The New Collected Short Stories Read online

  Her discourse was full of trembling lights and shadows – frivolous one moment, the next moment asking why Humanity is here. I did not take the Moral Science Tripos, so I could not tell her.

  ‘One thing I know – and that is that Harcourt isn’t as stupid as you two. He soars above conventions. He doesn’t care about “rights” and “apologies”. He knows that all laughter is nice, and that the other nice things are money and the soul and so on.’

  The soul and so on! I wonder that Harcourt out in the meadows did not have an apoplectic fit.

  ‘Why, what a poor business your life would be,’ she continued, ‘if you all kept taking offence and apologizing! Forty million people in England and all of them touchy! How one would laugh if it was true! Just imagine!’ And she did laugh. ‘Look at Harcourt though. He knows better. He isn’t petty like that. Mr Ford! He isn’t petty like that. Why, what’s wrong with your eyes?’

  He rested his head on his knees again, and we could see his eyes no longer. In dispassionate tones she informed me that she thought he was crying. Then she tapped him on the hair with her mallet and said: ‘Cry-baby! Cry-cry-baby! Crying about nothing!’ and ran laughing down the steps. ‘All right!’ she shouted from the lawn. ‘Tell the cry-baby to stop. I’m going to speak to Harcourt!’

  We watched her go in silence. Ford had scarcely been crying. His eyes had only become large and angry. He used such swear-words as he knew, and then got up abruptly, and went into the house. I think he could not bear to see her disillusioned. I had no such tenderness, and it was with considerable interest that I watched Miss Beaumont approach her lord.

  She walked confidently across the meadow, bowing to the workmen as they raised their hats. Her languor had passed, and with it her suggestion of ‘tone’. She was the same crude, unsophisticated person that Harcourt had picked out of Ireland – beautiful and ludicrous in the extreme, and – if you go in for pathos – extremely pathetic.

  I saw them meet, and soon she was hanging on his arm. The motion of his hand explained to her the construction of bridges. Twice she interrupted him: he had to explain everything again. Then she got in her word, and what followed was a good deal better than a play. Their two little figures parted and met and parted again, she gesticulating, he most pompous and calm. She pleaded, she argued and – if satire can carry half a mile – she tried to be satirical. To enforce one of her childish points she made two steps back. Splash! She was floundering in the little stream.

  That was the dénouement of the comedy. Harcourt rescued her, while the workmen crowded round in an agitated chorus. She was wet quite as far as her knees, and muddy over her ankles. In this state she was conducted towards me, and in time I began to hear words; ‘Influenza – a slight immersion – clothes are of no consequence beside health – pray, dearest, don’t worry – yes, it must have been a shock – bed! bed! I insist on bed! Promise? Good girl. Up the steps to bed then.’

  They parted on the lawn, and she came obediently up the steps. Her face was full of terror and bewilderment.

  ‘So you’ve had a wetting, Miss Beaumont!’

  ‘Wetting? Oh, yes. But, Mr Inskip – I don’t understand: I’ve failed.’

  I expressed surprise.

  ‘Mr Ford is to go – at once. I’ve failed.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’ve failed with Harcourt. He’s offended. He won’t laugh. He won’t let me do what I want. Latin and Greek began it: I wanted to know about gods and heroes and he wouldn’t let me: then I wanted no fence round Other Kingdom and no bridge and no path – and look! Now I ask that Mr Ford, who has done nothing, sha’n’t be punished for it – and he is to go away for ever.’

  ‘Impertinence is not “nothing,” Miss Beaumont.’ For I must keep in with Harcourt.

  ‘Impertinence is nothing!’ she cried. ‘It doesn’t exist. It’s a sham, like “claims” and “position” and “rights”. It’s part of the great dream.’

  ‘What “great dream”?’ I asked, trying not to smile.

  ‘Tell Mr Ford – here comes Harcourt; I must go to bed. Give my love to Mr Ford, and tell him “to guess”. I shall never see him again, and I won’t stand it. Tell him to guess. I am sorry I called him a cry-baby. He was not crying like a baby. He was crying like a grown-up person, and now I have grown up too.’

  I judged it right to repeat this conversation to my employer.

