‘Do let me speak,’ she said. ‘I am not in love with you. I cannot marry you.’
He gave her an indulgent smile.
‘Child,’ he said. ‘ How can you know the meaning of love? That is what your husband will teach you.’
‘Thank you. I’d rather learn it for myself.’
For a moment these words really shocked Arthur. Then he assured himself that Alethea could not know their import.
‘You will learn soon enough,’ he answered kindly. ‘We now love each other as much as people ever do before marriage. Come dear, we will go into the house, and I will tell the Colonel of our conversation.’
‘There’s nothing to tell him.’ Alethea insisted. ‘I have already said that I cannot marry you, and there is the end of it.’
There was so much decision in her voice that he was obliged to turn back, his hand on the handle of the door.
‘But Alethea, you must have known that this has always been my intention, my hope.’
She shook her head.
‘Indeed I never thought of it.’
‘You have known it,’ he exclaimed impatiently. ‘You must have known it all along. But something has lately happened to unsettle you.’
Irritation was rising within him. She too began to feel angry.
‘I am not at all unsettled,’ she answered coldly. ‘But to leave grandfather would unsettle me very much.’
‘You are not thinking of your grandfather, and you know it,’ he said sharply. ‘Listen Alethea. I see that you know that you have been behaving badly. You have allowed your name to be coupled with that of this Australian at Brokeyates. It is only too true. You have been talked about, and in a very short time, you will find that you have definitely lost caste in the neighbourhood. I am here to show you that I am ready to save you from the consequences of your own thoughtlessness. When you are my wife, or even my fiancée, no one will dare to speak slightingly of you. Understand Alethea that I care for you enough to propose to you even at this moment, when many a fellow would fight shy of you. If I stand by you, and I am here to tell you that I will, your reputation will be recovered.’
Alethea was astounded at this tirade; and so, to be honest, was Arthur himself. When he started for Radway, he had not thought out what his suspicions of Nicholas and Alethea amounted to, and he certainly had never heard their names coupled together except by his mother.
‘I imagine that your motives are kind,’ said Alethea, almost choking with rage, ‘though your words sound most insulting. I suppose you don’t understand what you are saying. But try, at least to understand what I say. I will speak very clearly once for all. I cannot marry you. Don’t trouble grandfather. There is nothing to be said to him about this.’
‘I had better see him. Marriage is, after all, an affair concerning the family more than the individual.’
‘No marriage can take place without the consent of the individual whom you so much despise,’ said Alethea. ‘And let me tell you once more that my consent will never be given. I appreciate the honour of your proposal, and I decline it.’
She walked into the house, and shut the door, leaving him outside.
Arthur put his hand on the bell, and then decided not to ring it. He was very angry, although he was none the less bent on marrying the girl who had angered him. But he did feel at the moment that he did not want to see her again. He made up his mind to consult his mother, and having arrived at this soothing solution of the problem of the moment, he got upon his horse and rode away.
Chapter Six
ALETHEA stood in the hall, listening to the sound of the horse’s hoofs growing gradually fainter; and as the sound faded, she grew more and more angry. The conversation had taken her so completely by surprise that, at the time, she had not realized its implications. Thinking it over, she became furious. The gong sounded and, instead of going in to luncheon, she ran upstairs to her room, and stood looking at herself in the glass. She saw that she was shaking.
‘How absurd of me to mind,’ she thought. ‘He isn’t in my life at all, so what does he matter?’
She felt calmer when she had sponged her face vigorously with cold water, and when she joined her grandfather in the dining-room, she said nothing to him of Arthur’s visit. As the meal went on, she even began to see this absurd proposal as nothing but a joke. She decided that she need not worry as to whether or not she had hurt Arthur’s feelings, for obviously he had no feelings to hurt. He had shown himself once more as the ridiculously pompous young man she had always thought him, and it was certainly good for him to find out that he was less important than he imagined.
After her usual afternoon’s walk with the Colonel she almost felt that the absurd scene in the drive had not really happened. It became like an episode in a play seen a very long time ago.
But she once again recalled it, and with unpleasant vividness, that evening after tea, when a visitor was announced and Nicholas was shown into her sitting-room. To her annoyance, she felt that she blushed, and then she knew that the impertinent things which Arthur had said to her in the morning had made her ill at ease.
At any rate she found herself more consciously critical of both young men, and as she was shaking hands, she decided that both were egoists.
‘The difference between them is’, she thought, ‘that Arthur Fanshawe is conceited and Sir Nicholas is proud.’
She made up her mind that this was why it was so far easier to hurt the feelings of Nicholas; for proud people are immensely sensitive, while there is no one more thick-skinned than the really conceited man.
These thoughts made her kindly disposed towards Nicholas, and she became the more so when she saw that he was obviously shy when he arrived. He seemed to think that an apology was necessary for his appearing so soon again.
‘I hope I am not interrupting you,’ he said, with what she described to herself as an air of arrogant diffidence. ‘Are you very busy?’
