The Lark
CHAPTER I
"You wouldn't dare!"
"Wouldn't I? That's all you know!"
"You mustn't dare her," said a third voice anxiously from the top of the library steps; "if you dare her she'll do it as sure as Fate."
The one who must not be dared looked up and laughed. The golden light of midsummer afternoon falling through the tall library windows embroidered new patterns on the mellow Persian carpets, and touched to a dusky splendour the shelves on shelves of old calf and morocco, where here and there gilded lettering shone like rows of little sparks. It touched also the hair of the girl who must not be dared; she sat cross-legged on the floor among a heap of books, nursing a fat quarto volume with onyx-inlaid clasps and bosses, and touched the hair into glory, turning it from plain brown, which was its everyday colour, to a red gold halo which became her small white face very well.
"Fate, indeed!" she said. "Why, the whole thing's Fate. Emmeline asks us here—good old Emmy!—because we'd nowhere to go when everybody got mumps. I shall always respect mumps for getting us this extra month's holiday. I wish it had a prettier name—Mompessa, or something like that; we have the time of our lives amid all this ancestral splendour." She indicated the great beams and tall windows of the library with a gesture full of appreciation. "No, don't interrupt. I'm telling the story. Angel Emmeline protects us from the footman and doesn't let the butler trample on us. She's given us the run of the baronial halls, and the stately ball-room, and the bed where Queen Elizabeth slept, and the library that came over with the Conqueror. We grub about and we find this, and because this isn't the first library I've been in I happen to be able to read it." She thumped the book on her lap. "Don't tell me it's not Fate. Fate arranged it all. Fate meant me to try the spell. And I mean to. And as for not daring—pooh, my darling Emmeline, pooh! . . . Likewise pshaw!" she added pensively.
Emmeline smiled with calm indulgence. She was stout, squarely-made, plain-faced, kind-eyed, with a long, thick, mouse-coloured pigtail and small, white, well-kept hands. She began to pick up her books one by one and to put them back in their proper places on the shelves.
"It's all very well to say 'pooh!'" she said.
"'And pshaw!'" the not-to-be-dared interpolated.
"My Aunt Emmeline tried it. A spell—and I expect it was that very one; at least, she set out to try it, but she lost her way in the wood. The night was very dark, and she gave it up, and came back, and when she got to the garden gate she couldn't open it and couldn't find the handle. And then the moon came out, and she found it was the door of the mausoleum in the park she was trying to get in at."
"Shut up!" said the girl on the top of the steps, a long-legged, long-armed, long-nosed, long-chinned girl rather like a well-bred filly. "Jane, do say you won't do it. Not after that, will you?"
"It's a perfectly horrid story," said Jane, unmoved, "but you can't frighten me in that way, Emmeline. However, it decides me to have lights. Those fairy lights and Chinese lanterns you had for what you called the 'little' dance—I suppose they're somewhere about. Do you know where, exactly?" She urged the question with a firm hand-grasp.
"Don't pinch," said Emmeline, disengaging her ankle. "You can have the lights. But we shouldn't be allowed to do it."
"Who's going to be asked to allow anything?" Jane said innocently. "Hasn't Fate arranged it all? Aren't all the grown-ups going to the Duchess's grand fête and gala—fireworks and refreshments free?"
"They're going to Lady Hendon's garden-party and dance, if that's what you mean," said Emmeline, rather coldly.
"That's right—stand by your class. Ah, these old aristocrats!" said Jane.
"Lord Hendon was beer, wasn't he?" Lucilla asked from the steps. "Or was it bacon? He looks rather like a ham himself."
"Well, anyhow, beer or bacon or ham, all the grown-ups will be out of the way. We're too young for these frantic dissipations. By the way"—her straight forehead puckered itself anxiously—"I'm not too young to try that, am I? It says nothing about age in the book. It just says 'any young maid or young bachelor.' I was fifteen last June."
"In James the First's time, when this book was born, girls were married at fifteen," Lucilla reassured her, "but I do hope you won't let that encourage you."
