Love and Lucy
rubbed her eyes. "It has made me dreadfully sleepy," she said. "I
think, if you won't be horrified--" Vera said that she should go up
with her. James stooped to her cheek, Lord Considine bowed over her
hand.
In Lucy's room the pair had a long talk, all of which I don't pretend
to report. It began with, "I'm so glad that you take to poor
Considine. You are so very much his sort of woman. He's a dear, simple
creature, far too good for most of us--and a Nugent freak, I assure
you. They've never known the like in the County of Cork.... I like him
immensely, but of course he's too remote for the like of me. No small
talk, you know, and I'm aburst with it. I talk while I'm thinking, and
he when he _has_ thought. You understand that kind, evidently. I
suppose your clever husband is like that. Not that I don't get on with
_him_. We did excellently--I think he knew everybody that I could
think of, and I everybody he chose to mention. But Jimmy likes
Considine, you know.... By the way, it was very disgraceful of Jimmy,
but not so disgraceful as you might think. In its way it's a
compliment. He thinks so much of you--Oh, I may as well tell you the
shocking truth. He ran away. What a moth in the drawing-room ought to
do, but never can, Jimmy, not at all a moth, quite suddenly did. My
dear Mrs. Macartney, Jimmy ran away from you. Flying! I doubt it
profoundly. Wrestling, I fancy, fighting beasts at Ephesus. You have
doubtless discovered how enthusiastic Jimmy is. Most attractive, no
doubt, but sometimes embarrassing. As once, when we were in Naples--in
the funicolare, halfway up Vesuvius--Jimmy sees a party at the other
end of the carriage: mother, daughter, two pig-tailed children, _and_
a governess--quite a pretty gel. Jimmy was enormously struck with this
governess. He could see nothing else, and nobody else either, least of
all me, of course. He muttered and rolled his eyes about--his chin
jutted like the bow of a destroyer. Presently he couldn't stand it. He
marched across the carriage and took off his hat with a bow--my dear,
to the governess, poor gel! 'I beg your pardon,' says he, 'but I have
to tell you something. I think you are the most beautiful person I
ever saw in my life, and take pride in saying so.' Wasn't it awful? I
didn't dare look at them--but it seemed all right afterwards. I
suppose she told her people that of course he was mad. So he is, in a
way; but it's quite nice madness. I won't say that Jimmy never goes
too far--but nobody could be nicer about it afterwards than Jimmy--no
one. He's awfully sorry, and contrite, and all that. Most people like
him amazingly. I suppose he's told you about our father? He loves all
the stories there are about him ..." and so on. Vera Nugent was a
great talker.
Lucy at her prayers, Lucy in her bed, had large gaps in the sequence
of her thoughts. Safety lay only with Lancelot. She could centre
herself in him. Lancelot it was who with forceful small fingers, and
half-shy, half-sly eyes, finally closed down hers, with a "Go to
sleep, you tired mamma."
CHAPTER XIII
MARTLEY THICKET (2)
The day that succeeded was prelude to the night, sufficient to show
Lucy her way into that spacious unknown. By her own desire she passed
it quietly, and had leisure to review and to forecast.
She put it to herself, roughly, thus. I may guess, but I don't know,
who loves me so. It cannot continue--it shall stop this very night.
But this one night I must go to him, if only to say that it can never
be again. And it won't be again; I am sure of that. However he may
take it, whatever he may be driven to, he will do what I say must be.
As for me, I don't think women can ever be very happy. I expect I
shall get used to it--one does, to almost anything, except
toothache. And I have Lancelot. She put all this quite frankly to
herself, not shirking the drab outlook or the anguish of doing a thing
for the last time--always a piercing ordeal for her. As for James, if
she thought of him at all, it was with pity. Poor dear, he really was
rather dry!
She ought to have been very angry with Urquhart, but she was not. "The
first time he did it, I understand. I am sure he had a sudden thought,
and couldn't resist it. It must have been more than half fun, and the
rest because it was so romantic. The other times were much more wrong.
But I'm not angry with him. I ought to be--but I'm not--not at all. I
suppose that is because I couldn't be angry with him if I tried ...
not if he did much more.... No, I am sure he doesn't hold me cheap.
He's not at all like that. James might--only James holds all women
cheap. But He doesn't. I never felt at all like this about a man
before. Only--it must stop, after this once...."
You see, he had not kindled passion in her, even if there were any to
be kindled. Lucy, with a vehement imagination, lacked initiative. You
could touch her in a moment, if you knew how, or if you were the right
person. Now Urquhart had never touched, though he had excited, her. To
be touched you must respond to a need of hers--much more that than
have a need of your own. And to be the right person you must be
empowered, according to Lucy. Urquhart was not really empowered, but
an usurper. Of course he didn't know that. He reasoned hastily, and
superficially. He thought her to be like most women, struck by
audacity. What really struck her about him were his timeliness--he had
responded to a need of hers when he had first kissed her--and his rare
moments of tenderness. "You darling!" Oh, if James could only have
said that instead of "My darling!" Poor James, what a goose he was.
It was a very peaceful day. James and Nugent had driven out to play
golf on some first-class course or other by the sea. Lord Considine
was busy with his secretary over a paper for the British Association.
