The Passionate Friends
as one might glance at someone's new dog, gave an expressionless nod to
my stiff movement of recognition, and addressed himself at once to Mary.
"Lady Mary," he said, "I've wanted to tell you----"
I caught her quick eye for a moment and knew she had more to say to me,
but neither she nor I had the skill and alacrity to get that said.
"I wanted to tell you," said Justin, "I've found a little Japanese who's
done exactly what you wanted with that group of dwarf maples."
She clearly didn't understand.
"But what did I want, Mr. Justin?" she asked.
"Don't say that you forget?" cried Justin. "Oh don't tell me you
forget! You wanted a little exact copy of a Japanese house---- I've had
it done. Beneath the trees...."
"And so you're back in Burnmore, Mr. Stratton," said Lady Ladislaw
intervening between me and their duologue. And I never knew how pleased
Mary was with this faithful realization of her passing and forgotten
fancy. My hostess greeted me warmly and pressed my hand, smiled
mechanically and looked over my shoulder all the while to Mr. Evesham
and her company generally, and then came the deep uproar of a gong from
the house and we were all moving in groups and couples luncheonward.
Justin walked with Lady Mary, and she was I saw an inch taller than his
squat solidity. A tall lady in rose-pink had taken possession of Guy,
Evesham and Lady Ladislaw made the two centres of a straggling group who
were bandying recondite political allusions. Then came one or two
couples and trios with nothing very much to say and active ears. Philip
and I brought up the rear silently and in all humility. Even young Guy
had gone over our heads. I was too full of a stupendous realization for
any words. Of course, during those years, she had been doing--no end of
things! And while I had been just drudging with lectures and books and
theorizing about the Empire and what I could do with it, and taking
exercise, she had learnt, it seemed--the World.
§ 10
Lunch was in the great dining-room. There was a big table and two
smaller ones; we sat down anyhow, but the first comers had grouped
themselves about Lady Ladislaw and Evesham and Justin and Mary in a
central orb, and I had to drift perforce to one of the satellites. I
secured a seat whence I could get a glimpse ever and again over Justin's
assiduous shoulders of a delicate profile, and I found myself
immediately engaged in answering the innumerable impossible questions of
Lady Viping, the widow of terrible old Sir Joshua, that devastating
divorce court judge who didn't believe in divorces. His domestic
confidences had I think corrupted her mind altogether. She cared for
nothing but evidence. She was a rustling, incessant, sandy, peering
woman with a lorgnette and rapid, confidential lisping undertones, and
she wanted to know who everybody was and how they were related. This
kept us turning towards the other tables--and when my information failed
she would call upon Sir Godfrey Klavier, who was explaining, rather
testily on account of her interruptions, to Philip Christian and a
little lady in black and the elder Fawney girl just why he didn't
believe Lady Ladislaw's new golf course would succeed. There were two or
three other casual people at our table; one of the Roden girls, a young
guardsman and, I think, some other man whom I don't clearly remember.
"And so that's the great Mr. Justin," rustled Lady Viping and stared
across me.
(I saw Evesham, leaning rather over the table to point some remark at
Mary, and noted her lips part to reply.)
"What _is_ the word?" insisted Lady Viping like a fly in my ear.
I turned on her guiltily.
"Whether it's brachy," said Lady Viping, "or whether it's dolly--_I_ can
never remember?"
I guessed she was talking of Justin's head. "Oh!--brachycephalic," I
said.
I had lost Mary's answer.
"They say he's a woman hater," said Lady Viping. "It hardly looks like
it now, does it?"
"Who?" I asked. "What?--oh!--Justin."
"The great financial cannibal. Suppose she turned him into a
philanthropist! Stranger things have happened. Look!--now. The man's
face is positively tender."
I hated looking, and I could not help but look. It was as if this
detestable old woman was dragging me down and down, down far below all
dignity to her own level of a peeping observer. Justin was saying
something to Mary in an undertone, something that made her glance up
swiftly and at me before she answered, and there I was with my head side
by side with those quivering dyed curls, that flighty black bonnet, that
remorseless observant lorgnette. I could have sworn aloud at the
hopeless indignity of my pose.
I saw Mary color quickly before I looked away.
"Charming, isn't she?" said Lady Viping, and I discovered those infernal
glasses were for a moment honoring me. They shut with a click. "Ham,"
said Lady Viping. "I told him no ham--and now I remember--I like ham. Or
rather I like spinach. I forgot the spinach. One has the ham for the
spinach,--don't you think? Yes,--tell him. She's a perfect Dresden
ornament, Mr. Stratton. She's adorable ... (lorgnette and search for
fresh topics). Who is the dark lady with the slight moustache--sitting
there next to Guy? Sir Godfrey, who is the dark lady? No, I don't mean
Mary Fitton. Over there! Mrs. Roperstone. Ooh. _The_ Mrs. Roperstone.
(Renewed lorgnette and click.) Yes--ham. With spinach. A lot of spinach.
There's Mr. Evesham laughing again. He's greatly amused. Unusual for him
to laugh twice. At least, aloud. (Rustle and adjustment of lorgnette.)