"I don't need encouragement. I'm just going to. I'll try that spell or I'll know the reason why. Don't be surly, Emmy; let's go down and arrange the lanterns now while the sun's shining, and get the candles and matches and have it all ready. Then we'll have that nice little quiet dinner your dear mother's ordered for us, and go to bed early just as she said. And then get up again. And then . . ."
"Don't," said Lucilla.
"But I shall," said Jane.
"Very well," said Lucilla with an air of finality, coming down the steps; "we have told you not to in at least seven different ways, because it was our duty, but if you really mean to—well, do, then! And I think it will be no end of a spree—if you don't walk into the mausoleum and begin to scream and bring the retainers down on us, or do anything else silly that'll get Emmy into rows."
"She won't do that," said Emmeline, "We shan't go beyond the park. Nobody minds anything if we don't go outside. Besides, no one will know, if Jane manages it as well as she mostly does manage things."
"Miss Jane Quested's Meretricious Magic. Manager, or General, Jane," said Jane, displaying herself as she rose with the square book under her arm. "I'm going to take this up to my room and learn the spell off by heart. It wouldn't do to have any mistakes, would it? I may take it?"
"You may take anything—but only on one condition," said Emmeline firmly.
"Conditions? How cautious and sordid! What condition?"
"That if you do see anything you'll tell us exactly what it was like. You never can tell what it will be that you see. Sometimes you see a shroud, or skeleton, or a coffin, I believe, if you're to die a maid."
Jane laughed.
"What a merry companion you are, Emmy; not a dull moment when you're about! Pity it's alone or not at all. I should have loved to have you with me to-night to keep my spirits up with your cheery chatter. But, alas! it can't be. Don't look so glum.
Come, Pallas, take your owl away,
And let us have a lark instead!'"
"If you call this a lark," said Emmeline, "I don't."
"Now look here, Em," said Jane firmly; "if you don't want me to do it, really I won't. You've been such a brick to us. Say the word and I'll chuck it. I really will. Don't look so glum. I'm not wholly lost to all gratitude and proper feeling."
"Oh, don't chuck it now!" pleaded Lucilla, "just when Emmy and I have reconciled our yeasty consciences to the idea."
"Shall I chuck it, Emmy?" Jane persisted. "Shall I?"
"No," said Emmeline. "And stop talking about gratitude. And I won't have your old owls thrown in my face for the rest of my life. Let's have the lark."
•••••
If Jane, Lucilla, and Emmeline had not been debarred by their fifteen, fourteen, and sixteen years from the enjoyment of Lady Hendon's hospitality they would have had the pleasure of meeting—or at least, for it was a very big garden-party, they might have had the pleasure of meeting—the young man whom it is now my privilege to introduce to you.
John Rochester was young and, I am sorry to say, handsome. Sorry, because handsome men are, as a rule, so very stupid and so very vain. Still, there must be some exceptions to every rule. John Rochester was one of these exceptions: he was neither vain nor stupid. In fact he was more than rather clever, especially at his own game, which was engineering. Brains and beauty were not his only advantages. He had brains, beauty, and brawn—an almost irresistible combination. That is the bright side of the shield. The black side is this: he was not so tall, by three inches, as he could have wished to be, he had very big ambitions, very little money, very much less parsimony, and a temper.
He also had a mother who powdered too much, rouged rather too brightly, and appeared to govern almost her whole life by the consideration of "what people would say." She was quite a good mother in other respects, and John Rochester was quite fond of her. It was she who dragged him to this garden-party—that is to say, it was she who suggested it as an agreeable way of occupying the last day of the short holiday which he was spending with her. The young man himself would have preferred to loaf about in flannels and make himself useful by attacking the green-fly on the roses in his mother's garden with clouds of that smoke so hopefully supposed to be fatal to aphides. But Mrs. Rochester thought otherwise.
"You ought to go," she said at breakfast. "The Hendons may be very useful to you in your career."
"I wish these pork-butchers wouldn't use English Place-names," he said, taking more honey. "Why can't they stick to their age-old family names? I shouldn't mind Lord Isaacs, or Lord Smith, or Lord—what was this chap's name?—oh yes, Lord Hoggenheimer—but Lord Hendon! Yes, thank you, half a cup. This is a very jolly little place you've got here. Have you taken it for the whole of the summer?"
