Marcella Page 5

  CHAPTER V.

  The autumn evening was far advanced when Aldous Raeburn, after his day'sshooting, passed again by the gates of Mellor Park on his road home. Heglanced up the ill-kept drive, with its fine overhanging limes, caught aglimpse to the left of the little church, and to the right, of the longeastern front of the house; lingered a moment to watch the sunset lightstreaming through the level branches of two distant cedars, standingblack and sharp against the fiery west, and then walked briskly forwardsin the mood of a man going as fast as may be to an appointment he bothdesires and dreads.

  He had given his gun to the keeper, who had already sped far ahead ofhim, in the shooting-cart which his master had declined. His dog, ablack retriever, was at his heels, and both dog and man were somewhatweary and stiff with exercise. But for the privilege of solitude, AldousRaeburn would at that moment have faced a good deal more than the twomiles of extra walking which now lay between him and Maxwell Court.

  About him, as he trudged on, lay a beautiful world of English woodland.After he had passed through the hamlet of Mellor, with itsthree-cornered piece of open common, and its patches ofarable--representing the original forest-clearing made centuries ago bythe primitive fathers of the village in this corner of the Chilternuplands--the beech woods closed thickly round him. Beech woods of allkinds--from forest slopes, where majestic trees, grey and soaringpillars of the woodland roof, stood in stately isolation on thedead-leaf carpet woven by the years about their carved and polishedbases, to the close plantations of young trees, where the saplingscrowded on each other, and here and there amid the airless tangle ofleaf and branch some long pheasant-drive, cut straight through the greenheart of the wood, refreshed the seeking eye with its arched andfar-receding path. Two or three times on his walk Aldous heard from farwithin the trees the sounds of hatchet and turner's wheel, which toldhim he was passing one of the wood-cutter's huts that in the hilly partsof this district supply the first simple steps of the chairmakingindustry, carried on in the little factory towns of the more populousvalleys. And two or three times also he passed a string of the greattimber carts which haunt the Chiltern lanes; the patient team of brownhorses straining at the weight behind them, the vast prostrate trunksrattling in their chains, and the smoke from the carters' pipes risingslowly into the damp sunset air. But for the most part the road alongwhich he walked was utterly forsaken of human kind. Nor were there anysigns of habitation--no cottages, no farms. He was scarcely more thanthirty miles from London; yet in this solemn evening glow it would havebeen hardly possible to find a remoter, lonelier nature than thatthrough which he was passing.

  And presently the solitude took a grander note. He was nearing the edgeof the high upland along which he had been walking. In front of him thelong road with its gleaming pools bent sharply to the left, showing paleand distinct against a darkening heaven and the wide grey fields whichhad now, on one side of his path, replaced the serried growth of youngplantations. Night was fast advancing from south and east over theupland. But straight in front of him and on his right, the forest trees,still flooded with sunset, fell in sharp steeps towards the plain.Through their straight stems glowed the blues and purples of that lowerworld; and when the slopes broke and opened here and there, above therounded masses of their red and golden leaf the level distances of theplain could be seen stretching away, illimitable in the evening dusk, toa west of glory, just vacant of the sun. The golden ball had sunk intothe mists awaiting it, but the splendour of its last rays was still onall the western front of the hills, bathing the beech woods as they roseand fell with the large undulations of the ground.

  Insensibly Raeburn, filled as he was with a new and surging emotion,drew the solemnity of the forest glades and of the rolling distancesinto his heart. When he reached the point where the road diverged to theleft, he mounted a little grassy ridge, whence he commanded the wholesweep of the hill rampart from north to west, and the whole expanse ofthe low country beneath, and there stood gazing for some minutes, lostin many thoughts, while the night fell.

  He looked over the central plain of England--the plain which stretcheswestward to the Thames and the Berkshire hills, and northward throughthe Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire lowlands to the basin of the Trent.An historic plain--symbolic, all of it, to an English eye. There in thewestern distance, amid the light-filled mists, lay Oxford; in front ofhim was the site of Chalgrove Field, where Hampden got his clumsy deathwound, and Thame, where he died; and far away, to his right, where thehills swept to the north, he could just discern, gleaming against theface of the down, the vast scoured cross, whereby a Saxon king hadblazoned his victory over his Danish foes to all the plain beneath.