Mr. Stratton, don't you think?--exactly like a little shepherdess. Only
I can't say I think Mr. Justin is like a shepherd. On the whole, more
like a large cloisonné jar. Now Guy would do. As a pair they're
beautiful. Pity they're brother and sister. Curious how that boy manages
to be big and yet delicate. H'm. Mixed mantel ornaments. Sir Godfrey,
how old _is_ Mrs. Roperstone?... You never know on principle. I think I
shall make Mr. Stratton guess. What do you think, Mr. Stratton?... You
never guess on principle! Well, we're all very high principled. (Fresh
exploratory movements of the lorgnette.) Mr. Stratton, tell me; is that
little peaked man near Lady Ladislaw Mr. Roperstone? I thought as much!"
All this chatter is mixed up in my mind with an unusual sense of
hovering attentive menservants, who seemed all of them to my heated
imagination to be watching me (and particularly one clean-shaven,
reddish-haired, full-faced young man) lest I looked too much at the Lady
Mary Christian. Of course they were merely watching our plates and
glasses, but my nerves and temper were now in such a state that if my
man went off to the buffet to get Sir Godfrey the pickled walnuts, I
fancied he went to report the progress of my infatuation, and if a
strange face appeared with the cider cup, that this was a new observer
come to mark the revelation of my behavior. My food embarrassed me. I
found hidden meanings in the talk of the Roden girl and her guardsman,
and an ironical discovery in Sir Godfrey's eye....
I felt indignant with Mary. I felt she disowned me and deserted me and
repudiated me, that she ought in some manner to have recognized me. I
gave her no credit for her speech to me before the lunch, or her promise
to measure against me again. I blinded myself to all her frank
friendliness. I felt she ought not to notice Justin, ought not to answer
him....
Clearly she liked those men to flatter her, she liked it....
I remember too, so that I must have noted it and felt it then as a thing
perceived for the first time, the large dignity of the room, the tall
windows and splendid rich curtains, the darkened Hoppners upon the
walls. I noted too the quality and abundance of the table things, and
there were grapes and peaches, strawberries, cherries and green almonds,
piled lavishly above the waiting dessert plates with the golden knives
and forks, upon a table in the sunshine of the great bay. The very
sunshine filtered through the tall narrow panes from the great chestnut
trees without, seemed of a different quality from the common light of
day....
I felt like a poor relation. I sympathized with Anarchists. We had come
out of the Park now finally, both Mary and I--into this....
"Mr. Stratton I am sure agrees with me."
For a time I had been marooned conversationally, and Lady Viping had
engaged Sir Godfrey. Evidently he was refractory and she was back at me.
"Look at it now in profile," she said, and directed me once more to that
unendurable grouping. Justin again!
"It's a heavy face," I said.
"It's a powerful face. I wouldn't care anyhow to be up against it--as
people say." And the lorgnette shut with a click. "What is this?
Peaches!--Yes, and give me some cream." ...
I hovered long for that measuring I had been promised on the steps, but
either Mary had forgotten or she deemed it wiser to forget.
§ 11
I took my leave of Lady Ladislaw when the departure of Evesham broke the
party into dispersing fragments. I started down the drive towards the
rectory and then vaulted the railings by the paddock and struck across
beyond the mere. I could not go home with the immense burthen of thought
and new ideas and emotions that had come upon me. I felt confused and
shattered to incoherence by the new quality of Mary's atmosphere. I
turned my steps towards the wilder, lonelier part of the park beyond the
Killing Wood, and lay down in a wide space of grass between two
divergent thickets of bracken, and remained there for a very long time.
There it was in the park that for the first time I pitted myself against
life upon a definite issue, and prepared my first experience of defeat.
"I _will_ have her," I said, hammering at the turf with my fist. "I
will. I do not care if I give all my life...."
Then I lay still and bit the sweetness out of joints of grass, and
presently thought and planned.
CHAPTER THE FOURTH
THE MARRIAGE OF THE LADY MARY CHRISTIAN
§ 1
For three or four days I could get no word with Mary. I could not now
come and go as I had been able to do in the days when we were still "the
children." I could not work, I could not rest, I prowled as near as I
could to Burnmore House hoping for some glimpse of her, waiting for the
moment when I could decently present myself again at the house.
When at last I called, Justin had gone and things had some flavor of the
ancient time. Lady Ladislaw received me with an airy intimacy, all the
careful responsibility of her luncheon party manner thrown aside. "And
how goes Cambridge?" she sang, sailing through the great saloon towards
me, and I thought that for the occasion Cambridge instead of Oxford
would serve sufficiently well. "You'll find them all at tennis," said
Lady Ladislaw, and waved me on to the gardens. There I found all four of
them and had to wait until their set was finished.
"Mary," I said at the first chance, "are we never to talk again?"
"It's all different," she said.
"I am dying to talk to you--as we used to talk."
"And I--Stevenage. But---- You see?"
"Next time I come," I said, "I shall bring you a letter. There is so
much----"
"No," she said. "Can't you get up in the morning? Very early--five or
six. No one is up until ever so late."
"I'd stay up all night."
"Serve!" said Maxton, who was playing the two of us and had stopped I
think to tighten a shoe.
Things conspired against any more intimacy for a time. But we got our
moment on the way to tea. She glanced back at Philip, who was loosening
the net, and then forward to estimate the distance of Maxton and Guy.
"They're all three going," she said, "after Tuesday. Then--before six."
"Wednesday?"
"Yes."
"Suppose after all," she threw out, "I can't come."
"Fortunes of war."