In the afternoon he promised Lucy sight of two golden orioles, and
kept his promise. She had leisure to look about her and find traces of
Urquhart in much that was original, and more that was comfortable and
intimate, in Martley Thicket. It was a long two-storeyed house of
whitewashed brick, with a green slate roof, intermixed with
reed-thatch, deep-eaved and verandahed along the whole south front.
The upper windows had green _persanes_. The house stood on the side of
a hill, was terraced, and looked over a concave of fine turf into a
valley, down whose centre ran the lake, at whose bottom was the wood;
and beyond that the moors and beech-masses of the forest. Beside the
house, and behind it, was a walled kitchen garden, white-walled, with
a thatch atop. On the other side were stables, kennels and such-like.
Everything was grown to the top of its bent; but there was nothing
very rare. "No frills," said Lord Considine, and approved of it all.
"I dare say a woman would beautify it, but it would cease to be
Jimmy's and would cease to be interesting too. She would have more
flowers and fewer shrubs. Now Jimmy knows enough about it to
understand that shrubs and trees are the real test of gardening.
Anybody can grow flowers; but shrubs want science." Lucy felt rebuked.
She had desiderated more flowers. James, who knew nothing and cared
little about gardens, passed approval of the house and offices. "It
doesn't smell of money," he said, "and yet you see what a lot it means
when you look into it." Success, in fact, without visible effort: one
of James's high standards. He didn't know how Jimmy got his money, but
had no doubts at all of its being there. A man who could lend Francis
Lingen L10,000 without a thought must be _richissime_. Yet Jimmy had
no men-servants in the house, and James glared about him for the
reason. Lucy had a reason. "I suppose, you know, he wants to be really
comfortable," she proposed, and James transferred his mild abhorrence
to her. "Comfortable, without a fellow to put out his things!" He
scoffed at her. But she was rather short with him, even testy. "My
dear James, Mr. Urquhart's things are things to be put on or taken
off--like Lord Considine's 'so-called clothes.' To you they seem to be
robes of ceremony, or sacrificial vestments." James stared rather
through than at her, as if some enemy lurked behind her. "My clothes
seem to annoy you. May I suggest that somebody must get the mud off
them, and that I had rather it wasn't me? As for ceremony--" But she
had gone. James shrugged her out of mind, and wondered vaguely if she
was rather attracted by Jimmy Urquhart. It was bound to be
somebody--at her age. Thirty-two she must be, when they begin to like
a fling. Well, there was nothing in it. Later on it occurred to him
that she was looking uncommonly well just now. He saw her, in white,
cross the lawn: a springy motion, a quick lift, turn of the head. She
looked a girl, and a pretty one at that. His heart warmed to her. How
could a man have a better wife than that? Success without effort
again! There it was.
The evening came, the close of a hot and airless day. The sun set
heavy and red. A bluish mist seemed to steal out of the forest and
shroud the house. The terrace was not used after dinner, and when the
men joined Vera and her in the drawing-room Lord Considine, who had
proposed a game of chess to James at the table, now came forward with
board and box of men. Nugent, as usual, had disappeared. "He's dormant
when there's no hunting," his wife explained. "He has nothing to kill
and hates his fellow-creatures." "Then," said James, "he might kill
some of them. I could furnish him with a rough list." Lucy felt
restless and strayed about the room, looking at things here and there
without seeing them. Vera watched her, saw her wander to the open
window and stand there looking gravely into the dark. She said
nothing, and presently Lucy stepped out and disappeared. Vera, with
raised eyebrows and a half smile, resumed her book.
Lucy was now high-hearted on her quest--her quest and mission. It was
to be this once, and for the last time. She followed the peony path
from the lake to the thicket, entered among the trees and pushed her
way forward. Long before she reached the scene of last night's wonder
she was a prisoner, her lips a prize. There was very little disguise
left now. For a full time they clung together and loved without words;
but then he spoke. "So you came! I hoped, I waited, I thought that you
might. Oh, my Lucy, what a fact for me!"
She answered simply and gently, "I came--I had to come--but--"
"Well, my love?"
"Ah," she said, "but this must be for the last time." This was not
taken as she had meant it to be. Love began again. Then he said,
"That's absurd."
"No, no," she protested, "it's right. It must be so. You would not
have me do anything else."
"And I must go?"
"Yes, indeed, you must go now."
"Not yet, Lucy. Soon."
"No, at once," she told him. "The last time is come, and gone. You
must not keep me."
"Let me talk to you, so, for a few minutes. There's everything to
say."
"No," she said, "tell me nothing. I dare not know it. Please let me go
now."
"A last time, then, Lucy." She yielded her lips, but unwillingly; for
now her mind was made up. The thing had to be done, and the sooner the
better.
"Ah," he said, "how can I let you go?"
"Easily," she answered, "when I ask you"; and was unanswerable. She
forced herself free, and stood undecided.
"You needn't go back yet," he said, but she thought she must.
"I came out alone," she told him, "but Vera was in the room. So were
the others. I don't know what they will think."
"Nothing at all," he said. "Well, everything shall be as you wish. You
see that you have only to name your wish."
"I have one thing to ask you--I dare not ask any more," she said. Her
voice had a wavering sound.
"Ask," he said, "and I'll tell you the truth."