Act 3 — Scene II.—PASTORAL

Let me, neither in adversity, nor in the joys of prosperity, be associated with women.—Aeschylus.

After searching diligently Flora discovered a little farm-house some three miles to the west of Kingsmore, which the tenants were glad to let at a weekly rental, sufficient to give them a long awaited opportunity of visiting relations elsewhere. On a set day Maude presented herself with a cartload of baggage; and after spending a night beneath Mr. Price’s roof, and horrifying that simple old gentleman exceedingly, went on with her friend in the morning to the retreat on the side of the hill, with which she was graciously pleased to declare herself “pretty well satisfied on the whole.” During the week that ensued she was occupied, putting the place into her idea of order, and endeavouring to regain the prettiness which she believed London had taken from her by driving abroad in a donkey cart. But before the first week had elapsed she had begun to complain, ungrateful person that she was, of the monotony of country life.

The empty-headed little woman would have been horrified had anyone dared to suggest that she was not a perfectly righteous person. What harm, she would have argued indignantly, had she done in the world? It was true she had married Mr. Juxon for the sake of his money, but then she did not believe people ever married for love. It was certainly too comical to suppose that any woman could possibly fall in love with Herbert, who was short and bald-headed. She had been true to him, she considered, and constancy was all that could reasonably be required from her. It was his duty to go on making money, and when he remained in the city until dark, as he had been doing lately, she did not inquire the cause. She had certainly been surprised when he raised no objection to her proposed jaunt; but it never entered her head to imagine that his affairs might not be going any too prosperously. She would have been vastly astounded could she have heard the remark which he made when he watched her train depart. He had given a sigh of relief, and said, “It will be better for her not to know.”

“I have nothing but trouble, my dear,” said the ungrateful person, who had been a penniless little nobody before the stockbroker married her, to Flora, as they sat together on a tiny lawn under a dwarfed tree in front of the bijou residence. “I have lately suspected that Herbert drinks. Men who stay late in the city, as he has been doing, cannot be at work, because as everyone knows there is no work done after four o’clock. They meet together in some horrid low place, drink brandy and swear, and make bets on horse-races.”

Flora trailed her handkerchief along the grass for the delectation of a fat kitten, and made no reply.

“It is disgusting,” went on the little lady. “Drunkenness is so vulgar and costermongery. I had a letter this morning,” she added in aggrieved tones. “He wants to come here from Saturday to Monday, and I have written to say that I have not got the house in order yet, and he is not to come. I am here for privacy,” she concluded pathetically.

“Pretty people must not expect to have privacy. Especially when they have husbands,” said Flora.

Maude Juxon laughed delightedly. Flora could say what she liked, so long as she wrapped the sting of her truth in a sheath of flattery. The kitten jumped across the lawn sideways, its tail like a lamp-brush, flung a mad somersault, and dashed into a briar-bush, bringing down a shower of petals.

“When are you going to take me to that remarkable house in Thorlund?” asked the beauty.

Flora turned grave at once, and answered shortly, “Never.”

“That’s jealousy,” murmured Mrs. Juxon. “I want to see the house.”

“You can tell that to Mr. Conway. He is coming to Kingsmore on Thursday, that is if he can remember the engagement,” said Flora. “I am not going with you to that house.”

“Is that clever delightful poet coming too?” cried Maude, sincerely interested at last. “That nice, handsome, doctor clergyman?”

“He never goes into society,” said Flora. “I suppose he’s afraid of meeting fascinating little women like you. Do you really think him handsome?”

“Oh yes, superb. His head is like one of those pictures you see, somewhere or other. And that beautiful silvered hair, and smooth grave face, and great grey eyes—why, Flora, there isn’t an actor in London half as handsome. I’m sure he looks a saint.”

“He neglects his parish fearfully,” said the girl.

“Well, you can’t expect him to take any interest in those stupid labouring people,” said Maude with some asperity. “I shall intercept him in one of his walks, and tell him he’s to come to Kingsmore on Thursday. Now do say something, and don’t leave all the talking to me,” she went on fretfully. “You have become such a silent person lately. Tell me all about Mr. Conway. Does he like you? Has he money? Do you think we could persuade him to give a dance in his wonderful house?”

Flora was troubled. She had been given reason to suppose that Conway did “like her,” when at a distance from the Strath. She supposed him to be fairly well off; he gave the idea of a man who had never done a day’s work in his life. As for a dance at the Strath, she found herself smiling at the suggestion, then began to wonder why the idea should appear incongruous.

