‘Dear Mr Storm,' the letter said, in a firm clear round rather childish hand. ‘When are you coming to see us again? – or have you left Selshurst? If you have gone away I hope they won't forward this because it's only a dull invitation which it will be a bore to receive in Paris or wherever you may be. It's to ask you to come over to tea tomorrow, to meet my friend Mrs Shotover. Please try and come if you can, as my father took a great fancy to you; which is rare with him as you can guess. But of course if you
have
left it's no use. In that case may I say I'm sorry we didn't say goodbye?' And the letter ended with an evident hesitation between ‘Sincerely' and ‘Very sincerely', avoided by a manufactured blot and a hurried ‘And with best wishes for the success of your work – from Nelly Moreton.'

It is extraordinary what power a direct personal appeal has, to break up a whole fabric of moral speculation! The look of the letter, the way she had worded it, that blot at the last with the unconventional ending – all these things thrilled Richard as if they had been the very touch of her hand. ‘Ha! Ha! My good friend,' one of his slyest demons whispered to him, ‘so, after all, the real
reason for this retreat of yours was pure jealousy! You thought she did still care for Canyot!'

Tea tomorrow? That means today – this very afternoon. And Richard rushed out of the Crown Inn passage, into the street, sans hat and stick, and made his way to the leafy cathedral close, walking upon air.

He left an admirable lunch, that noon, very imperfectly dispatched, and found himself chatting to barmaids, gardeners, ostlers, boot boys, even to that old insinuating toper, half-beggar, half local-celebrity, who went by the name of Young Bill, with the most eager interest. –

‘I may as well start early,' he said to himself. ‘It's so horrid to meet people when one's hot and rushed.'

He started indeed so extremely early that it was hardly half past two when he arrived within a couple of miles of the place.
I can't
appear yet for hours!
he thought, and tried to settle himself down in a pleasant corner of a field, taking out of his pocket a little volume of
Songs of Innocence and Experience
. He got as far as the title on the cover, which struck his fancy as being singularly appropriate; but the words inside the book might have been written in Chinese, for all they conveyed to his mind.

‘Confound this waiting!' he said to himself. ‘It makes a person nervous. Maybe I'd better take a bit of a detour.' This diplomatic move had the effect of so entangling him between hedges and ditches, and hayfields where he knew he mustn't tread down the grass, that it was quite four o'clock before he made his appearance, decidedly hot and very muddy, at the door of Littlegate Vicarage.

Mrs Shotover had arrived, and with John Moreton and Nelly was standing on the lawn outside the vicar's study.

Richard's joining them was the signal for Grace to bring out tea, preparations for which had already been made under the shelter of a wide-spreading sycamore.

Nelly had blushed scarlet on first seeing him and had been so nervous that in introducing him to Mrs Shotover, she said the one thing which she had made up her mind she must on no account say, the one thing that it would be ‘perfectly awful' to say. ‘Mrs Shotover,' she said, ‘has been teasing me about you. She calls you my Stormy Petrel.'

As soon as she had uttered the words she could have bitten off
her tongue.
Some devil must have said that through my mouth!
she thought.

A voice within the man she addressed did certainly not fail to point out that the jest was an ill-timed if not an ill-bred one; and that it was not pleasant to be the subject of ‘teasing' between ladies. But this was only one voice among many that were uttering fantastic and carping comments in Richard's brain; and the real Richard was very little affected by them. Indeed the girl looked at him so shyly and so wistfully after this blunder, that she could have said something far worse than that and he would have forgiven her.

‘I found a knapweed out this morning,' remarked the vicar, after the first settling in seats and pouring out of tea had subsided. ‘I've never found one so early before; not in thirty years. It's a remarkable season.'

‘Father always finds the first flower,' said Nelly quickly. ‘He seems to know by instinct where to go for them. It's quite queer sometimes. You'd think that no sooner were a new flower out, than it made a special signal to Father, over miles and miles, to come and see it.'

