She was getting tired of her role as the naive, impetuous and childish innocent; and though mentally still quite resolved upon following her mother’s frequent and unblushing hints, and doing her best to “catch” this æsthetic master of a million dollars, the burden of the task was proving considerably irksome.
Ralph’s growing tendency to take her into his confidence in the matter of the philosophy of his art, she found peculiarly annoying.
Philosophy of any kind was detestable to Gladys, and this particular sort of philosophy especially depressed her, by reducing the attraction of physical beauty to a kind of dispassionate analysis, against the chilling virtue of which all her amorous wiles hopelessly collapsed. It was becoming increasingly difficult, too, to secure her furtive interviews with Luke—interviews in which her cynical sensuality, suppressed in the society of the American, was allowed full swing.
Her thoughts, at this very moment, turned passionately and vehemently towards the young stone-carver, who had achieved, at last, the enviable triumph of seriously ruffling and disturbing her egoistic self-reliance.
Unused to suffering the least thwarting in what she desired, it fretted and chafed her intolerably to be forced to go on playing her coquettish part with this good-natured but inaccessible admirer, while all the time her soul yearned so desperately for the shameless kisses that made her forget everything in the world but the ecstacy of passion.
It was all very well to plan this posing as Ariadne and to listen to Dangelis discoursing on the beauty of pagan myths. The artist might talk endlessly about dryads and fauns. The faun she longed to be pursued by, this wind-swept morning, was now engaged in hammering Leonian stone, in her father’s dusty work-shops.
She knew, she told herself, far better than the cleverest citizen of Ohio, what a real Greek god was like, both in his kindness and his unkindness; and her nerves quivered with irritation, as the hot southern wind blew upon her, to think that she would only be able, and even then for a miserably few minutes, to steal off to her true Dionysus, after submitting for a whole long day to this aesthetic foolery.
“It must have been a wind like this,” remarked Dangelis, quite unobservant of his companion’s moroseness, “which rocked the doomed palace of the blaspheming Pentheus and drove him forth to his fate.” He paused a moment, pondering, and then added, “I shall paint a picture of this, Gladys. I shall bring in Tiresias and the other old men, feeling the madness coming upon them.”
“I know all about that,” the girl felt compelled to answer.
“They danced, didn’t they? They couldn’t help dancing, though they were so old and weak?”
Dangelis hardly required this encouragement, to launch into a long discourse upon the subject of Dionysian madness, its true symbolic meaning, its religious significance, its survival in modern times.
He quite forgot, as he gave himself up to this interesting topic, his recent resolution to exclude drastically from his work all these more definitely intellectualized symbols.
His companion’s answers to this harangue became, by degrees, so obviously forced and perfunctory, that even the good-tempered Westerner found himself a little relieved when the appearance of Lacrima upon the scene gave him a different audience.
When Lacrima appeared, Gladys slipped away and Dangelis was left to do what he could to overcome the Italian’s habitual shyness.
“One of these days,” he said, looking with a kindly smile into the girl’s frightened eyes, “I’m going to ask you, Miss Traffio, to take me to see your friend Mr. Quincunx.”
Lacrima started violently. This was the last name she expected to hear mentioned on the Nevilton terrace.
“I—I—” she stammered, “I should be very glad to take you. I didn’t know they had told you about him.”
“Oh, they only told me—you can guess the kind of thing!—that he’s a queer fellow who lives by himself in a cottage in Dead Man’s Lane, and does nothing but dig in his garden and talk to old women over the wall. He’s evidently one of these odd out-of-the-way characters, that your English—Oh, I beg your pardon!—your European villages produce. Mr. Clavering told me he is the only man in the place he never goes to see. Apparently he once insulted the good vicar.”
“He didn’t insult him!” cried Lacrima with flashing eyes. “He only asked him not to walk on his potatoes. Mr. Clavering is too touchy.”
“Well—anyway, do take me, sometime, to see this interesting person. Why shouldn’t we go this afternoon? This wind seems to have driven all the ideas out of my head, as well as made your cousin extremely bad-tempered! So do take me to see your friend, Miss Traffio! We might go now—this moment—why not?”