Neither she nor her uncle could recall what had taken place during their visit to the Strath. When upon the road they had discovered themselves costumed after the fashion of a by-gone day; but memory had given them no answer when they asked why those old habits were upon them, or what had been their actions inside the house. Soberly and silently they had returned to reassume their modern garments, and Mr. Price had since avoided any reference to that afternoon.

The same with Conway, Drayton, and, in a lesser degree, with Dr. Berry. Inside the Strath they were puppets; outside they resumed—although there were exceptions to this rule—their normal selves. The time spent among the antique furniture, or along the tangled walks, left no more memory than a night of sleep. They discovered a subtle influence drawing them back, as opium will recall its victims to their dreams. They knew that the sleep induced by the Strath was delightful, that happiness was given there; but former experience told them nothing concerning the nature of that sleep, or the substance of that happiness.

Outside the garden Conway fell beneath Flora’s spell, and would decide to settle every pressing affair in London by letter upon his return; Dr. Berry continued his work on Aeolian poetry, and vaguely remembered that he had a flock. Inside the garden the world went away from them, and they were mimes, speaking the words put into their mouths, and playing the parts which had been assigned to them. All that their minds were capable of producing was brought out there. So long as they did not attempt to oppose their will against that of the controller of the masque, as Henry Reed had done, all went well.

“Of course the place is haunted,” said Maude with a dainty shiver, when her friend had told her all that she knew. “I don’t think I want to go there after all. But I should like to see the china. You say there is lovely china in the drawing-room?”

“Beautiful,” said Flora. “Uncle says there was a rage for china during Queen Anne’s reign.”

“No atrocities? No horrible wool-work, or samplers, or antimacassars? No wax-flowers, or leather fruit, or horsehair sofas?” went on the little lady, confusing her periods.

“I saw none,” said Flora. “I only remember the china, and some pictures which wouldn’t be allowed nowadays, and a quantity of mirrors and candles.”

“I am glad there is nothing vulgar,” said Maude. “I almost think I could go there, if there were plenty of people with me. If the house is haunted I expect it will all be done in a proper and genteel fashion. When I went to see Hamlet I was quite prepared to be frightened when the ghost came on, but I wasn’t, not in the least. He was such a gentle and aristocratic ghost. I expect the bogey of the Strath would be just like that.”

The stars in their courses were propitious to Maude. Towards evening on the following day she encountered the rector of Thorlund, after driving over to the hamlet in a gig drawn by a tandem of donkeys, and placing herself in ambush so to speak along his usual walk. She had been introduced to the scholar by Mr. Price in his offhand fashion upon the day of her arrival, chancing upon him as they drove from the station towards Kingsmore. Directly she espied the scholar, she abandoned gig and donkeys, and fluttered along the field road, pretending to be busily engaged in gathering a handful of marguerites and ragged-robins.

He, poor man, was fully occupied with the problem of Sappho’s morality, mentally weighing the evidence in her favour, sifting the chaff of legend from the grains of fact as best he might. He did not perceive Madame Papillon until he heard her salutation; and then he started and stared up into the golden mist which the sun was trailing across the side of the hill.

Maude was pretty—just then wonderfully so, because she was anxious to please—somewhat doll-like perhaps, but beautifully made, and scented, and bravely tricked out in batiste and lace and flowers and innocent infant hat. Her throat was as white and soft as the petal of a lily, and her little nose as dainty as a rosebud. She was frothing over with life and health, and her feet in toy white shoes were as light as bird’s wings. Perhaps it was unfortunate for the scholar that his mind should have been occupied by thoughts of Sappho, whom he admired and loved academically as the world’s one poetess. Some Greek escaped his lips involuntarily; he was no pedant, but the sweet Ionic words were as familiar as his own tongue, and better expressed his thoughts.

“How funny I should have met you!” cried lady frivolous. “Because I was wondering whether I could summon up enough courage to go all by myself to the rectory and leave a message. I don’t believe you recognise me. The sun is dazzling, isn’t it?”

“Ah,” said the scholar. “Yes, the sun blinds me.” He took off his hat, and the light glinted across the silver of his hair and made it live.

He did not question himself as to whether this divinity was maid, wife, or widow; he only knew that the apparition was very good to gaze upon, and he found himself hoping that it would not vanish suddenly.

“I hope your carriage is safe,” he murmured.

“My carriage!” exclaimed Maude with ringing laughter. “Why, it’s only a wobbly gig, drawn by two of the most ridiculous donkeys. Do come and look at them. They have ears as long as—as—”

“King Midas after his transformation,” suggested the scholar.