  Aldous Raeburn was a man to feel these things. He had seldom stood onthis high point, in such an evening calm, without the expansion in himof all that was most manly, most English, most strenuous. If it had notbeen so, indeed, he must have been singularly dull of soul. For thegreat view had an interest for him personally it could hardly havepossessed to the same degree for any other man. On his left hand MaxwellCourt rose among its woods on the brow of the hill--a splendid pilewhich some day would be his. Behind him; through all the upland he hadjust traversed; beneath the point where he stood; along the sides of thehills, and far into the plain, stretched the land which also would behis--which, indeed, practically was already his--for his grandfather wasan old man with a boundless trust in the heir on whom, his affectionsand hopes were centred. The dim churches scattered over the immediateplain below; the villages clustered round them, where dwelt the toilersin these endless fields; the farms amid their trees; the cottagesshowing here and there on the fringes of the wood--all the equipment andorganisation of popular life over an appreciable part of the Englishmidland at his feet, depended to an extent hardly to be exaggerated,under the conditions of the England of to-day, upon him--upon his oneman's brain and conscience, the degree of his mental and moral capacity.

  In his first youth, of course, the thought had often roused a boy'stremulous elation and sense of romance. Since his Cambridge days, and oflate years, any more acute or dramatic perception than usual of his lotin life had been wont to bring with it rather a consciousness of weightthan of inspiration. Sensitive, fastidious, reflective, he was disturbedby remorses and scruples which had never plagued his forefathers. Duringhis college days, the special circumstances of a great friendship haddrawn him into the full tide of a social speculation which, as ithappened, was destined to go deeper with him than with most men. Theresponsibilities of the rich, the disadvantages of the poor, therelation of the State to the individual--of the old Radical dogma offree contract to the thwarting facts of social inequality; the Toryideal of paternal government by the few as compared with the Liberalideal of self-government by the many: these commonplaces of economicaland political discussion had very early become living and often sorerealities in Aldous Raeburn's mind, because of the long conflict in him,dating from his Cambridge life, between the influences of birth andearly education and the influences of an admiring and profound affectionwhich had opened to him the gates of a new moral world.

  Towards the close of his first year at Trinity, & young man joined thecollege who rapidly became, in spite of various practical disadvantages,a leader among the best and keenest of his fellows. He was poor and helda small scholarship; but it was soon plain that his health was not equalto the Tripos routine, and that the prizes of the place, brilliant aswas his intellectual endowment, were not for him. After an inwardstruggle, of which none perhaps but Aldous Raeburn had any exactknowledge, he laid aside his first ambitions and turned himself toanother career. A couple of hours' serious brainwork in the day was allthat was ever possible to him henceforward. He spent it, as well as thethoughts and conversation of his less strenuous moments, on the study ofhistory and sociology, with a view to joining the staff of lecturers forthe manufacturing and country towns which the two great Universities,touched by new and popular sympathies, were then beginning to organise.He came of a stock which
promised well for such a pioneer's task. Hisfather had been an able factory inspector, well-known for his share inthe inauguration and revision of certain important factory reforms; theson inherited a passionate humanity of soul; and added to it a magneticand personal charm which soon made him a remarkable power, not only inhis own college, but among the finer spirits of the Universitygenerally. He had the gift which enables a man, sitting perhaps afterdinner in a mixed society of his college contemporaries, to lead the wayimperceptibly from the casual subjects of the hour--the river, the dons,the schools--to arguments "of great pith and moment," discussions thatsearch the moral and intellectual powers of the men concerned to theutmost, without exciting distrust or any but an argumentativeopposition, Edward Hallin could do this without a pose, without a falsenote, nay, rather by the natural force of a boyish intensity andsimplicity. To many a Trinity man in after life the memory of his slightfigure and fair head, of the eager slightly parted mouth, of the eyesglowing with some inward vision, and of the gesture with which he wouldspring up at some critical point to deliver himself, standing amid hisseated and often dissentient auditors, came back vivid and ineffaceableas only youth can make the image of its prophets.

  Upon Aldous Raeburn, Edward Hallin produced from the first a deepimpression. The interests to which Hallin's mind soon became exclusivelydevoted--such as the systematic study of English poverty, or of therelation of religion to social life, reforms of the land and of theChurch--overflowed upon Raeburn with a kindling and disturbing force.Edward Hallin was his gad-fly; and he had no resource, because he lovedhis tormentor.

  Fundamentally, the two men were widely different. Raeburn was a true sonof his fathers, possessed by natural inheritance of the finer instinctsof aristocratic rule, including a deep contempt for mob-reason and allthe vulgarities of popular rhetoric; steeped, too, in a number of subtleprejudices, and in a silent but intense pride of family of the noblersort. He followed with disquiet and distrust the quick motions andconclusions of Hallin's intellect. Temperament and the Cambridgediscipline made him a fastidious thinker and a fine scholar; his mindworked slowly, yet with a delicate precision; and his generally coldmanner was the natural protection of feelings which had never yet,except in the case of his friendship with Edward Hallin, led him to muchpersonal happiness.