Lacrima shook her head, but she looked grateful and not displeased. As a matter of fact she was particularly anxious to introduce the American to Mr. Quincunx. In that vague subtle way which is a peculiarity, not only of the Pariah-type, but of human nature in general, she was anxious that Dangelis should be given at least a passing glimpse of another view of the Romer family.
It was not that she was definitely plotting against her cousin or trying to undermine her position with her artist-friend, but she felt a natural human desire that this sympathetic and good-tempered man should be put, to some extent at least, upon his guard.
She was, at any rate, not at all unwilling to initiate him into the mysteries of Mr. Quincunx’ mind, hoping, perhaps, in an obscure sort of way, that such an initiation would throw her own position, in this strange household, into a light more evocative of considerate interest.
She had been so often made conscious of late that in his absorption in Gladys he had swept her brusquely aside as a dull and tiresome spoil-sport, that it was not without a certain feminine eagerness that she embraced the thought of his being compelled to listen to what she well knew Mr. Quincunx would have to say upon the matter.
It was also an agreeable thought that in doing justice to the originality and depth of the recluse’s intelligence, the American would be driven to recognize the essentially unintellectual tone of conversation at Nevilton House.
She instinctively felt sure that the same generous and comprehensive sympathy that led him to condone the vulgar lapses of these “new people,” would lead him to embrace with more than toleration the eccentricities and aberration of the forlorn relative of the Lords of Glastonbury.
With these thoughts passing rapidly through her brain, Lacrima found herself, after a little further hesitation, agreeing demurely to the American’s proposal to visit the tenant of Dead Man’s Lane before the end of the day. She left it uncertain at what precise hour they should go—probably between tea and dinner—because she was anxious, for her own sake, dreading her cousin’s anger, to make the adventure synchronize, if possible, with the latter’s assignation with Luke, trusting that the good turn she thus did her, by removing her artistic admirer at a critical juncture, would propitiate the fair-haired tyrant’s wrath.
This matter having been satisfactorily settled, the Italian began to feel, as she observed the artist’s bold and challenging glance embracing her from head to foot, while he continued to this new and more attentive listener his interrupted monologue, that species of shy and nervous restraint which invariably embarrassed her when left alone in his society.
Inexperienced at detecting the difference between aesthetic interest and emotional interest, and associating the latter with nothing but what was brutal and gross, Lacrima experienced a disconcerting sort of shame when under the scrutiny of his eyes.
Her timid comments upon his observations showed, however, so much more subtle insight into his meaning than Gladys had ever displayed, that it was with a genuine sense of regret that he accepted at last some trifling excuse she offered and let her wander away. Feeling restless and in need of distraction he returned to the house and sought the society of Mrs. Romer.
He discovered this good lady seated in the housekeeper’s room, perusing an illustrated paper and commenting upon its contents to the portl
y Mrs. Murphy. The latter discreetly withdrew on the appearance of the guest of the house, and Dangelis entered into conversation with his hostess.
“Maurice Quincunx!” she cried, as soon as her visitor mentioned the recluse’s queer name, “you don’t mean to say that Lacrima’s going to take you to see him? Well—of all the nonsensical ideas I ever heard! You’d better not tell Mortimer where you’re going. He’s just now very angry with Maurice. It won’t please him at all, her taking you there. Maurice is related to me, you know, not to Mr. Romer. Mr. Romer has never liked him, and lately—but there! I needn’t go into all that. We used to see quite a lot of him in the old days, when we first came to Nevilton. I like to have someone about, you know, and Maurice was somebody to talk to, when Mr. Romer was away; but lately things have been quite different. It is all very sad and very tiresome, you know, but what can a person do?”
This was the nearest approach to a hint of divergence between the master and mistress of Nevilton that Dangelis had ever been witness to, and even this may have been misleading, for the shrewd little eyes, out of which the lady peered at him, over her spectacles, were more expressive of mild malignity than of moral indignation.
