The History of Sir Richard Calmady: A Romance
Almighty God. This fiction of old age was discredited, so was the
bitterness of deposition, the mournful fiction of being passed by and
relegated to the second place. Her place was her own. Her standing
ground in the universal order, a freehold, absolute and inalienable.
She could not abdicate her throne, neither could any wrest it away from
her. She perceived that not self-effacement, but self-development, not
dissolution, but evolution, was the service required of her. And, as
divinely designed contribution to that end was every joy, every sorrow,
laid upon her, since by these was she differentiated from all others,
by these was she built up into a separate existence, sane, harmonious,
well-proportioned, a fair lamp lighted with a burning coal from off the
altar of that God of whom it is written, not only that He is a
consuming fire, but that He is Love.
All this, and more, did Katherine apprehend, beholding the familiar,
yet mysterious countenance of her well-beloved. And the tendency of
that apprehension made for tranquillity of spirit, for a sure and
certain hope. The faculty which reasons, demands explanation and proof,
might not be satisfied, but that higher faculty which divines, accepts,
believes, assuredly was so. Nor could it be otherwise, since it is the
spirit, the idea, not the letter, which giveth life.
How long she stood thus, in tender and illuminating, though wordless,
communion with the dead, Katherine did not know. The deepest spiritual
experiences, like the most exquisite physical ones, are to be measured
by intensity rather than duration. For a space the vision sensibly held
her, the so ardently desired presence there incontestibly beside her, a
personality vivid and distinct, yet in a way remote, serene as the
immense dome of the cloudless sky, chastened and etherealised as the
song of the answering nightingale, and in this differing from any
bodily presence, as the song in question differed from that of the bird
in the laurel close at hand.
Gradually, and with such sense of refreshment as one enjoys who,
bathing in some clear stream at evening, washes away all soil and sweat
of a weary journey, Katherine awoke to more ordinary observation of her
material surroundings. She became aware that the dog, Camp, had turned
singularly restless. He slunk away as though wishing to avoid her near
neighbourhood, crawled back to her, with dragging hind quarters,
cringing and whining as though in acute distress. And, by degrees,
another sound obtruded itself, speaking of haste and effort, notably at
variance with the delicate and gracious stillness. It came from the
highroad crossing the open moor, which loomed up a dark, straight ridge
against the southern horizon. It came in rising and falling cadence,
but ever nearer and nearer, increasingly distinct, increasingly
urgent--the fast, steady trot of a horse. The moon, meanwhile, had
swept clear of the saw-like edge of the fir forest, and, while the
thin, white light of it broadened upon the dewy grass and the beat of
the horse-hoofs rang out clearer and clearer, Katherine was aware that
the dear vision faded and grew faint. As it had come, softly, without
amazement or fear, so it departed, without agitation or sadness of
farewell, leaving Katherine profoundly consoled, the glory of her
womanhood restored to her in the indubitable assurance that what had
been of necessity continued, and forever was.
And, therefore, she still listened but idly to the approaching sound,
not reckoning with it as yet, though the roll of wheels was now added
to the rapid beat of the hoofs of the trotting horse. It had turned
down over the hillside by the crossroad leading to the upper lodge.
Suddenly it ceased. The shout of a man's voice, loud and imperative, a
momentary pause, then the clang of heavy, iron gates swinging back into
place, and once again the roll of wheels and that steady, urgent,
determined trot, coming nearer and nearer down the elm avenue, whose
stately rows of trees looked as though made of ebony and burnished
silver in the slanting moonlight. On it came across the bridge spanning
the glistering whiteness of the Long Water. And on again steadily, and
no less rapidly, as though pressed by the hand of a somewhat merciless
driver, hot to arrive, bearer of stirring tidings, up the steeply
ascending hill to the house.
Lady Calmady listened, beginning to question whom this nocturnal
disturber of the peace of Brockhurst might be. But only vaguely as yet,
since that which she had recently experienced was so great, so
wide-reaching in its meaning and promise, that, for the moment, it
dwarfed all other possible, all other imaginable, events. The gracious
tranquillity which enveloped her could not be penetrated by any anxiety
or premonition of momentous happenings as yet. It was not so, however,
with Camp. For a spirit of extravagant and unreasoning excitement
appeared to seize on the dog. Forgetful of age, of stiff limbs and
short-coming breath, he gamboled round Lady Calmady, describing crazy
circles upon the grass, and barking until the unseemly din echoed back
harshly from against the great red and gray facade. He fawned upon her,
abject, yet compelling, and, at last, as though exasperated by her
absence of response, turned tail and bounded away through the
garden-hall and along the terrace, disappearing through the small,
arched side-door into the house. And there, within, stir and movement
became momentarily more apparent. Shifting lights flashed out through
the many-paned windows, as though in quick search of some eagerly
desired presence.
Nevertheless, for a little space, Katherine lingered, the fragrance of
the wild thyme and of the fair gardens still about her, the somnolent
churring of the night-jars and faint notes of the nightingale's song
still saluting her ears. It was so difficult to return to and cope with
the demands of ordinary life. For had she not been caught up into the
third heaven and heard words unspeakable, unlawful, in their entirety,
for living man to utter?