‘Not at all. I never am,’ said Alethea gaily.
‘I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed being here yesterday’ Nicholas said, rather lamely, evidently uncertain as to what he had come to say.
‘That’s very nice of you, particularly as it was touch and go whether you would get anything at all to eat. I am still blushing over my failure as a carver. And yours too,’ she added.
‘O.… All that.… That’s exactly what I mean. You made me feel that I belonged, and you can’t guess what that is to me. I never seem to have had a family to belong to.’
‘You have a mother haven’t you?’
‘Yes, yes. Of course. But.… I think perhaps we don’t have family life in Australia in the same way that you have it here. Everything is so different.’
‘Tell me about your mother.’
‘There’s not much to tell, and anyhow I don’t suppose it would interest you.’
‘Of course it would. How can two people be friends till they know something about each other?’
‘Well I suppose that my mother and I just don’t get on. I don’t want to pose as if there was anything very unique about that. But I have never felt as if I really was any relation at all to her, and we certainly don’t understand each other. We are so completely unlike.’
‘Yet I expect you miss her now, don’t you?’
‘Miss her? Brokeyates is already far more to me than she has ever been,’ he broke out, with a sort of subdued vehemence.
She looked at him, rather wondering.
‘How curious that is,’ she said. ‘Fond as I am of places, no place could ever for me take the place of a person. It would always appeal to another part of me altogether. Quite a real part, but I think a less ardent one.’
‘Perhaps so. And perhaps that part of me—the ardent part—has not been touched till now.’
‘That sounds very sad.’
‘So I begin to think, but till yesterday I never realized what I was missing. Do you know that I have never felt quite natural with anybody before?’
&nbs
p; ‘I wonder why,’ she said, interested.
‘I believe it all began at a horrible school that I went to when I was eight. The boys were little brutes. They taught me … they taught me … what grown-up people are really like, too. People don’t change you know, but as life goes on they learn to hide the spitefulness of their natures under a cloak of good manners.’
‘You are very hard on the human race.’
‘I can’t help it. You will say I am a self-conscious fool, but ever since those days at school, I have never got free of the idea that people are looking down on me.’
‘What nonsense! Why should they? For one thing, they can’t, physically. You are much too tall.’
She wanted to treat his gloomy mood as lightly as she could, but she saw that her lightness seemed to hurt him. He flinched.
‘Oh! Physically! Do you think that counts for so much? Why should it?’
‘It doesn’t, of course. But you always give the impression of towering spiritually too. Confess that you look down on the world, far more than the world looks down on you.’
She looked up at him and smiled, as he stood rather fiercely above her. She wanted so much to make him feel happy, and he seemed so determined that the world was against him.
‘I don’t want to tower. All I ask is to find myself on a level with other people. I want to be intimate, to be easy, to share my thoughts with someone else. What fun it must be to belong to a really big family?’
‘Mustn’t it! I have never had that either. I have always been alone with grandfather, and much as I love him, he is a good deal older then I am. I find that age towers over youth, you know. You are not the only one to feel small.’
She said this so drolly, that he was obliged to laugh with her.
‘But your grandfather is a wonderful man, isn’t he? I have never felt small with him. He makes everything seem valuable. Every stone of Brokeyates is more than simply a stone for him. That’s why he means England to me—the accumulated character that one finds in things. Something you can never get in a new country.’
‘I believe you see it more than we do, perhaps more than is really there.’
‘More, I suppose, than is actually there at any one moment. But what I love in England is that the one moment is such a fraction of the whole. Everything here has a past and a future.’
‘I like to hear you say that. I thought a man from such a huge country as Australia would find England small and cramping.’
‘Small? Cramping? Why, till I got to Brokeyates, I had never known what it meant to stretch myself. Perhaps it is in time, rather than in space, that England is so big. Everyone’s life must be longer here, because you can look both ways, while in the new country you can only look one way—forward.’
‘Isn’t that what the moderns like, all the world over?’
‘If they say so here, it is because they are safe with their past behind them. I have always longed to look back, but I couldn’t—over there.’
His voice took a lower pitch. He stopped, looking moodily before him.
‘Your parents were perhaps unhappy together,’ she hazarded.
‘I should think they must have been. My father must have known he had made a mistake. How I have always longed to be back in the world which would have been his if he … hadn’t met my mother!’
She saw that the bitterness in him must have arisen from some very early memories.
‘And now you are here, in time to save Brokeyates, and finding the place wanting you so badly But for you, I believe it would have fallen down by now.’
His face lit.
‘Yes. At last it seems worth while to build and to plant for the future. I can look forward here, because I’m not ashamed to look back. Life is a far bigger thing than I knew. A great gift.’
She wondered, as she saw in him that enthusiasm which had so impressed Mr. Briscowe. An unexpected light had swept across the sombre haughty face.
‘A great gift,’ she repeated. ‘ I wonder what you will do with it.’
She spoke half to herself. He seemed to her at that moment to be a man of infinite possibilities.
