Had Stephen been better acquainted with men and women, she would have
been more satisfied with herself for being the first at the tryst.
The conventional idea, in the minds of most women and of all men, is
that a woman should never be the first. But real women, those in
whom the heart beats strong, and whose blood can leap, know better.
These are the commanders of men. In them sex calls to sex, all
unconsciously at first; and men answer to their call, as they to
men's.
Two opposite feelings strove for dominance as Stephen found herself
on the hilltop, alone. One a feeling natural enough to any one, and
especially to a girl, of relief that a dreaded hour had been
postponed; the other of chagrin that she was the first.
After a few moments, however, one of the two militant thoughts became
dominant: the feeling of chagrin. With a pang she thought if she
had been a man and summoned for such a purpose, how she would have
hurried to the trysting-place; how the flying of her feet would have
vied with the quick rapturous beating of her heart! With a little
sigh and a blush, she remembered that Leonard did not know the
purpose of the meeting; that he was a friend almost brought up with
her since boy and girl times; that he had often been summoned in
similar terms and for the most trivial of social purposes.
For nearly half an hour Stephen sat on the rustic seat under the
shadow of the great oak, looking, half unconscious of its beauty and
yet influenced by it, over the wide landscape stretched at her feet.
In spite of her disregard of conventions, she was no fool; the
instinct of wisdom was strong within her, so strong that in many ways
it ruled her conscious efforts. Had any one told her that her
preparations for this interview were made deliberately with some of
the astuteness that dominated the Devil when he took Jesus to the top
of a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the earth at
His feet, she would have, and with truth, denied it with indignation.
Nevertheless it was a fact that she had, in all unconsciousness,
chosen for the meeting a spot which would evidence to a man,
consciously or unconsciously, the desirability for his own sake of
acquiescence in her views and wishes. For all this spreading
landscape was her possession, which her husband would share. As far
as the eye could reach was within the estate which she had inherited
from her father and her uncle.
The half-hour passed in waiting had in one way its advantages to the
girl: though she was still as high strung as ever, she acquired a
larger measure of control over herself. The nervous tension,
however, was so complete physically that all her faculties were
acutely awake; very early she became conscious of a distant footstep.
To Stephen's straining ears the footsteps seemed wondrous slow, and
more wondrous regular; she felt instinctively that she would have
liked to have listened to a more hurried succession of less evenly-
marked sounds. But notwithstanding these thoughts, and the qualms
which came in their turn, the sound of the coming feet brought great
joy. For, after all, they were coming; and coming just in time to
prevent the sense of disappointment at their delay gaining firm
foothold. It was only when the coming was assured that she felt how
strong had been the undercurrent of her apprehension lest they should
not come at all.
Very sweet and tender and beautiful Stephen looked at this moment.
The strong lines of her face were softened by the dark fire in her
eyes and the feeling which glowed in the deep blushes which mantled
her cheeks. The proudness of her bearing was no less marked than
ever, but in the willowy sway of her body there was a yielding of
mere sorry pride. In all the many moods which the gods allow to good
women there is none so dear or so alluring, consciously as well as
instinctively, to true men as this self-surrender. As Leonard drew
near, Stephen sank softly into a seat, doing so with a guilty feeling
of acting a part. When he actually came into the grove he found her
seemingly lost in a reverie as she gazed out over the wide expanse in
front of her. He was hot after his walk, and with something very
like petulance threw himself into a cane armchair, exclaiming as he
did so with the easy insolence of old familiarity:
'What a girl you are, Stephen! dragging a fellow all the way up here.
Couldn't you have fixed it down below somewhere if you wanted to see
me?'
Strangely enough, as it seemed to her, Stephen did not dislike his
tone of mastery. There was something in it which satisfied her. The
unconscious recognition of his manhood, as opposed to her womanhood,
soothed her in a peaceful way. It was easy to yield to a dominant
man. She was never more womanly than when she answered him softly:
'It was rather unfair; but I thought you would not mind coming so
far. It is so cool and delightful here; and we can talk without
being disturbed.' Leonard was lying back in his chair fanning
himself with his wide-brimmed straw hat, with outstretched legs wide
apart and resting on the back of his heels. He replied with grudging
condescension:
'Yes, it's cool enough after the hot tramp over the fields and
through the wood. It's not so good as the house, though, in one way:
a man can't get a drink here. I say, Stephen, it wouldn't be half
bad if there were a shanty put up here like those at the Grands
Mulets or on the Matterhorn. There could be a tap laid on where a
fellow could quench his thirst on a day like this!'