“But what kind of person is this Mr. Quincunx?” enquired the American. “I confess I can’t, so far, get any clear vision of his personality. Won’t you tell me something more definite about him, something that will ‘give me a line on him,’ as we say in the States?”
Mrs. Romer looked a trifle bewildered. It seemed that the personality of Mr. Quincunx was not a topic that excited her conversational powers.
“I never really cared for him,” she finally remarked. “He used to talk so unnaturally. He’d come over here, you know, almost every day—when Gladys was a little girl,—and talk and talk and talk. I used to think sometimes he wasn’t quite right here,”—the good lady tapped her forehead with her fore-finger,—“but in some things he was very sensible. I don’t mean that he spoke loud or shouted or was noisy. Sometimes he didn’t say very much; but even when he didn’t speak, his listening was like talking. Gladys used to be quite fond of him when she was a little girl. He used to play hide-and-seek with her in the garden. I think he helped me to keep her out of mischief more than any of her governesses did. Once, you know, he beat Tom Raggles —the miller’s son—because he followed her across the park—beat him over the head, they say, with an iron pick. The lying wretch of a lad swore that she had encouraged him, and we were driven to hush the matter up, but I believe Mr. Quincunx had to see the inspector in Yeoborough.”
Beyond this somewhat obscure incident, Dangelis found it impossible to draw from Mrs. Romer any intelligible answer to his questions. The figure of the evasive tenant of the cottage in Dead Man’s Lane remained as misty as ever.
A little irritated by the ill success of his psychological investigations, the artist, conscious that he was wasting the morning, began, out of sheer capricious wilfulness, to expound his æsthetic ideas to this third interlocutor.
His nerves were in a morbid and unbalanced state, due partly to a lapse in his creative energy, and partly to the fact that in the depths of his mind he was engaged in a half-conscious struggle to suppress and keep in its proper place the insidious physical attraction which Gladys had already begun to exert upon him.
But the destiny of poor Dangelis, this inauspicious morning, was, it seemed, to become a bore and a pedant to everyone he encountered; for the lady had hardly listened for two minutes to his discourse when she also left him, with some suitable apology, and went off to perform more practical household duties. “What did this worthy Quincunx talk about, that you used to find so tiresome?” the artist flung after her, as she left the room.
Mrs. Romer turned on the threshold. “He talked of nothing but the bible,” she said. “The bible and our blessed Lord. You can’t blame me, Mr. Dangelis, for objecting to that sort of thing, can you? I call it blasphemy, nothing short of blasphemy!”
Dangelis wondered, as he strolled out again into the air, intending to seek solace for his irritable nerves in a solitary walk, whether, if it were blasphemy in Nevilton House to refer to the Redeemer of men, and a nuisance and a bore to refer to heathen idolatries, what kind of topic it might be that the place’s mental atmosphere demanded.
He came to the conclusion, as he proceeded down the west drive, that the Romer family was more stimulating to watch, than edifying to converse with.
After tea that evening, as Lacrima had hoped, Gladys announced her intention of going down to the mill to sketch. This—to Lacrima’s initiated ears—meant an assignation with Luke, and she glanced quickly at Dangelis, with a shy smile, to indicate that their projected visit was possible. As soon as her cousin had departed they set out. Their expedition seemed likely to prove a complete success. They found Mr. Quincunx in one of his gayest moods. Had he been expecting the appearance of the American he would probably have worked himself up into a miserable state of nervous apprehension; but the introduction thus suddenly thrust upon him, the genial simplicity of the Westerner’s manners and his honest openness of speech disarmed him completely. In a mood of this kind the recluse became a charming companion.
Dangelis was immensely delighted with him. His original remarks, and the quaint chuckling bursts of sardonic laughter which accompanied his irresistible sallies, struck the artist as something completely different from what he had expected. He had looked to see a listless preoccupied mystic, ready to flood him with dreamy and wearisome monologues upon “the simple life,” and in place of this he found an entertaining and gracious gentleman, full of delicious malice, and uttering quip after quip of sly, half-innocent, half-subtle, Rabelaisean humour, in the most natural manner in the world.