But things terrestrial, in this case as in so many other cases, refused
to make large room for, or brook delay from, things celestial. Two
servants came out, hurriedly, from that same arched side-door. Then
Clara, that devoted handmaiden, called from the window of the red
drawing-room.
"Her ladyship's there, on the troco-ground. Don't you see, Mr. Winter?"
The butler hurried along the terrace. Katherine met him on the steps of
the garden-hall.
"Is anything wrong, Winter?" she asked kindly, for the trusted servant
betrayed unusual signs of emotion. "Am I wanted?"
"Sir Richard has returned, my lady," he said, and his voice trembled.
"Sir Richard is in the Gun-Room. He gave orders that your ladyship
should be told that he would be glad to speak to you immediately."
CHAPTER IX
IN WHICH DICKIE SHAKES HANDS WITH THE DEVIL
"My dear, this is quite unexpected."
Lady Calmady's tone was one of quiet, innate joyousness. A gentle
brightness pervaded her whole aspect and manner. She looked wonderfully
young, as though the hands of the clock had been put back by some
twenty and odd years. Every line had disappeared from her face, and in
her eyes was a clear shining very lovely to behold. Richard glanced at
her as she came swiftly towards him across the room. Then he looked
down again, and answered deliberately:--
"Yes, it is, as you say, quite unexpected. This time last night I as
little anticipated being back here as you anticipated my coming. But
one's plans change rapidly and radically at times. Mine have done so."
He sat at the large, library writing-table, a pile of letters, papers,
circulars before him, judged unworthy of forwarding, which had
accumulated during his absence. He tore off wrappers, tore open
envelopes, quickly yet methodically, as though bending his mind with
conscious determination to the performance of a self-inflicted task.
Looking at the contents of each in turn, with an odd mixture of
indifference and close attention, he flung the major part into the
waste-paper basket set beside his revolving-chair. A tall, green-shaded
lamp shed a circle of vivid light upon the silver and maroon leather
furnishings of the writing-table, upon the young man's bent head, and
upon his restless hands as they grasped, and straightened, and then
tore, with measured if impatient precision, the letters and papers
lying before him.
Lady Calmady stood resting the tips of her fingers on the corner of the
table, looking down at him with those clear shining eyes. His reception
of her had not been demonstrative, but of that she was hardly sensible.
The reconciling assurances of faith, the glories of the third heaven,
still dazzled her somewhat. Her feet hardly touched earth yet, so that
her mother-love and all its sensitive watchfulness was, as yet,
somewhat in abeyance. She spoke again with the same quiet joyousness of
tone.
"You should have telegraphed to me, dearest, and then all would have
been ready to welcome you. As it is, I fear, you must feel yourself a
trifle neglected. I have been, or have fancied myself, mightily busy
all day--foolishly cumbered about much serving--and had gone out to
forget maids, and food, and domesticities generally, into the dear
garden."--She paused, smiling. "Ah! it is a gracious night," she said,
"full of inspiration. You must have enjoyed the drive home. The
household refuses to take this marriage of yours philosophically,
Dickie. It demands great magnificence, quite as much, be sure, for its
own glorification as for yours. It also multiplies small difficulties,
after the manner of well-conducted households, as I imagine, since the
world began."
Richard tore the prospectus of a mining company, offering wealth beyond
the dreams of avarice, right across with a certain violence.
"Oh, well, the household may forego its magnificence and cease from the
multiplication of small difficulties alike, as far as any marriage of
mine is concerned. You can tell the household so to-morrow, mother, or
I can. Perhaps the irony of the position would be more nicely pointed
by the announcement coming directly from myself. That would heighten
the drama."
"But, Dickie, my dearest?" Katherine said, greatly perplexed.
"The whole affair is at an end. Lady Constance Quayle is not going to
marry me, and I am not going to marry Lady Constance Quayle. On that
point at least she and I are entirely at one. All London will know this
to-morrow. Perhaps Brockhurst, in the interest of its endangered
philosophy, had better know it to-night."
Richard leaned forward, opening, tearing, sorting the papers again. A
rasping quality was in his voice and speech, hitherto unknown to his
mother, a cold, imperious quality in his manner, also, new to her. And
these brought her down to earth, setting her feet thereon
uncompromisingly. And the earth on which they were thus set was, it
must be owned, rather ugly. A woman made of weaker stuff would have
cried out against such sudden and painful declension. But Katherine,
happily both for herself and for those about her, waking even from
dreams of noble and far-reaching attainment, waked with not only her
wits, but her heart, in steady action. Yet she in nowise went back on
the revelation that had been vouchsafed to her. It was in nowise
disqualified or rendered suspect, because the gamut of human emotion
proved to have more extended range and more jarring discords than she
had yet reckoned with. Her mind was large enough to make room for novel
experience in sorrow, as well as in joy, retaining the while its poise
and sanity. Therefore she, recognising a new phase in the development
of her child, without hesitation or regret of self-love for the