  IV

  The bridge is built, the fence finished, and Other Kingdom lies tethered by a ribbon of asphalt to our front door. The seventy-eight trees therein certainly seem nearer, and during the windy nights that followed Ford’s departure we could hear their branches sighing, and would find in the morning that beech-leaves had been blown right up against the house. Miss Beaumont made no attempt to go out, much to the relief of the ladies, for Harcourt had given the word that she was not to go out unattended, and the boisterous weather deranged their petticoats. She remained indoors, neither reading nor laughing, and dressing no longer in green, but in brown.

  Not noticing her presence, Mr Worters looked in one day and said with a sigh of relief: ‘That’s all right. The circle’s completed.’

  ‘It is indeed!’ she replied.

  ‘You there, you quiet little mouse? I only meant that our lords, the British workmen, have at last condescended to complete their labours, and have rounded us off from the world. I – in the end I was a naughty, domineering tyrant, and disobeyed you. I didn’t have the gate out at the further side of the copse. Will you forgive me?’

  ‘Anything, Harcourt, that pleases you, is certain to please me.’

  The ladies smiled at each other, and Mr Worters said: ‘That’s right, and as soon as the wind goes down we’ll all progress together to your wood, and take possession of it formally, for it didn’t really count that last time.’

  ‘No, it didn’t really count that last time,’ Miss Beaumont echoed.

  ‘Evelyn says this wind never will go down,’ remarked Mrs Worters. ‘I don’t know how she knows.’

  ‘It will never go down, as long as I am in the house.’

  ‘Really?’ he said gaily. ‘Then come out now, and send it down with me.’

  They took a few turns up and down the terrace. The wind lulled for a moment, but blew fiercer than ever during lunch. As we ate, it roared and whistled down the chimney at us, and the trees of Other Kingdom frothed like the sea. Leaves and twigs flew from them, and a bough, a good-sized bough, was blown on to the smooth asphalt path, and actually switch-backed over the bridge, up the meadow, and across our very lawn. (I venture to say ‘our,’ as I am now staying on as Harcourt’s secretary.) Only the stone steps prevented it from reaching the terrace and perhaps breaking the dining-room window. Miss Beaumont sprang up and, napkin in hand, ran out and touched it.

  ‘Oh, Evelyn——’ the ladies cried.

  ‘Let her go,’ said Mr Worters tolerantly. ‘It certainly is a remarkable incident, remarkable. We must remember to tell the Archdeacon about it.’

  ‘Harcourt,’ she cried, with the first hint of returning colour in her cheeks, ‘mightn’t we go up to the copse after lunch, you and I?’

  Mr Worters considered.

  ‘Of course, not if you don’t think best.’

  ‘Inskip, what’s your opinion?’

  I saw what his own was, and cried, ‘Oh, let’s go!’ though I detest the wind as much as any one.

  ‘Very well. Mother, Anna, Ruth, Mrs Osgood – we’ll all go.’

  And go we did, a lugubrious procession; but the gods were good to us for once, for as soon as we were started, the tempest dropped, and there ensued an extraordinary calm. After all, Miss Beaumont was something of a weather prophet. Her spirits improved every minute. She tripped in front of us along the asphalt path, and ever and anon turned round to say to her lover some gracious or alluring thing. I admired her for it. I admire people who know on which side their bread’s buttered.

  ‘Evelyn, come here!’

  ‘Come here
yourself.’

  ‘Give me a kiss.’

  ‘Come and take it then.’

  He ran after her, and she ran away, while all our party laughed melodiously.

  ‘Oh, I am so happy!’ she cried. ‘I think I’ve everything I want in all the world. Oh dear, those last few days indoors! But oh, I am so happy now!’ She had changed her brown dress for the old flowing green one, and she began to do her skirt dance in the open meadow, lit by sudden gleams of the sunshine. It was really a beautiful sight, and Mr Worters did not correct her, glad perhaps that she should recover her spirits, even if she lost her tone. Her feet scarcely moved, but her body so swayed and her dress spread so gloriously around her, that we were transported with joy. She danced to the song of a bird that sang passionately in Other Kingdom, and the river held back its waves to watch her (one might have supposed), and the winds lay spell-bound in their cavern, and the great clouds spell-bound in the sky. She danced away from our society and our life, back, back through the centuries till houses and fences fell and the earth lay wild to the sun. Her garment was as foliage upon her, the strength of her limbs as boughs, her throat the smooth upper branch that salutes the morning or glistens to the rain. Leaves move, leaves hide it as hers was hidden by the motion of her hair. Leaves move again and it is ours, as her throat was ours again when, parting the tangle, she faced us crying, ‘Oh!’ crying, ‘Oh Harcourt! I never was so happy. I have all that there is in the world.’