Not quite able to bring his affability to the point of inviting them into his kitchen, Mr. Quincunx carried out, into a sheltered corner, three rickety chairs and a small deal table. Here, protected from the gusty wind, he offered them cups of exquisitely prepared cocoa and little oatmeal biscuits. He asked the American question after question about his life in the remote continent, putting into his enquiries such naive and childlike eagerness, that Dangelis congratulated himself upon having at last discovered an Englishman who was not superior to the charming vice of curiosity. Had the artist possessed less of that large and careless aplomb which makes the utmost of every situation and never teases itself with criticism, he might have regarded the recluse’s effusiveness as too deprecatory and propitiatory in its tone. This, however, never occurred to him and he swallowed the solitary’s flattery with joy and gratitude, especially as it followed so quickly upon the conversational deficiencies of Nevilton House.
“I live in the mud here,” said Mr. Quincunx, “and that makes it so excellent of you two people from the upper world to slip down into the mud with me.”
“I think you live very happily and very sensibly, Maurice!” cried Lacrima, looking with tender affection upon her friend. “I wish we could all live as you do.”
The recluse waved his hand. “There must be lions and antelopes in the world,” he said, “as well as frogs and toads. I expect this friend of yours, who has seen the great cities, is at this moment wishing he were in a café in New York or Paris, rather than sitting on a shaky chair drinking my bad cocoa.”
“That’s not very complimentary to me, is it, Mr. Dangelis?” said Lacrima.
“Mr. Quincunx is much to be envied,” remarked the American. “He is living the sort of life that every man of sense would wish to live. It’s outrageous, the way we let ourselves become slave to objects and circumstances and people.”
Lacrima, anxious in the depths of her heart to give the American the benefit of Mr. Quincunx’s insight into character, turned the conversation in the direction of the rumored political contest between Romer and Wone. She was not quite pleased with the result of this manœuvre, however, as it at once diminished the solitary’s high spirits and led to his adoption of the familiar querulous tone of peevish carping.
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sp; Mr. Quincunx spoke of his remoteness from the life around him. He referred with bitter sarcasm to the obsequious worship of power from which every inhabitant of the village of Nevilton suffered.
“I laugh,” he said, “when our good socialist Wone gives vent to his eloquent protestations. Really, in his heart, he is liable to just the same cringing to power as all the rest. Let Romer make overtures to him,—only he despises him too much to do that,—and you’d soon see how quickly he’d swing round! Give him a position of power, Dangelis—I expect you know from your experience in your own country how this works out,—and you would soon find him just as tyrannical, just as obdurate.”
“I think you’re quite wrong, Maurice,” cried Lacrima impetuously. “Mr. Wone is not an educated man as you are, but he’s entirely sincere. You’ve only to listen to him to understand his sincerity.”
A grievous shadow of irritation and pique crossed the recluse’s face. Nothing annoyed him more than this kind of direct opposition. He waved the objection aside. Lacrima’s outburst of honest feeling had already undone the subtle purpose with which she had brought the American. Her evasive Balaam was, it appeared, inclined, out of pure wilfulness, to bless rather than curse their grand enemy.
“It’s all injured vanity,” Mr. Quincunx went on, throwing at his luckless girl-friend a look of quite disproportioned anger. “Its all his outraged power-instinct that drives him to take up this pose. I know what I’m talking about, for I often argue with him. Whenever I dispute the smallest point of his theories, he bursts out like a demon and despises me as a downright fool. He’d have got me turned out of the Social Meetings, because I contradicted him there, if our worthy clergyman hadn’t intervened. You’ve no idea how deep this power-instinct goes. You must remember, Mr. Dangelis, you see a village like ours entirely from the outside and you think it beautiful, and the people charming and gentle. I tell you it’s a nest of rattlesnakes! It’s a narrow, poisonous cage, full of deadly vindictiveness and concentrated malice. Of course we know what human nature is, wherever you find it, but if you want to find it at its very worst, come to Nevilton!”
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