‘Mr Storm must come and see my garden,' threw in the lady from West Horthing, ‘and I've got a few things in my house that no doubt would interest him still more.'

‘What things do you mean?' asked Nelly with genuine curiosity. But her friend shook her head at her. ‘It's Mr Storm I'm going to show them to, not you, dear. When
you
come to see me it's all gossip and scandal, isn't it? We've no time for serious things. Do you think it's really true, Mr Storm, that women are fonder of gossip than men?'

It was the old naturalist who unexpectedly replied to her.

‘Women, Betty, gossip out of pure malice; in order to satisfy their spitefulness and spleen. Men gossip out of a philosophical interest in human nature.'

‘I would put it rather differently.' said Storm. ‘Men gossip about their enemies – women about their friends. Women think themselves privileged to abuse their friends.'

‘Mr Storm! That isn't true,' broke in Nelly. ‘Don't interrupt him, dear,' said the old lady. ‘He was going to say something else. I saw it coming.'

What do you think yourself?' inquired Storm, looking straight into her satiric screwed-up eyes.

‘I think we all gossip as fast as we can find subjects for it. Women's subjects are more limited than men's; so they're bound to make more of them.'

‘Tell me this then—' began Richard.

‘Oh no catechisms, I implore!' cried Mrs Shotover. ‘That's where you literary people are so unkind.'

‘I hope you don't mean
so boring
,' said Richard.

‘No, please, Granny dear; let Mr Storm finish his question. I'm sure it was thrilling. Ask me instead of her, won't you?' And Nelly smiled at him with a tender quiet little smile that seemed to say, ‘I love your catechisms!'

‘It probably wasn't a proper question to put to you,' chuckled Mrs Shotover. ‘Well, go ahead, young man, and be as unkind to the old lady as you like.'

‘I only meant – but there! we've driven your father away I'm afraid—' and he stopped abruptly, as the vicar, nodding benevolently at them all, got up and shuffled across the lawn.

‘Oh no! Father never stays after he's had his tea,' cried Nelly. ‘Now Mr Storm,
do
finish your sentence!'

‘I only meant,' Richard went on, cursing himself for having launched into the topic at all, ‘that it's queer how women scold so bitterly and vindictively people that they're really all the time actually in love with.'

Mrs Shotover put back her head, dropped her lorgnette, and dropped into a cackling high-pitched laugh. Then she leered at Richard with her head on one side like some wicked very old fowl. ‘Do they do that? My goodness! You notice, Nelly, what experiences Mr Storm has had.'

Richard glared at her angrily. ‘I'm afraid it wasn't an original remark of mine,' he retorted. ‘It's that old well-known poem of Catullus I was thinking of. I hardly liked to bore you with it in Latin.'

‘In Latin!' Mrs Shotover clapped her hands. ‘Oh Nelly, do put down that cake. You know you don't want it. And listen to Mr Storm quoting Latin.'

But Nelly's face was very serious. It would never do for Mrs Shotover and Richard to quarrel at this juncture. ‘You two dear
nice people!' she cried, rising to her feet in order to deal more adequately with the situation. ‘How you do fight over these absurd problems! As Mr Storm says, I don't think we need much experience to know what people are like when they love and hate at the same time! But I don't think it's only women who torment the people they care for. I'm sure men do it. I don't know whether you'd count Father as an example? But he certainly does it. Well? Shall we go round the garden?'

As they moved away Nelly thought to herself –
The poor absurd
darling! how sweet he looked when he got angry because she
laughed. And how solemnly he began that old tiresome business
about loving and scolding
.

What pompous vain conceited things the nicest of men are! But
oh I'm so glad to see him again – and there's the same feeling
between us – just the same – he feels it and I feel it. How wonderful
it is!

And Richard thought in his heart –
That vulgar impertinent old
woman! Trying to make me look a fool before Nelly! But the sweet
thing came to my rescue instead. Bless her heart! She may be innocent,
but she's got more intellect, any day, than that old harridan
with false teeth and a grin like a hyena! Bless her heart! I was a silly
ass to keep away all this time. What days I've wasted!

