MARTLEY THICKET (2)
The day that succeeded was prelude
to the night, sufficient to show Lucy her way into
that spacious unknown. By her own desire she passed
it quietly, and had leisure to review and to forecast.
She put it to herself, roughly, thus.
I may guess, but I don’t know, who loves me
so. It cannot continue it shall stop
this very night. But this one night I must go
to him, if only to say that it can never be again.
And it won’t be again; I am sure of that.
However he may take it, whatever he may be driven
to, he will do what I say must be. As for me,
I don’t think women can ever be very happy.
I expect I shall get used to it one does,
to almost anything, except toothache. And I have
Lancelot. She put all this quite frankly to herself,
not shirking the drab outlook or the anguish of doing
a thing for the last time always a piercing
ordeal for her. As for James, if she thought
of him at all, it was with pity. Poor dear, he
really was rather dry!
She ought to have been very angry
with Urquhart, but she was not. “The first
time he did it, I understand. I am sure he had
a sudden thought, and couldn’t resist it.
It must have been more than half fun, and the rest
because it was so romantic. The other times were
much more wrong. But I’m not angry with
him. I ought to be but I’m not not
at all. I suppose that is because I couldn’t
be angry with him if I tried ... not if he did much
more.... No, I am sure he doesn’t hold me
cheap. He’s not at all like that.
James might only James holds all women
cheap. But He doesn’t. I never felt
at all like this about a man before. Only it
must stop, after this once....”
You see, he had not kindled passion
in her, even if there were any to be kindled.
Lucy, with a vehement imagination, lacked initiative.
You could touch her in a moment, if you knew how,
or if you were the right person. Now Urquhart
had never touched, though he had excited, her.
To be touched you must respond to a need of hers much
more that than have a need of your own. And to
be the right person you must be empowered, according
to Lucy. Urquhart was not really empowered, but
an usurper. Of course he didn’t know that.
He reasoned hastily, and superficially. He thought
her to be like most women, struck by audacity.
What really struck her about him were his timeliness he
had responded to a need of hers when he had first
kissed her and his rare moments of tenderness.
“You darling!” Oh, if James could only
have said that instead of “My darling!”
Poor James, what a goose he was.
It was a very peaceful day. James
and Nugent had driven out to play golf on some first-class
course or other by the sea. Lord Considine was
busy with his secretary over a paper for the British
Association. In the afternoon he promised Lucy
sight of two golden orioles, and kept his promise.
She had leisure to look about her and find traces of
Urquhart in much that was original, and more that was
comfortable and intimate, in Martley Thicket.
It was a long two-storeyed house of whitewashed brick,
with a green slate roof, intermixed with reed-thatch,
deep-eaved and verandahed along the whole south front.
The upper windows had green persanes. The
house stood on the side of a hill, was terraced, and
looked over a concave of fine turf into a valley,
down whose centre ran the lake, at whose bottom was
the wood; and beyond that the moors and beech-masses
of the forest. Beside the house, and behind it,
was a walled kitchen garden, white-walled, with a
thatch atop. On the other side were stables, kennels
and such-like. Everything was grown to the top
of its bent; but there was nothing very rare.
“No frills,” said Lord Considine, and approved
of it all. “I dare say a woman would beautify
it, but it would cease to be Jimmy’s and would
cease to be interesting too. She would have more
flowers and fewer shrubs. Now Jimmy knows enough
about it to understand that shrubs and trees are the
real test of gardening. Anybody can grow flowers;
but shrubs want science.” Lucy felt rebuked.
She had desiderated more flowers. James, who knew
nothing and cared little about gardens, passed approval
of the house and offices. “It doesn’t
smell of money,” he said, “and yet you
see what a lot it means when you look into it.”
Success, in fact, without visible effort: one
of James’s high standards. He didn’t
know how Jimmy got his money, but had no doubts at
all of its being there. A man who could lend Francis
Lingen L10,000 without a thought must be richissime.