  But he, entrammelled in love’s ecstasy, forgetting certain Madonnas of Raphael, forgetting, I fancy, his soul, sprang to inarm her with, ‘Evelyn! Eternal Bliss! Mine to eternity! Mine!’ and she sprang away. Music was added and she sang ‘Oh Ford! oh Ford, among all these Worters, I am coming through you to my Kingdom. Oh Ford, my lover while I was a woman, I will never forget you, never, as long as I have branches to shade you from the sun,’ and, singing, crossed the stream.

  Why he followed her so passionately, I do not know. It was play, she was in his own domain which a fence surrounds, and she could not possibly escape him. But he dashed round by the bridge as if all their love was at stake, and pursued her with fierceness up the hill. She ran well, but the end was a foregone conclusion, and we only speculated whether he would catch her outside or inside the copse. He gained on her inch by inch; now they were in the shadow of the trees; he had practically grasped her, he had missed; she had disappeared into the trees themselves, he following.

  ‘Harcourt is in high spirits,’ said Mrs Osgood, Anna, and Ruth.

  ‘Evelyn!’ we heard him shouting within.

  We proceeded up the asphalt path.

  ‘Evelyn! Evelyn!’

  ‘He’s not caught her yet, evidently.’

  ‘Where are you, Evelyn?’

  ‘Miss Beaumont must have hidden herself rather cleverly.’

  ‘Look here, cried Harcourt, emerging, ‘have you seen Evelyn?’

  ‘Oh, no, she’s certainly inside.’

  ‘So I thought.’

  ‘Evelyn must be dodging round one of the trunks. You go this way, I that. We’ll soon find her.’

  We searched, gaily at first, and always with a feeling that Miss Beaumont was close by, that the delicate limbs were just behind this bole, the hair and the drapery quivering among those leaves. She was beside us, above us; here was her footstep on the purple-brown earth – her bosom, her neck – she was everywhere and nowhere. Gaiety turned to irritation, irritation to anger and fear. Miss Beaumont was apparently lost. ‘Evelyn! Evelyn!’ we continued to cry. ‘Oh, really, it is beyond a joke.’

  Then the wind arose, the more violent for its lull, and we were driven into the house by a terrific storm. We said, ‘At all events she will come back now.’ But she did not come, and the rain hissed and rose up from the dry meadows like incense smoke, and smote the quivering leaves to applause. Then it lightened. Ladies screamed, and we saw Other Kingdom as one who claps the hands, and heard it as one who roars with laughter in the thunder. Not even the Archdeacon can remember such a storm. All Harcourt’s seedlings were ruined, and the tiles flew off his gables right and left. He came to me presently with a white, drawn face, saying: ‘Inskip, can I trust you?’

  ‘You can, indeed.’

  ‘I have long suspected it; she has eloped with Ford.’

  ‘But how——’ I gasped.

  ‘The carriage is ready – we’ll talk as we drive.’ Then, against the rain he shouted: ‘No gate in the fence, I know, but what about a ladder? While I blunder, she’s over the fence, and he——’

  ‘But you were so close. There was not the time.’

  ‘There is time for anything,’ he said venomously, ‘where a treacherous woman is concerned. I found her no better than a savage, I trained her, I educated her. But I’ll break them both. I can do that; I’ll break them soul and body.’

  No one can break Ford now. The task is impossible. But I trembled for Miss Beaumont.

  We missed the train. Young couples had gone by it, several young couples, and we heard of more young couples in London, as if all the world were mocking Harcourt’s solitude. In desperation we sought the squalid suburb that is now Ford’s home. We swept past the dirty maid and the terrified aunt, swept upstairs, to catch him if we could red-handed. He was seated at the table, reading the Œdipus Coloneus of Sophocles.

