Love and Lucy
"You don't think it wicked of me, to have come? Because I did come. I
thought that I must, because--because I could never explain at any
other time, in any other way. You don't think--lightly of me?"
"Oh, my dear, my dear," he said--and she felt him tremble, though he
did not touch her. "I think more dearly of you than of anything in
heaven. The world holds no other woman for me. So it will always be."
She said quietly, "It's very wonderful. I don't understand it at all.
I thought perhaps--I wondered--if I had been angry--"
"I deserve that, and more."
"I know I ought to be angry. So I should be if--"
"Well, my love, well?"
But she couldn't tell him, and asked him to let her go. They parted at
the entry of the wood with Good night, and Lucy flitted back with a
pain in her heart like the sound of wailing. But women can wail at
heart and show a fair face to the world. Her stretched smile had lost
none of its sweetness, her eyes none of their brightness. Vera Nugent
watched her narrowly, and led the conversation upstairs. She thought
that she detected a pensive note, but assured herself that all was
pretty well. "That's a remarkable woman," she said to herself, "who
would rather have a heartache now than grin with misery next week.
After this I'd trust her anywhere."
* * * * *
On Sunday morning Urquhart made an explicit return to Martley,
arriving at the hour of eleven in his motor of battleship grey colour
and formidable fore-extension. Behind it looked rather like a toy.
Lucy had gone to church alone, for James never went, and Vera Nugent
simply looked appealing and then laughed when she was invited. That
was her way of announcing her religion, and a pleasant one. Lord
Considine was out for the day, with sandwiches bulging his pockets.
Nugent had been invisible since overnight. He was slugging, said his
wife.
Returning staidly through the wood, she saw Urquhart waiting for her
at the wicket, and saw him, be it owned, through a veil of mist. But
it was soon evident, from his address, that the convention set up was
to be maintained. The night was to take care of itself; the day was to
know nothing of it, officially. His address was easy and
light-hearted. "Am I to be forgiven? Can I expect it? Let me tell you
that I do expect it. You know me better than to suppose that I didn't
want to be here on your first visit."
She answered him with the same spirit. "I think you might have been, I
must say."
"No, I couldn't. There was no doubt about it. I simply had to go."
"So Vera told me." Then she dared. "May I ask if you went far?"
He tipped his head sideways. "Too far for my peace of mind, anyhow."
"That tells me nothing. I am not to know any more?"
"You are to know what you please."
"Well," she said, "I please to forget it. Now I had better tell you
how much I love Martley. James says that the house is perfect in its
way; but I say that you have done justice to the site, and think it
higher praise."
"It is. I'm much obliged to you. The problem was--not to enhance the
site, for that was out of the question; rather to justify the
impertinence of choosing to put any building there. Because of course
you see that any house is an impertinence in a forest."
"Yes, of course--but not yours."
Urquhart shrugged. "I'm not afraid of your flatteries, because I
know," he said. "The most that can be said for me is that I haven't
choked it up with scarlet and orange flowers. There's not a geranium
in the place, and I haven't even a pomegranate in a tub, though I
might."
"Oh, no," she said warmly, "there's nothing finicky about your
garden--any more than there is about you. There was never such a man
of direction--at least I never met one." The moment she had said it
she became embarrassed; but he took no notice. His manner was perfect.
They returned by the lake, and stayed there a while to watch Nugent
trying to catch trout. The rest of the day she spent in Urquhart's
company, who contrived with a good deal of ingenuity to have her to
himself while appearing to be generally available. After dinner,
feeling sure of him, she braved the tale-bearing woods and
nightingales vocal of her sweet unease. There was company on this
occasion, but she felt certain it would not have been otherwise had
they been retired with the night. She was thoughtful and quiet, and
really her heart was full of complaining. He was steadily cheerful,
and affected a blunt view of life at large.
She did not look forward to leaving him on the morrow, and as good as
said so. "I have been enchanted here," she said, "and hate the thought
of London. But James won't hear of Wycross in June. He loves the
world."
Urquhart said, "What are you going to do in August? Wycross?"
"No, we never go there in August. It's too hot-- And there's
Lancelot. A boy must have excitement. I expect it will come to my
taking him to the sea, unless James consents to Scotland. We used to
do that, but now--well, he's bored there."
He was looking at her, she felt, though she couldn't see him. "Did you
ever go to Norway?" She shook her head. He said no more on that head
just then.
"I shall see you in London," he told her. "I am going to take my
Certificate at Brooklands. Next week I hope. You might come and
applaud."
"No, indeed," said she. "I couldn't bear to see you in those
conditions. I have nerves, if you have none."
"I have plenty," he said, "but you ought to do it. Some day you will
have to face it."
"Why shall I?" He wouldn't tell her.
That made her daring. "Why shall I?"
His first answer was a steady look; his second, "Nothing stops, you
know. Things all swim to a point. Ebb and flow. They don't go back
until they reach it."
"And then?"
"And then they may--or they may not blot it out and swim on."