Yet Jimmy had no men-servants in the house, and James
glared about him for the reason. Lucy had a reason.
“I suppose, you know, he wants to be really
comfortable,” she proposed, and James transferred
his mild abhorrence to her. “Comfortable,
without a fellow to put out his things!” He
scoffed at her. But she was rather short with
him, even testy. “My dear James, Mr. Urquhart’s
things are things to be put on or taken off like
Lord Considine’s ‘so-called clothes.’
To you they seem to be robes of ceremony, or sacrificial
vestments.” James stared rather through
than at her, as if some enemy lurked behind her.
“My clothes seem to annoy you. May I suggest
that somebody must get the mud off them, and that
I had rather it wasn’t me? As for ceremony ”
But she had gone. James shrugged her out of mind,
and wondered vaguely if she was rather attracted by
Jimmy Urquhart. It was bound to be somebody at
her age. Thirty-two she must be, when they begin
to like a fling. Well, there was nothing in it.
Later on it occurred to him that she was looking uncommonly
well just now. He saw her, in white, cross the
lawn: a springy motion, a quick lift, turn of
the head. She looked a girl, and a pretty one
at that. His heart warmed to her. How could
a man have a better wife than that? Success without
effort again! There it was.
The evening came, the close of a hot
and airless day. The sun set heavy and red.
A bluish mist seemed to steal out of the forest and
shroud the house. The terrace was not used after
dinner, and when the men joined Vera and her in the
drawing-room Lord Considine, who had proposed a game
of chess to James at the table, now came forward with
board and box of men. Nugent, as usual, had disappeared.
“He’s dormant when there’s no hunting,”
his wife explained. “He has nothing to kill
and hates his fellow-creatures.” “Then,”
said James, “he might kill some of them.
I could furnish him with a rough list.”
Lucy felt restless and strayed about the room, looking
at things here and there without seeing them.
Vera watched her, saw her wander to the open window
and stand there looking gravely into the dark.
She said nothing, and presently Lucy stepped out and
disappeared. Vera, with raised eyebrows and a
half smile, resumed her book.
Lucy was now high-hearted on her quest her
quest and mission. It was to be this once, and
for the last time. She followed the peony path
from the lake to the thicket, entered among the trees
and pushed her way forward. Long before she reached
the scene of last night’s wonder she was a prisoner,
her lips a prize. There was very little disguise
left now. For a full time they clung together
and loved without words; but then he spoke. “So
you came! I hoped, I waited, I thought that you
might. Oh, my Lucy, what a fact for me!”
She answered simply and gently, “I
came I had to come but ”
“Well, my love?”
“Ah,” she said, “but
this must be for the last time.” This was
not taken as she had meant it to be. Love began
again. Then he said, “That’s absurd.”
“No, no,” she protested,
“it’s right. It must be so. You
would not have me do anything else.”
“And I must go?”
“Yes, indeed, you must go now.”
“Not yet, Lucy. Soon.”
“No, at once,” she told
him. “The last time is come, and gone.
You must not keep me.”
“Let me talk to you, so, for
a few minutes. There’s everything to say.”
“No,” she said, “tell
me nothing. I dare not know it. Please let
me go now.”
“A last time, then, Lucy.”
She yielded her lips, but unwillingly; for now her
mind was made up. The thing had to be done, and
the sooner the better.
“Ah,” he said, “how can I let you
go?”
“Easily,” she answered,
“when I ask you”; and was unanswerable.
She forced herself free, and stood undecided.
“You needn’t go back yet,”
he said, but she thought she must.
“I came out alone,” she
told him, “but Vera was in the room. So
were the others. I don’t know what they
will think.”
“Nothing at all,” he said.
“Well, everything shall be as you wish.
You see that you have only to name your wish.”
“I have one thing to ask you I
dare not ask any more,” she said. Her voice
had a wavering sound.
“Ask,” he said, “and I’ll
tell you the truth.”
“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.”