"Yes, dear, you know I have, so don't try to turn the subject. Even if his name were still Hoggenheimer, Lord Hendon might be useful to you. He's something very important in the city."
"Perhaps I shall meet him some other time, when he'll be able to realise my existence and be attracted by my interesting personality. He couldn't do that at a crowded garden-party, you know."
"You don't know Lord Hendon," she told him; "he could do anything anywhere. Why, he once bought a gold-mine from a man he met quite casually in the fish department of the Army and Navy Stores."
"Still keeps his old villa-dwelling habits? Brings home a little bit of fish to placate the missus when he's going to be late home. Now I respect him for that—most men bring flowers or diamonds."
"Don't be silly," said his mother serenely. "I want you to meet him, and that ought to be enough. Besides, I've got a new frock on purpose; crêpe-de-chine in about six shades of heliotrope and pink and blue."
"Oh," said John, "of course that settles it."
And indeed, he felt it did.
"And a new hat," she went on. "It really is a dream. So you will go?"
"All right, dear," he said, "I'll go, since you've set your heart and your frock and your hat on it. I must catch a train to-night, though, so I'll send my traps to the station, and then I can go straight from Lord Hoggenheimer's. I know you won't want to leave as long as there's a note left in the band."
"Yes, that will be best," she agreed; "and now that's settled comfortably,I want to have a little quiet talk with you."
"May I smoke?" he asked, at once plunged in dejection. He knew his mother's little quiet talks.
"Of course you may smoke, if it doesn't distract your attention, because what I've got to say is very serious indeed. I've been thinking things over for a long time; you mustn't suppose this is a new idea. You know, my darling boy, my little income dies with me. Yes, I know you are getting on very nicely in your profession, but it only advances you financially, and that very slowly. There's no social advancement in it."
"I shall invent something some of these days, and then you can have all the social and financial advancement you want," he said rather bitterly.
"That's another point. You have no time for your inventions—I'm sure you've often told me so. You want time, and you want money, and if you don't want social advancement your poor old mother wants it for you,"
"Well?" he said, now very much on his guard.
"Think what it would be like," she went on, "never to have to work for money—just to have that workshop you've so often talked about, and just look in and do a little inventing there whenever you felt inclined. No bothers, no interruptions—entirely your own master. And all the steel things you want always handy."
"A lovely and accurate picture of an inventor's life!" he laughed.
"It's nothing to laugh about," she said; "because I have an idea. Why shouldn't you marry? Some nice girl whom you really like and who has money."
"When I marry," he said, getting up and standing with his back to the ferns in the fireplace, "it won't be to live on my wife."
"Of course not," she agreed; "that would be dreadfully shocking I quite see that, darling. But just to begin with—till you bring off your first great invention—so that your mind could be quite free for wheels and cogs and springs and strains and levers and things. Then afterwards, when your royalties begin to come in, you could repay her a thousandfold for any little help she'd been able to give you."
You've thought it all out very thoroughly, and you put it very convincingly," he said, and laughed again. "But when I marry my dear mother, I think it would be more interesting to be in love with my wife."
"Then I'm afraid you'll never marry," she said very gravely You're twenty-five, and you've never been in love yet."
"You can't possibly know that," he said quickly. And still more quickly she answered:
"You can't possibly deny it."
He could not, it was true. There seemed to be nothing to do but to laugh again. So he laughed. Then he said:
"Then the time must soon come when I shall."
"I don't think so," said his mother, speaking as one who knows. Your dear father once told me he had never been in love in his life. Of course, he led me to believe otherwise when we first became engaged, and it is true that he was in one of his tempers when he said it. Buy it was true for all that. I knew it was true before he said it, if you understand, only until he said it I didn't know I knew it."
She got up rather hurriedly and walked to the window, and stood swinging the little ivory acorn that held the knob of the blind-cord. "You see, dear, I could always tell when he was telling the truth. He didn't always, I am sorry to say. No, you needn't say, 'Poor mother.' We were quite as happy as most people. Marriages aren't really unhappy when one of the people is kind and the other is loving. And I was quite fond of him. And in the marriage I hope you'll make there'll be plenty of love on one side at least."
"Mother, don't."