CHAPTER XIV
THE GREAT SCHEME
The height of her esteem for Urquhart was the measure of her growing
disrelish for James. It was hard to visit upon a man the sense that he
was not what he had never dreamed of being; but that is what happened
to him. By how much he had risen in her eyes when she made an Eros of
him, by so much did he fall when she found out her mistake. Because he
was obviously no Eros, was he so obviously but part of a man? It
seemed so indeed. If he discerned it there's no wonder. He irritated
her; she found herself instinctively combating his little preparations
for completeness of effect--she was herself all for simplicity in
these days. She could not conceal her scorn, for instance, when he
refused to go with her to dine in a distant suburb because he would
not have time to dress. "As if," she said, "you eat your shirt-front!"
Trenchancy from James produced a silent disapproval. As he said, if
she didn't sniff, she looked as if she felt a cold coming on. She
knew it herself and took great pains; but it coloured her tone, if not
her words. Too often she was merely silent when he was very much
himself. Silence is contagious: they passed a whole dinner through
without a word, sometimes.
Now James had his feelings, and was rather unhappy over what he called
her moods. He thought she did not go out enough. She ought to see more
people: a woman liked to be admired. It did not occur to him that she
might have been very glad of it from him; but then he didn't know how
highly she had been elated with what she called, thinking it really
so, his love-in-the-darkness. No, Macartney, if ever he looked into
himself, found nothing wrong there. He kept a wary eye through his
masking-glass upon Urquhart's comings and goings. As far as he could
ascertain he was rarely in London during June and early July. No doubt
he wrote to Lucy; James was pretty sure of it; yet he could not stoop
to examining envelopes, and had to leave that to Providence and
herself. He mingled with his uneasiness a high sense of her integrity,
which he could not imagine ever losing. It was, or might have been,
curious to observe the difference he made between his two jealousies.
He had been insolent to Francis Lingen, with his "Ha, Lingen, you
here?" He was markedly polite to Jimmy Urquhart, much more so than his
habit was. He used to accompany him to the door when he left, an
unheard-of attention. But that may have been because Lucy went thither
also.
As a matter of fact Urquhart saw very little of her. He was very much
away, on his aerial and other affairs, and did not care to come to the
house unless James was there, nor, naturally, very much when he was.
They mostly met in the Park, rarely at other people's houses. Once she
lunched at the Nugents' and had the afternoon alone with him; twice he
drove her to Kew Gardens; once she asked him for a week-end to
Wycross, and they had some talks and a walk. He wrote perhaps once a
week, and she answered him perhaps once a fortnight. Not more. She had
to put the screw on herself to outdo him in frugality. She respected
him enormously for his mastery of himself, and could not have told how
much it enhanced her love. It was really comical that precisely what
she had condemned James for she found admirable in Jimmy. James had
neglected her for his occupations, and Jimmy was much away about his.
In the first case she resented, in the second she was not far from
adoration of such a sign of serious strength.
They never alluded directly to what had happened, but sometimes hinted
at it. These hints were always hers, for Urquhart was a random talker,
said what came into his head and had no eye for implications. He made
one odd remark, and made it abruptly, as if it did not affect anybody
present. "It's a very funny thing," he said, "that last year I didn't
know Macartney had a wife, and now, six months later, I don't realise
that you have got a husband." It made her laugh inwardly, but she said
gently, "Try to realise it. It's true."
"You wish me to make a point of it?" he asked her that with a shrewd
look.
"I wish you, naturally, to realise me as I am."
"There doesn't seem much of you involved in it," he said; but she
raised her eyebrows patiently.
"It is a fact, and the fact is a part of me. Besides, there's
Lancelot."
"Oh," he said, "I don't forget him. You needn't think it. He is a
symbol of you--and almost an emanation. Put it like this, that what
you might have been, he is."
"Oh," said she, "do you want me to be different?"
He laughed. "Bless you, no. But I like to see what you gave up to be
made woman. And I see it in your boy."
She was impelled to say what she said next by his words, which excited
her. "I can't tell you--and perhaps I ought not--how happy you make me
by loving Lancelot. I love him so very much--and James never has. I
can't make out why; but it was so from the beginning. That was the
first thing which made me unhappy in my life at home. It was the
beginning of everything. He seemed to lose interest in me when he
found me so devoted."
Urquhart said nothing immediately. Then he spoke slowly. "Macartney is
uneasy with boys because he's uneasy with himself. He is only really
interested in one thing, and he can see that they are obviously
uninterested in it."
"You mean--?" she began, and did not finish.
"I do," said Urquhart. "Most men are like that at bottom--only some of
us can impose ourselves upon our neighbours more easily than he can.
Half the marriages of the world break on that rock, and the other half
on idleness."
She then confessed. "Do you know what I believe in my heart? I believe
that James's eyeglass stands in his way with Lancelot--as it certainly
did with me."
"I think you are right there," he agreed. "But you must allow for it.
He's very uncertain of his foothold, and that's his war armour."
She was more tolerant of James after that conversation, and less