And as he followed the old and the young woman round that pleasant little garden he smiled to himself to notice how naïvely and simply he had thought of those even days of work at the main purpose of his life as ‘wasted' – because he had hidden himself away from a girl of twenty-two.

Richard did not succeed in securing any private word with Nelly before he felt it incumbent upon him to say goodbye. The ‘laughing hyena', as he named Mrs Shotover to himself, grinned her obstinate determination to ‘stick him out' and be left alone with her young
friend. He was only thankful she had a coachman and dog-cart; so that there was no question of his having to walk back with her to West Horthing. He cordially detested her; and made up his mind to attack Nelly on the subject, and express his wonder as to what she could see in such a spiteful and silly old creature!

That's the worst of England, he thought. It's such a confounded individualistic country, that a horrible old woman like that as long as she has money and ‘knows the neighbourhood' can go on indefinitely making herself a general nuisance. In America, he supposed, she would have been put into her place and forced to mend her manners. Well! Well! After all, perhaps, there was something to be said for a system that encouraged everybody to grow into a ‘Character', either a charming one or the reverse! It was better perhaps to have ‘laughing hyenas' than monotonous herds of sheep!

The next day was a day of pouring rain and Richard made no attempt to do more than visit the cathedral. He took the opportunity of carrying his notebooks there and reading to himself what he had written. On the whole he was not displeased with the result of his week's work. He had composed about two hundred lines of this uneven dithyrambic ‘litany of the earth-soul', its slow growing into consciousness, its use of the sentiency of all living things, its vague ‘dreaming on things to come'.

He became conscious how deeply he had abandoned himself to these English fields and lanes and hedges, to these mossy walls and historic buildings, to these old quiet immemorial traditions.

His return to his native land had stirred a thousand atavistic feelings in him, tastes and prejudices, devotions and queer old attachments.

The lines he had written were full of the sounds and scents of the English country, and the more conscious, more human element in them was religious in the calm reserved English way and was rootedly, but not feverishly, pagan. Dithyrambic in its broken ebb and flow the poem might be; but the music of it was rich and slow and a little heavy – not by any means a song of air and flame! The thing might not be passionate and exciting; but the bleating of flocks was in it, and the sweet breath of cattle, and the patient labours of simple people under the sun and the rain, and the faint sad strange murmurs, like the winds at night, over summer grass, of the dead
generations that found their survival in those who came after them.

He returned to his inn late that night, having wandered far through the fields as the evening cleared, along the old canal bank, towards the sea. It had come upon him, as he walked there, especially in passing a particular group of poplar trees, pale and soaked with rain, shivering in the night wind like something human against the orange-coloured skyline, that he had known all this before. Yes, long before, under some other name perhaps, in the unending sequence of the great wayfaring, he must have stood, just as he was standing then, watching those trees whispering to each other with sad tender voices!

And that night he pulled his chair close to the open window and sat for a long while looking out into the silent wet garden, where the darkness itself seemed to exhale an old forgotten fragrance, carrying the mind back to dumb deep-buried memories.

It was one of those hours when a man feels the presence of all the days he has lived through, gathered up and folded together like the crowding of soft innumerable wings; an hour when what is to come hangs palpably imminent, like a vast pregnant shadow, before him, beckoning to those sheltering wings that they should let him go, let him move forward to his fate.

Winnowed and purged by his days with the secrets of words, their mysterious alliances and treacheries, his soul seemed, as he sat at that window, reluctant to break the spell, hovering consciously between a past that was over, its wounds healed, and a future on whose threshold he wavered and hesitated, full of unknown things – beautiful, terrible, pitiful!

He left the window at last with a sense as though he had made, for good or for evil, some great decision; as though at some dark crossroads he had chosen his way, and now could never, through all that should subsequently happen, retrace his footsteps.