  Hallin left Cambridge after a pass degree to become lecturer onindustrial and economical questions in the northern English towns.Raeburn stayed on a year longer, found himself third classic and thewinner of a Greek verse prize, and then, sacrificing the idea of afellowship, returned to Maxwell Court to be his grandfather's companionand helper in the work of the estate, his family proposing that, after afew years' practical experience of the life and occupations of a countrygentleman, he should enter Parliament and make a career in politics.Since then five or six years had passed, during which he had learned toknow the estate thoroughly, and to take his normal share in the businessand pleasures of the neighbourhood. For the last two years he had beenhis grandfather's sole agent, a poor-law guardian and magistratebesides, and a member of most of the various committees for social andeducational purposes in the county. He was a sufficiently keen sportsmanto save appearances with his class; enjoyed a walk after the partridgesindeed, with a friend or two, as much as most men; and played the hostat the two or three great battues of the year with a propriety which hisgrandfather however no longer mistook for enthusiasm. There was nothingmuch to distinguish him from any other able man of his rank. Hisneighbours felt him to be a personality, but thought him reserved anddifficult; he was respected, but he was not popular like hisgrandfather; people speculated as to how he would get on in Parliament,or whom he was to marry; but, except to the dwellers in Maxwell Courtitself, or of late to the farmers and labourers on the estate, it wouldnot have mattered much to anybody if he had not been there. Nobody everconnected any romantic thought with him. There was something in hisstrong build, pale but healthy aquiline face, his inconspicuous browneyes and hair, which seemed from the beginning to mark him out as theordinary earthy dweller in an earthy world.

  Nevertheless, these years had been to Aldous Raeburn years marked by anexpansion and deepening of the whole man, such as few are capable of.Edward Hallin's visits to the Court, the walking tours which brought thetwo friends together almost every year in Switzerland or the Highlands,the course of a full and intimate correspondence, and the various callsmade for public purposes by the enthusiast and pioneer upon the pocketand social power of the rich man--these things and influences, together,of course, with the pressure of an environing world, ever more real,and, on the whole, ever more oppressive, as it was better understood,had confronted Aldous Raeburn before now with a good many teasingproblems of conduct and experience. His tastes, his sympathies, hisaffinities were all with the old order; but the old faiths--economical,social, religious--were fermenting within him in different stages ofdisintegration and reconstruction; and his reserved habit and oftensolitary life tended to scrupulosity and over-refinement. His futurecareer as a landowner and politician was by no means clear to him. Onething only was clear to him--that to dogmatise about any subject underheaven, at the present day, more than the immediate practical occasionabsolutely demanded, was the act of an idiot.

  So that Aldous Raeburn's moments of reflection had been constantly mixedwith struggle of different kinds. And the particular point of view wherehe stood on this September evening had been often associated in hismemory with flashes of self-realisation which were, on the whole, moreof a torment to him than a joy. If he had not been Aldous Raeburn, orany other person, tied to a particular individuality, with a particularplace and label in the world, the task of the analytic mind, in face ofthe spectacle of what is, would have been a more possible one!--so ithad often seemed to him.

  But to-night all this cumbering consciousness, all these self-madedoubts and worries, had for the moment dropped clean away! Atransfigured man it was that lingered at the old spot--a man once moreyoung, divining with enchantment the approach of passion, feeling atlast through all his being the ecstasy of a self-surrender, long missed,long hungered for.

  Six weeks was it since he had first seen her--this tall, straight,Marcella Boyce? He shut his eyes impatiently against the disturbinggolds and purples of the sunset, and tried to see her again as she hadwalked beside him across the church fields, in that thin black dress,with, the shadow of the hat across her brow and eyes--the small whiteteeth flashing as she talked and smiled, the hand so ready with itsgesture, so restless, so alive! What a presence--how absorbing,troubling, preoccupying! No one in her company could forget her--nay,could fail to observe her. What ease and daring, and yet no hardnesswith it--rather deep on deep of womanly weakness, softness, passion,beneath it all!

  How straight she had flung her questions at him!--her most awkwardembarrassing questions. What other woman would have dared suchcandour--unless perhaps as a stroke of fine art--he had known womenindeed who could have done it so. But where could be the art, thepolicy, he asked himself indignantly, in the sudden outburst of a younggirl pleading with her companion's sense of truth and good feeling inbehalf of those nearest to her?