"I'm quite sure of what I say." She turned and faced him, and her face shewed sharp and old under her powder. "You're exactly like your father. Your face, your voice, your foot-step, your temper—even that aggravating way you have of tilting your chair. . ."
The chair went down with a bang.
"There are some men who never fall in love. But they need companionship and a home. And here's a really good nice girl who worships the ground you walk on."
"Nonsense!" he put in, and almost felt as though he were blushing.
"Well, judge for yourself. Now I've told you, you can judge. You can make this nice girl happy and make yourself comfortable for life. Now don't say anything. All I want you to promise me is that you'll think it over. No, don't say anything. Don't speak. Think. Think hard. You'll never find a wife more suited to you in every way than Hilda Antrobus."
"Hilda Antrobus!" he was beginning, but she came swiftly to him and put her hand over his mouth. A soft little hand, adequately ringed and scented with lavender.
"Not a word; just promise me you'll think it over. And when you see her, notice. She'll be there to-day."
"Oh Lord!" said John Rochester, looking towards the door.
"Say you'll think it over."
"You haven't said anything to her about it?"
"My darling boy! As if I should! Now just promise to think it over,"
"Oh, very well, I'll think it over all right," he said. "And now let's drop it, shall we?"
"By all means—not another word!" she answered. "You're a dear, good, clever boy, and you deserve to be happy, if ever a boy did, and if you and that nice Hilda . . ."
But he had escaped.
He did not mean to think it over. But he found that he could think of nothing else; and when on the lawn at Hendon Towers among the moving kaleidoscope of strangers he suddenly met Miss Antrobus, and saw the quite pretty blush and smile that lighted the quite plain face of Miss Antrobus as she greeted him, he felt that he had never really seen the girl before. Suppose he actually were like his father, in that respect as in others? Suppose he were the sort of man who cannot ever fall in love, and who yet wanted a home companionship—leisure too (that thought would slip in)? Supposing Hilda really cared? . . . Why then . . . why then . . .
Supposing she really cared? The thought touched him oddly. He had never been in love with any woman, but he had been, for long enough in love with love. He knew well enough what love must be; and if this girl cared . . . why then he could make her happy, make his mother happy and set free that caged bird in him that year in and year out beat its wings against the constraining bars of an enforced activity that was not the activity he longed for but one enforced by circumstances and the will of others If only the inventive genius that he felt penned in him could take free flight! Marrying for money had not a pleasant sound but this would be marrying for freedom and happiness—his freedom, her happiness, and, perhaps in the end, his own. To this her money would be a means. It would never be an end in itself. That was where baseness would have been.
Under the influence of these sentiments he found himself smiling kindly at Miss Antrobus in her simple, expense dress of unbecoming blue silk and saying, "How jolly to meet you here!"
It was the tenderest speech he had ever made to her; and, having made it, he could think of nothing else to say. A fleeting wonder crossed his mind: what would it be like to sit at table for half a lifetime, opposite a woman to whom one could think of nothing to say? but she herself was speaking.
"It is nice to see you," she said; "and what a beautiful day, too!"
The naiveté of her words touched him again.
"Come," he said, "let's get away from the crowd and explore. Do you know your way about?"
"I'm staying here," she said. "Come and see the ruins. Oh, they're not real ruins, but Lord Hendon thought they'd look pretty. And they do. I shouldn't like antiquarians and people like that to hear me say so; but they do, especially now the ivy's growing so nicely. Come and look."
They moved off. It was the happiest moment she had ever known.
Later in the day Miss Antrobus and Mrs. Rochester found themselves together on the slope of the beech wood. There is a wooden seat here from which you look out across the Kentish valley to the blue of the hills beyond. Away to the right was the house, its lawns gay with the many-coloured patchwork of the guests.
"Well, dear?" said the elder woman; her voice was both very gentle and very alert.
"Well?" said the girl awkwardly.
"He's been paying you a good deal of attention, hasn't he? You seem to have been a good deal together."
"He has been very kind," said Miss Antrobus, and put her gloved fingers to her burning cheeks. "Dear Mrs. Rochester—I feel so ashamed, I wish you'd never founds it out."