Never had Richard sunk into so deep a chasm of dreamless unconsciousness as he slid away into, almost as soon as his head touched the pillow. He awoke the next morning with a feeling as though he had slept not for seven hours, but for seven centuries; he wondered vaguely if he would ever sleep quite in that way again. Was it the very sleep of the ‘earth-soul' he had been writing about into which,
like a child entering the spaciousness of a mother's dreams, he had been allowed to pass?

He had the queerest feeling as he washed and dressed as though it were necessary to move very quickly, very stealthily and solemnly, about the room. Was some shadowy dead self, some phantom corpse of everything he had been before, actually lying on the bed he had quitted?

He ran downstairs anyway with a distinct feeling of relief from psychic tension and oppressipn. And on the table in the breakfast room, lying on his plate, he found a letter from Nelly. He opened and read it standing by the window, while Trixie Flap, the Crown housemaid, watched him shrewdly, her hand on the mahogany sideboard.

The letter was brief enough.

‘Dear Mr Storm, Please come over and see me.
At once
, if you don't mind? It's impossible to tell you more in a letter. I must talk to somebody. I am very worried, so please come as soon as you get this. In the morning if possible. I'll look out for you. I am sorry to trouble you.'

And the letter was hurriedly signed, ‘Nelly'.

Richard looked at his watch and then at the self-conscious back of Trixie Flap who was now fidgeting with something on the sideboard.

‘Let's have some tea at once, Trixie, please,' he said, seating himself at the table and beginning to cut the loaf. ‘Never mind about the porridge. I'm in a hurry. I've got to go somewhere.'

When he next looked at his watch it was after ten and he was already halfway to Littlegate. He could not have given any lucid account of what trees or beasts or rustics he had passed on his way. He might have passed much more remarkable things than early flowering knapweed and they would have been unnoticed. That phrase
I'll look out for you
with its pathetic confidence in his friendship had stuck a dart into his heart whose sweet rankling made him oblivious of all outward objects.

He came upon her quite suddenly, leaning against a gate, staring with woebegone eyes in front of her, without hat or gloves. She turned when she heard his step and leaped forward to meet him, her cheeks burning.

She gave him her hand. She made a little hesitating movement as
if she would have given him both her hands. Instead of that she gave him the loveliest smile that Richard had ever seen on a human countenance. ‘Thank God you've come!' she said with a sigh of content.

They instinctively moved to the gate which Richard rapidly opened, untwisting its rustic defences with a trembling hand.

‘Let's get off the road,' he said. ‘Then we can talk better.'

They risked the wrath of the farmer and crossed the field to the shelter of a large ash tree which grew in the hedge bank. At the foot of this tree they were isolated from the whole world.

It was a hot, still, thundery day, the sun having a semitropical feeling in it owing to the rain that had fallen.

‘I'm afraid the grass is damp,' said Richard. ‘With that thin dress …' He looked at her tenderly. ‘Oh, I know!' he cried impulsively, and taking off his coat he spread it upon the ground.

The girl looked grave. ‘After getting warm walking …' she murmured, ‘I don't
think
you ought to—'

‘But just feel how hot the sun is – burning hot!' And he made her sit down by his side; even going so far as to give her a little friendly pull closer to him when she seemed shy of taking more than the minutest share of the tweed jacket spread out beneath them.

Nelly sat with her legs stretched straight out in front of her, Richard with his knees under his chin; and when he told her that it was like sitting together on a magic carpet that only needed one talismanic word to transport them both to some Happy Valley out of reach of all annoyance, she nodded in contented agreement.

The hot thundery heavy sunshine fell upon them like an actual stream of attenuated gold, as though the very father of gods and men were blessing them with full hands.

‘Well – now we are alone and safe,' said Richard, hugging his knees with his clenched fingers and letting his eyes rest on the childish indoor shoes she was wearing, strapped with a thin leather strap above the instep, ‘let's hear the worst. Out with it Miss Nelly! I can tell you in advance, by a sort of presentiment, that I shall be able to find a solution. Out with it Miss Nelly!'

‘You may drop the Miss – if you like,' said the girl in a low voice, plucking a long feathery grass blade and pulling it to pieces on her lap.