  As to her dilemma itself, in his excitement he thought of it withnothing but the purest pleasure! She had let him see that she did notexpect him to be able to do much for her, though she was ready tobelieve him her friend. Ah well--he drew a long breath. For once,Raeburn, strange compound that he was of the man of rank and thephilosopher, remembered his own social power and position with anexultant satisfaction. No doubt Dick Boyce had misbehaved himselfbadly--the strength of Lord Maxwell's feeling was sufficient proofthereof. No doubt the "county," as Raeburn himself knew, in some detail,were disposed to leave Mellor Park severely alone. What of that? Was itfor nothing that the Maxwells had been for generations at the head ofthe "county," i.e. of that circle of neighbouring families connected bythe ties of ancestral friendship, or of intermarriage, on whom in thispurely agricultural and rural district the social pleasure and comfortof Mi
ss Boyce and her mother must depend?

  He, like Marcella, did not believe that Richard Boyce's offences were ofthe quite unpardonable order; although, owing to a certain absent andpreoccupied temper, he had never yet taken the trouble to enquire intothem in detail. As to any real restoration of cordiality between theowner of Mellor and his father's old friends and connections, that ofcourse was not to be looked for; but there should be decent socialrecognition, and--in the case of Mrs. Boyce and her daughter--thereshould be homage and warm welcome, simply because she wished it, and itwas absurd she should not have it! Raeburn, whose mind was ordinarilydestitute of the most elementary capacity for social intrigue, began toplot in detail how it should be done. He relied first upon winning hisgrandfather--his popular distinguished grandfather, whose lightest wordhad weight in Brookshire. And then, he himself had two or three womenfriends in the county--not more, for women had not occupied much placein his thoughts till now. But they were good friends, and, from thesocial point of view, important. He would set them to work at once.These things should be chiefly managed by women.

  But no patronage! She would never bear that, the glancing proudcreature. She must guess, indeed, let him tread as delicately as hemight, that he and others were at work for her. But oh! she should besoftly handled; as far as he could achieve it, she should, in a verylittle while, live and breathe compassed with warm airs of good-will andconsideration.

  He felt himself happy, amazingly happy, that at the very beginning ofhis love, it should thus be open to him, in these trivial, foolish ways,to please and befriend her. Her social dilemma and discomfort onemoment, indeed, made him sore for her; the next, they were a kind ofjoy, since it was they gave him this opportunity to put out a strongright arm.

  Everything about her at this moment was divine and lovely to him; allthe qualities of her rich uneven youth which she had shown in theirshort intercourse--her rashness, her impulsiveness, her generosity. Lether but trust herself to him, and she should try her social experimentsas she pleased--she should plan Utopias, and he would be her hodman tobuild them. The man perplexed with too much thinking remembered thegirl's innocent, ignorant readiness to stamp the world's stuff anewafter the forms of her own pitying thought, with a positive thirst ofsympathy. The deep poetry and ideality at the root of him under all theweight of intellectual and critical debate leapt towards her. He thoughtof the rapid talk she had poured out upon him, after their compact offriendship, in their walk back to the church, of her enthusiasm for herSocialist friends and their ideals,--with a momentary madness ofself-suppression and tender humility. In reality, a man like AldousRaeburn is born to be the judge and touchstone of natures like MarcellaBoyce. But the illusion of passion may deal as disturbingly with moralrank as with social.

  It was his first love. Years before, in the vacation before he went tocollege, his boyish mind had been crossed, by a fancy for a prettycousin a little older than himself, who had been very kind indeed toLord Maxwell's heir. But then came Cambridge, the flow of a new mentallife, his friendship for Edward Hallin, and the beginnings of a moralstorm and stress. When he and the cousin next met, he was quite cold toher. She seemed to him a pretty piece of millinery, endowed with a trickof parrot phrases. She, on her part, thought him detestable; she marriedshortly afterwards, and often spoke to her husband in private of her"escape" from that queer fellow Aldous Raeburn.

  Since then he had known plenty of pretty and charming women, both inLondon and in the country, and had made friends with some of them in hisquiet serious way. But none of them had roused in him even a passingthrill of passion. He had despised himself for it; had told himselfagain and again that he was but half a man--

  Ah! he had done himself injustice--he had done himself injustice!

  His heart was light as air. When at last the sound of a clock strikingin the plain roused him with a start, and he sprang up from the heap ofstones where he had been sitting in the dusk, he bent down a moment togive a gay caress to his dog, and then trudged off briskly home,whistling under the emerging stars.