  ‘That won’t take in me!’ shouted Harcourt. ‘You’ve got Miss Beaumont with you, and I know it.’

  ‘No such luck,’ said Ford.

  He stammered with rage. ‘lnskip – you hear that? “No such luck!” Quote the evidence against him. I can’t speak.’

  So I quoted her song. ‘“Oh Ford! Oh Ford, among all these Worters, I am coming through you to my Kingdom! Oh Ford, my lover while I was a woman, I will never forget you, never, as long as I have branches to shade you from the sun.” Soon after that, we lost her.’

  ‘And – and on another occasion she sent a message of similar effect, Inskip, bear witness. He was to “guess” something.’

  ‘I have guessed it,’ said Ford.

  ‘So you practically——’

  ‘Oh, no, Mr Worters, you mistake me. I have not practically guessed. I have guessed. I could tell you if I chose, but it would be no good, for she has not practically escaped you. She has escaped you absolutely, for ever and ever, as long as there are branches to shade men from the sun.’

  THE CURATE’S FRIEND

  It is uncertain how the Faun came to be in Wiltshire. Perhaps he came over with the Roman legionaries to live with his friends in camp, talking to them of Lucretilis, or Garganus or of the slopes of Etna; they in the joy of their recall forgot to take him on board, and he wept in exile; but at last he found that our hills also understood his sorrows, and rejoiced when he was happy. Or, perhaps he came to be there because he had been there always. There is nothing particularly classical about a faun: it is only that the Greeks and Italians have ever had the sharpest eyes. You will find him in the ‘Tempest’ and the ‘Benedicite’; and any country which has beech clumps and sloping grass and very clear streams may reasonably produce him.

  How I came to see him is a more difficult question. For to see him there is required a certain quality, for which truthfulness is too cold a name and animal spirits too coarse a one, and he alone knows how this quality came to be in me. No man has the right to call himself a fool, but I may say that I then presented the perfect semblance of one. I was facetious without humour and serious without conviction. Every Sunday I would speak to my rural parishioners about the other world in the tone of one who has been behind the scenes, or I would explain to them the errors of the Pelagians, or I would warn them against hurrying from one dissipation to another. Every Tuesday I gave what I called ‘straight talks to my lads’ – talks which led straight past anything awkward. And every Thursday I addressed the Mothers’ Union on the duties of wives or widows, and gave them practical hints on the management of a family of ten.

  I took myself in, and for a time I certainly took in E
mily. I have never known a girl attend so carefully to my sermons, or laugh so heartily at my jokes. It is no wonder that I became engaged. She has made an excellent wife, freely correcting her husband’s absurdities, but allowing no one else to breathe a word against them; able to talk about the sub-conscious self in the drawing-room, and yet have an ear for the children crying in the nursery, or the plates breaking in the scullery. An excellent wife – better than I ever imagined. But she has not married me.

  Had we stopped indoors that afternoon nothing would have happened. It was all owing to Emily’s mother, who insisted on our tea-ing out. Opposite the village, across the stream, was a small chalk down, crowned by a beech copse, and a few Roman earthworks. (I lectured very vividly on those earth-works: they have since proved to be Saxon). Hither did I drag up a tea-basket and a heavy rug for Emily’s mother, while Emily and a little friend went on in front. The little friend – who has played all through a much less important part than he supposes – was a pleasant youth, full of intelligence and poetry, especially of what he called the poetry of earth. He longed to wrest earth’s secret from her, and I have seen him press his face passionately into the grass, even when he has believed himself to be alone. Emily was at that time full of vague aspirations, and, though I should have preferred them all to centre in me, yet it seemed unreasonable to deny her such other opportunities for self-culture as the neighbourhood provided.

  It was then my habit, on reaching the top of any eminence, to exclaim facetiously ‘And who will stand on either hand and keep the bridge with me?’ at the same moment violently agitating my arms or casting my wide-awake at an imaginary foe. Emily and the friend received my sally as usual, nor could I detect any insincerity in their mirth. Yet I was convinced that some one was present who did not think I had been funny, and any public speaker will understand my growing uneasiness.