‘Well, out with it, Nelly!' he repeated.

She drew in her breath as if for a great burst of volubility; and then suddenly, instead of telling him anything, she broke into a flood of tears. Richard longed to take that fair forehead with its pearl-white transparent skin, its delicate blue veins, its exquisite arched eyebrows, and those wet cheeks hidden in her hands, and comfort them with caresses; but it seemed somehow as if it would be stealing an unfair advantage of her just then. So he just laid one of his hands lightly on her shoulder. ‘Come, come, little one,' he said. ‘I'm certain we can settle all these things if you only tell me.'

She made a gallant effort and stopped crying, turning to him a look of almost frightened apology. ‘Don't be angry with me,' she murmured. ‘I really don't often give way like this. I think it must be the thunder in the air. It's so hot and close isn't it?'

Richard hurriedly assented. ‘Oh awfully close! But do try and tell me now. I'm sure I'm the right person to be told.'

‘It's about Father,' she said quietly. ‘He's written several times to London lately and he's written to Selshurst. And now it's all decided. They've accepted his resignation. Someone's coming from Selshurst to take the service. And there's to be a new vicar. He's not to be allowed to officiate in the church again. In fact it's more like being turned out than resigning. There'll only be one more quarter's salary coming in; and that's the end. After that we've got nothing! And we've not saved a penny. God knows what we shall do. What hastened all so and brought things to a head was some parishioner from over the hill complaining to the bishop – no Little-, gate person would have done it. I believe it was the foreman at Toat Farm. He's a silly officious old fool. He's always been a trouble. He must have told them about Father's leaving out prayers and things. Whenever it says
God
in the service he changes it to
Christ
. It's very, very cruel – happening like this. But I suppose it was bound to come sooner or later. I suppose it
would
sound odd if a stranger heard him. He didn't always change it to
Christ
. Sometimes he changed it to
Lord
but he always changed it – except when he was thinking of his butterflies or something, and then he forgot and said it like anybody else. I suppose it couldn't go on like that, could it? Though the people here didn't seem to notice any difference.'

She stopped breathlessly and looked at her companion with appealing eyes.

Richard felt compelled to confess to her that it did seem a little
strange for a priest to expurgate the syllable
God
out of the Christian worship. He admitted that he did not very clearly see how it could ‘go on' quite like that.

‘But cannot your Father make any special use of his scientific knowledge? He seemed to me a man of unusual mental power. Couldn't he get a biological position in some college?'

Nelly frowned just a tiny bit at this, and thought in her heart,
How curiously stupid the nicest of men are! Any woman who'd
seen Father would know at once that he was quite hopeless in things
like that. I suppose the truth is all men are a little hopeless themselves.
How any of them do any practical work
I
can't think!

And she sighed and smiled, and then frowned again.

‘No. I suppose that's out of the question,' said Richard and stared helplessly at the little crossed ankles lying in the grass beside him, over which the ash leaves above their heads threw a tracery of delicate shadows.

Sitting there in his shirtsleeves he felt as though he were prepared to undertake any quixotic labour on behalf of this young girl. But what form could it take?

‘I think perhaps I ought to tell you something else,' said Nelly gravely. ‘Perhaps you've guessed I'm engaged to be married to Mr Canyot?'

‘Yes,' said Richard with a beating heart.

She was evidently making a tremendous effort to be entirely frank with him and he felt a wave of vibrant pity for her in her manifest embarrassment.

‘Mr Canyot's been so different since he lost his mother. He misunderstands things. I mean he confuses things. But it's all too much my own fault!' She pulled up a large handful of sun-warmed grass and threaded it around her fingers.

Richard could not help noticing that she still wore the ring which he had from the first day assumed to be her engagement ring.

‘I ought to tell you that we had a bad quarrel that day when we walked back together from Selshurst.'

Now we come to it!
thought Richard.

‘And the quarrel,' she went on, ‘if you want to know, was absurdly enough about
you
!'