"Why should you be ashamed?" purred Mrs. Rochester suavely. "I can only be proud that you care for my boy. And I know he likes you very much. And he has never cared for anyone else."
"You haven't said anything to him about it?" the heiress asked with quick suspicion.
"My darling girl! As if I should," the mother answered earnestly. "He's very . . . well, not exactly shy—and modest isn't exactly the word either. I mean he's not vain—he's not the sort of man who would think he could carry all before him; not one of our conquerors, you know. He'll need encouraging. No—I don't mean exactly that, but I don't think you ought to disguise from him that you like him."
"I don't, really I don't," said Miss Antrobus, not knowing at all how truly she spoke.
"That's right; and don't let me see tears in those pretty eyes—there's nothing to be sad about. Life's just beginning for you, and I'm certain it will be a beautiful life, full of love and happiness."
"You are good to me," said the girl, and her tears brimmed over. She pulled out her handkerchief.
"Dab your eyes, dearest," said Mrs. Rochester hastily, "don't rub. It makes them red. If you gently dab, those tears will only make them brighter."
"You are good to me," said Miss Antrobus, dabbing obediently at her red-rimmed wet pale blue eyes. And for the rest of the day his mother's words rang in her ears: "Your pretty eyes. Your pretty eyes."
•••••
John Rochester walked from Hendon Towers to the station. He walked through the woods, partly because the way was shorter and partly because it was quieter. Motors hooted and stank along the high road, and he had no fancy for being pursued by goggled acquaintances offering lifts. The way through the wood was shorter, but it was also sinuous. He missed his way, and, as a direct consequence, missed his train. He saw it coming, ran, saw it retreat, and arrived at the station with just enough breath left to say "Damn!"
The porters were sympathetic. Yes, that was the last train. And the Lechmere Arms was quite handy. Very good beds, they believed. Oh, the gentleman wanted to be in London early in the morning? Well, there was a goods train at 3.15, if the gentleman didn't mind travelling in the guard's van? The gentleman did not? Good; that would be all right then, and thank you very much sir, they were sure.
Rochester walked out of the station. He had no intention of returning to his mother's house. Miss Antrobus who that morning had been little more than a name and a face to him, was now a person whom he did not want to discuss with his mother or anyone else. He was beginning to like her; he felt that some day he might begin to feel affection for her. She was a straightforward, simple little soul. Not at all a bad sort.
And he knew now that she did care; which gave one quite a different feeling for her. He had felt nothing but a sort of awkwardness when his mother had told him this. But now that Miss Antrobus had told him with her own face and voice, and the light that shone in them at his presence, things were quite otherwise.
He would go back into the woods and think, perhaps rest on that thick moss under the big beech trees. The woods would be very beautiful under this rising moon. The night was hot, the roads dusty; the woods would be sweet and fresh. He got over the stile and passed under the arch of hazel and sweet chestnuts. The moonlight dappled the grassy ride ahead of him. The cool, fresh leaves brushed now and then against his hands. He did not sit down; he walked on thinking, thinking. And all his thoughts were of the ingenuous heiress to whom till now he had never given a thought. Yes, one might grow quite fond of her; he was sure of it. And the conviction seemed to wash him clean of sordid soil which the idea of "marrying for money" does beyond doubt bring with it. Supposing one grew to be honestly fond? He walked on, bareheaded, through the dew and the moonlight, keeping now to the straight rides and essaying no by-paths.
How still the wood was; how dark in its shadows; how greenly silver where the moonbeams touched it! Peace wrapped him like a cloak; perhaps love ought to be like that—quiet, unchanging affection, a community of interests, mutual kindness . . . none of that wild unrest, that passion of longing, that triumph of possession which men call love . . . but just mutual kindness—peace. He seemed to be learning much.
"Everything seems to be deciding itself here," he said, sinking deeper into the peace of those silent, moonlit woods.