“That’s it,” said Maude, who had no idea what he meant. “But they are champion trotters. Come into the cart and I’ll drive you home. We shall be packed tight, but I’m small.”

There was something here which made lyric poetry doubly sweet to the scholar’s mind. A life of dreams, of fingers on pen, and eyes in books, had fallowed his heart unconsciously for the reception of a seed which had been with him nothing but a name. His eyes were sleepy as he approached the cart, and the lines about his mouth showed weakness, and there was irresolution in all his actions. This was not Dr. Berry of the study and the Strath. It was Dr. Berry who was learning that he was a man.

“Get in,” said Maude.

The scholar obeyed, and the dainty creature followed. The cart was, as she had said, very small. They filled it, as they sat facing one another, Maude’s scented frills trailing upon the scholar’s feet, her breath coming to him when she spoke, her hat brushing his forehead when she turned with some sudden motion. For the first time in his life Dr. Berry cast down his eyes and was ashamed. He did not know that the little beauty was a butterfly: but he began to understand why Leander swam across the Hellespont and why Sappho flung herself from the Leucadian rock.

The birds were singing in the beech-wood as they had never sung before.

“The country is beautiful,” Maude was saying. “Oh, Dr. Berry, I could live here always, just to walk, sleep, and dream in the sun. But there would be winter. How I wish we could have summer every day!”

Maude meant nothing that she said. She knew how pretty she looked in furs. She was a rattle, not understanding her own noise; but the scholar hung upon her words, and believed them inspired, and did not know they were murmurings from a shell.

“You have a message for me?” he said, without perception of a labourer, who passed, and grinned as he touched his hat, at the strange conjunction of the stately poet with that tiny cart and the donkeys and the pretty lady.

“Yes,” said Maude, flicking at the flies with her toy whip. “You are to be at Kingsmore on Thursday. Flora commands your presence, and so do I. It is impossible for you to refuse.”

“You will be there?” mused the thinker.

“Of course. And I’ll see that you have a comfortable chair in the rosiest corner of the lawn, and if you feel a sudden desire to write you shall have pen and ink, and if you are lazy you can talk to me. But you must not be too clever. I shall tell Flora you are coming. How do you go to Kingsmore?”

“I seldom leave my home,” the poet answered. “I am not able to fit myself into society.”

“It’s easy,” said Maude.

“I always walk,” he went on.

“But that must be tiring, especially when the sun is hot. Suppose,” said Maude, “suppose you found this little cart on the top of the hill outside Thorlund at half-past-three on Thursday afternoon, and suppose I drove you in triumph across to Kingsmore—wouldn’t that save you a lot of trouble, and mightn’t it be rather an inducement for you to keep your promise?”

Dr. Berry could not remember how he answered, whether indeed he spoke at all. He looked towards the hill which rose above his valley, and saw the white road bending away in the far distance. “Would it not be cruel upon these little animals?” he said, with a more confident smile.

“Not a bit,” replied Maude. “They are full of oats, and they shall eat all Thursday morning to prepare themselves for the honour of drawing wisdom and—”

“Beauty,” added the scholar, sincerely. Folly he should have said, but Maude was well masked.

One low thatched roof peeped from its green bower, and the mossy spire of the church pointed reproachfully upward. The poet did not look there. His eyes were upon the things of earth. A pink rose at Maude’s throat shed its petals when the cart jolted across a ridge, and the dainty fragments rained upon his hands. He began to gather them up one by one, storing them unconsciously in the warm hollow of his hand. Maude’s eyes were dancing with satisfaction. He had called her beautiful and she was happy.

The day dedicated to Thor arrived. Down in the valley the sun scorched, but a gentle breeze was playing across the hills when Dr. Berry reached the summit and seated himself upon a hummock of short grass. He had done nothing all the morning, except pace study and garden, wondering at the tenderness with which he was able to criticise the self-dedicatory odes of comparatively obscure singers. So it was passion that called out what was best in mortals. Had Archilochus not loved Neobule he would have passed into the cloud of oblivion. Had Sappho been cold and chaste that magnificent ode to the Goddess of Love could never have been given to the world. The heart, mused the scholar, not the mind, strikes into being the living fire.

He saw nothing of a frivolous nature in the donkey tandem. He walked down to meet the cart as it ascended the hill, and Maude greeted him warmly and began to chat vigorously. She had never spoken so agreeably to her husband, but, as she would have argued, it was absurd to fascinate a man who belonged to her. She was a child, playing with fire, and not to be warned of danger until the fire burnt her.