‘It depends on you.’
‘On me?’
‘Yes.’
He moved a step nearer her, and paused. The monosyllable hung in the air between them. She did not ask him what he meant. She knew; and to affect ignorance would have seemed to her a poor form of coquetry. So she said nothing.
‘I want you in my life’ he said. ‘I have always been such a failure alone.’
She shook her head at that.
‘Not after what you are making of Brokeyates.’
‘Yes, I do begin to feel that life is a marvel, and at first I couldn’t tell whether the marvel came from you or from Brokeyates. Now I know it is you in Brokeyates. The day you came there, I saw: it was your place. You belong there. And when I think of you there, I can’t tell you what I feel. Such a sense of opening, of escape, of freedom, of happiness, of big things to be done. And when I try to get down to the meaning of it all, it all comes back to you. You hold the key. Will you take it, and open the door for me to live?’
The vibration in his voice shook her. It was like a physical contact.
‘I think I am only a symbol for you,’ she said.
‘Yes. You are a symbol, and that means that you are more than a woman. You are my love. You are the impossible become possible. Alethea, tell me that it is possible!’
His last words were a cry. He had taken a quick step, and now he stood close above her, his great height dominating her. The dark face had lost its discontent. The smouldering eyes were lit. She was carried along by his impetus.
‘I wonder what we should do together,’ she said.
‘Then it will be together?’
He had not asked her to marry him, nor did he now wait for a reply. They both felt that this new relationship had always been latent in their friendship.
‘A new life in the old country,’ he said. ‘And what a life it’s going to be!’
‘I believe it is,’ she answered dizzily.
And then she felt as if some great eagle had swooped down upon her. His arms held her, and she seemed to be carried away on swift wings. Could this indeed be the room in which she had sat, evening after evening, living her quiet uneventful life? Nothing was the same. She looked back upon the world. It was unrecognizable. This indeed was love.
Chapter Seven
THEY were married in the early summer, knowing at the time as much and as little of each other as do most brides and bridegrooms. Marriage must always be a gamble, but for most people it holds few surprises, because, as a rule, they have married in their own world. Consequently, what they discover in their partner is merely a fresh version of their own prejudices and conventions, and this is always pleasant. Nicholas and Alethea, however, had been attracted to each other by what each found unusual in the other, and, too, they had grown up on opposite sides of the world. They were destined therefore to find in their marriage elements more promising, and also more ominous, than do most people.
Like many other women, Alethea thought that she had fallen in love with Nicholas because she recognized in him her master; although, like most of her sex, what she really wanted was to be allowed to mother him. She had always seen in him something which asked for pity, in spite of his apparent pride; and in the very conversation which ended in their engagement, he had confessed himself a lonely and diffident man, distrustful of himself, and shy of other people.
Now she discovered that this was not at all to be his attitude. He had for a moment betrayed himself, because he was desperate to win her, and he would use any means to touch her heart; but when once they were married, Alethea found that there was nothing in the world which her husband disliked more than being pitied. It was true that he could not always hide from her that fundamental unhappiness which seemed to poison the roots of his nature, and which was so inexplicable. He had a lifelong quarrel with the world, but though he was
always ready to resent its supposed enmity, he resented still more any obvious partisanship. Both offended him equally.
Alethea had married a very touchy man. As they travelled to Dover after their wedding, she was amazed to find how often he had been insulted during the day. Every congratulation appeared to have had for him a double edge.
‘Your friends seem to think you have made a great mistake in marrying me,’ he said, when they were settled in their carriage.
‘I hope not,’ she answered, smiling.
‘You hope not? Then you are not very certain of it yourself?’
‘Nicholas, don’t be so silly. What do you want me to say?’
‘Something at any rate more emphatic than that you “ hope” you haven’t made a mistake.’
‘Don’t ask for so many compliments. Aren’t you satisfied with the very big one I’ve paid you by marrying you? That’s surely enough for one day.’
‘So that is how your marriage strikes you—as a compliment to me.’
‘Nicholas darling, you know what I feel about it, so don’t tease me by pretending you don’t. You will spoil our wonderful day, and I am being so happy.’
She gave him her hand with a quiet gesture of great tenderness.
Nicholas knew that he was being foolish. He put his arm round her, and he felt that while they were alone together, she would always be able to make everything right. But he could not help going on.
‘Still darling, whatever you may feel about it, your friends showed me pretty clearly to-day that they don’t agree with you.’
‘What can you mean?’
‘That old aunt of yours, for instance, Aunt Ethel, why did she say, “Be kind to our darling. She is very precious to us all, and we shall not forgive you if you don’t make her happy.” Did she think I was going to beat you?’
Alethea had to laugh.
‘Evidently Nicholas, you have never had an aunt. Every aunt in England has said that at every wedding for the last thousand years.’
‘And at least a dozen young men congratulated me, not on my wife but on my “luck”; as though nothing but an act of God could have got me married at all.’
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