And then suddenly he saw a light that was not moonlight—a mellow, yellow light deepening to orange. It was not the light from any house windows, it was too diffused. It was not the light of the festal illuminations at the Towers, it was too near. What we call idle curiosity turned his feet towards it. It gleamed through the leaves, almost vanished, reappeared. He made straight for it through the wood; briars tore at him, hazel switches stung hands and face; he pressed on, only to be checked at last by an oak fence. He vaulted it; and now were no more brambles, but smooth green sward under his feet; and no close-clinging woods, but space, set with trees and bushes in groups. He went towards the light, but cautiously, for he perceived that he was not now in a place where any and every one had a right to be. Under cover of a clump of huge rhododendron he drew quite near to the light, parted very carefully and silently the resilient boughs and peered through.
He saw a glade, ringed round with rhododendrons and azaleas, their big heads of bloom glistening in the wan light cast from the Japanese lanterns that hung like golden incandescent fruit from the branches of the fir-trees. In the middle of the glade a ring of fairy lights shining like giant glow-worms were set out upon the turf.
In the middle of the ring stood a girl, slender, still, silent. Her gown was white and straight and reached to her feet; her white, elfish face was set with stern resolution. On her dark hair shone a crown of starry golden flowers. On her faintly moulded breast lay a kindred blossom; two more golden star-flowers she held in her hands. She stood there, silent. There was no one else. Among the trees under the moon he and she were alone together.
He held his breath. A dull, heavy, resonant, metallic sound startled his heart to a quick fluttering. The repetition of the sound reassured him. It was the clock of Lechmere Church beating out the hour—midnight.
The sound had startled the girl-child within the ring of fairy lights. The resolution of her face broke up into fear that rippled quickly into something like the shadow of a smile. Then she stood listening, and, as the echo of the last bell-beat died away, she began to speak. Plain and distinct, her words came to him in the clearest, finest, most charming voice in the world.
"O, good Saint John, now condescend
For to be a maiden's friend.
On your feast a maid stands here
With your weed in breast and hair.
Good Saint John, now to me show
Portents plain of weal or woe.
If I am to die a maid.
Let white flowers be round me spread;
But if I a bride shall be,
Let me now my true love see."
The voice ceased, and then, "Oh!" it said, with an indescribable inflection. Fear, surprise, pride, joy, and something else mingled in it. Then there was silence. She stood like a young fawn at gaze. And her eyes met his. For, as she had spoken her spell, he, in listening, had forgotten caution and had let his face pass the guard of the shining leaves and blossoms. So that now they stood looking at each other across the green sward and the little green lights. Her eyes were wide with wonder, and beautiful with the light of dreams come true. Still as a statue she stood, in her white robe and her golden garland. It was he who moved first. Slowly he drew back, slowly the leaves closed between his face and hers. Yet he could still see her, but she could no longer see him.
And when she could no longer see him the charm broke that had held her moveless. She put her hands to her head, drew a long breath, and called aloud:
"Emmy, Emmy, quick!"
And at that there was a sound of running footsteps, and almost at once two other girls came flying down the hill into the glade and ran to her. She clung to them without words.
"There," said one, with soothing voice and gentle pattings, "you've frightened yourself to death—I knew you would."
But the other said, "She has seen something."
Then said the first, "You promised to tell."
"I will tell," said the girl with the starry flowers and the starry eyes, and freed herself. "I've seen him," she said in a strange little clear voice.
"You haven't! What was he like?"
"Like a . . . I don't know . . . not like anyone real. Like a Greek god . . ." said the child with the gold-flower crown.
And at that Rochester drew back and fled very quickly and quietly across the dewy turf.
He had meant to disclose himself, to beg pardon for his involuntary trespass, to scatter the mists of magic and bring everything back to the nice, sensible, commonplace that frightens no one—but he could not do it now. No man could. What man could walk out of a clump of rhododendrons at midnight into a magic circle of little green lamps and say, in cold blood, to a group of schoolgirls: "I am the Greek god to whom this lady has referred"? It was impossible. The only thing he could do was to go away as quietly and as quickly as might be. He crept along the fence till he found a narrow swing gate and squeezed through it. Then he looked back. The golden lights were gone. All was moonlight and silence. The whole thing might well have been a dream. To all intents and purposes it was a dream. He did not know who the girl was into whose eyes he had gazed—who had gazed into his and thought him a god. He probably would never know, would never see her again.
"Certainly I shall never see her again," he said. He also said: "But I will never marry Miss Antrobus."