“God bless my soul!” exclaimed Mr. Price with more than his usual fervour, when the gig came jingling up the avenue. Flora contented herself with smiling, while Mrs. Neill, a fragile lady filled with inaccuracies of speech, put up her glasses and made her customary statement, apropos of nothing in particular, that social customs had changed very much for the worse since that age of respectability when her dear brother and herself attended school.

The hill country was very sparsely populated with gentry. There were not more than a dozen guests, of whom the majority had covered a considerable distance and were on that account leaving early. Everyone knew the recluse of Thorlund, either by name or reputation, and upon him were showered the honours of the afternoon. Dr. Berry found himself in a new element which was not so distasteful as he had supposed.

“Maudie, how did you manage?” Flora whispered.

“I circumvented him, and told him he was to come,” explained the little lady. “And here he is.”

“But you drove him!”

“Why not? He brought himself down to my level beautifully.”

Flora slipped away to attend to her guests, giving thanks because she believed she was more righteous than her friend.

A bald-headed clergyman annexed the scholar, and was leading him apart with inaccurate historical chatter, when Maude intervened, routed the bald-headed clergyman, and installed Dr. Berry into the comfortable chair which she had promised him. Then she brought tea and little cakes and strawberries, and soothed him with empty talk, which seemed to him more worthy of attention than words of wisdom. This man, who had shunned women all his life, not from any innate dislike for the sex, but simply because no inclination had drawn him on, found his tongue loosened by the fascinations of the butterfly. Presently he began to speak of himself, his aspirations, and his work, Maude leading him on with skilful flattery.

“How I would like to see your wonderful book,” she sighed.

“It is not finished,” he said. “There is still much to be done and I work slowly. I have a conviction that my translations are, not only more accurate, but more artistic and powerful than any which have preceded them. I think if I could read you some of those early lyrics—”

“I should cry,” interrupted Maude pathetically. “I’m certain I should. Poetry, or music, or sad pieces at the theatre, always make me cry. I went to a dreadful pathetic play last winter, and I cried all down a pretty new frock and spoilt it.”

“Yours is indeed the true poetic temperament,” said the scholar earnestly. “What a rare and precious gift it is! You, more than anyone, can understand me when I say that my work has engrossed my life. Many in their ignorance sneer at the classics, but your mind can respond with mine to the true message of art. Being yourself beautiful you are able more readily to appreciate the pure beauty of those poetic jewels with which the human intellect has enriched the world.”

This last remark was balm and honey to the silly soul of his listener.

“When the book comes out I shall buy it,” she declared. “And you must write something nice and original upon the front page, and I shall read it again and again. Will it be out soon? I know a book doesn’t take long, because I met an author once, and he told me it took him three weeks to write one of his.”

“I have been fifteen years over my work, and I expect it will take me another five to complete,” said Dr. Berry.

“Oh, but I can’t wait all that time,” cried Maude. “I shall be old by then.”

“Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety,” quoted the scholar with unmistakable sincerity.

“How lovely!” said smiling Maude.

He could not see through the pretence of that outward show to the empty soul within. He never doubted her sincerity; her beauty was apparent; and he thought her clever and a poetess at heart.

“I will tell you what you must do,” Maude rattled on brilliantly. “You must read me some of your beautiful poems. Pick out the very best, and come over to my farm-house on Sunday—no, that’s your workday—on Monday, and I will give you a cup of tea. I shall look forward to it immensely. You won’t forget? I shall expect you on Monday.”

“Would you like to hear my verses?” said the delighted scholar. “You shall hear them. We will discuss their merits. You will be able to help me by suggestion and advice. Two minds are better than one. Two kindred minds strike sparks.”

“And I will make you a nice rice cake,” said the little lady, irrelevantly, but as she thought very happily.

At that point Mrs. Neill interposed, to claim her share of the lion. She had met him upon previous visits to her brother’s house, and was desirous of showing him the hidden beauties of the garden; and obtaining at the same time a full account of the means and position of the young man who had been lavishing some polite attentions upon Flora, to-wit Conway, who had been expected that afternoon, but had failed to appear.

“Maude, you selfish child, I have come for your gentleman,” she announced. “I want to take you down the garden, Dr. Berry, and show you a pretty little corpse quite covered with fly-orchids.”

The good lady had meant to say copse. Maude shrieked with laughter, and corrected her rudely, because she was indignant at being deprived of her property; and, having revenged herself, she tripped away across the lawn in a pink froth of frills, with one innocent blue-eyed glance behind.

“She is very beautiful,” murmured Dr. Berry. “And as clever and good as she is beautiful.”