Before Stephen's eyes floated a momentary vision of a romantic chalet
with wide verandah and big windows looking over the landscape; a
great wide stone hearth; quaint furniture made from the gnarled
branches of trees; skins on the floor; and the walls adorned with
antlers, great horns, and various trophies of the chase. And amongst
them Leonard, in a picturesque suit, lolling back just as at present
and smiling with a loving look in his eyes as she handed him a great
blue-and-white Munich beer mug topped with cool foam. There was a
soft mystery in her voice as she answered:
'Perhaps, Leonard, there will some day be such a place here!' He
seemed to grumble as he replied:
'I wish it was here now. Some day seems a long way off!'
This seemed a good opening for Stephen; for the fear of the situation
was again beginning to assail her, and she felt that if she did not
enter on her task at once, its difficulty might overwhelm her. She
felt angry with herself that there was a change in her voice as she
said:
'Some day may mean--can mean everything. Things needn't be a longer
way off than we choose ourselves, sometimes!'
'I say, that's a good one! Do you mean to say that because I am some
day to own Brindehow I can do as I like with it at once, whilst the
governor's all there, and a better life than I am any day? Unless
you want me to shoot the old man by accident when we go out on the
First.' He laughed a short, unmeaning masculine laugh which jarred
somewhat on her. She did not, however, mean to be diverted from her
main purpose, so she went on quickly:
'You know quite well, Leonard, that I don't mean anything of the
kind. But there was something I wanted to say to you, and I wished
that we should be alone. Can you not guess what it is?'
'No, I'll be hanged if I can!' was his response, lazily given.
Despite her resolution she turned her head; she could not meet his
eyes. It cut her with a sharp pain to notice when she turned again
that he was not looking at her. He continued fanning himself with
his hat as he gazed out at the view. She felt that the critical
moment of her life had come, that it was now or never as to her
fulfilling her settled intention. So with a rush she went on her
way:
'Leonard, you and I have been friends a long time. You know my views
on some points, and that I think a woman should be as free to act as
a man!' She paused; words and ideas did not seem to flow with the
readiness she expected. Leonard's arrogant assurance completed the
dragging her back to earth which her own self-consciousness began:
'Drive on, old girl! I know you're a crank from Crankville on some
subjects. Let us have it for all you're worth. I'm on the grass and
listening.'
Stephen paused. 'A crank from Crankville!'--this after her nights of
sleepless anxiety; after the making of the resolution which had cost
her so much, and which was now actually in process of realisation.
Was it all worth so much? why not abandon it now? ... Abandon it!
Abandon a resolution! All the obstinacy of her nature--she classed
it herself as firmness--rose in revolt. She shook her head angrily,
pulled herself together, and went on:
'That may be! though it's not what I call myself, or what I am
usually called, so far as I know. At any rate my convictions are
honest, and I am sure you will respect them as such, even if you do
not share them.' She did not see the ready response in his face
which she expected, and so hurried on:
'It has always seemed to me that a--when a woman has to speak to a
man she should do so as frankly as she would like him to speak to
her, and as freely. Leonard, I--I,' as she halted, a sudden idea,
winged with possibilities of rescuing procrastination came to her.
She went on more easily:
'I know you are in trouble about money matters. Why not let me help
you?' He sat up and looked at her and said genially:
'Well, Stephen, you are a good old sort! No mistake about it. Do
you mean to say you would help me to pay my debts, when the governor
has refused to do so any more?'
'It would be a great pleasure to me, Leonard, to do anything for your
good or your pleasure.'
There was a long pause; they both sat looking down at the ground.
The woman's heart beat loud; she feared that the man must hear it.
She was consumed with anxiety, and with a desolating wish to be
relieved from the strain of saying more. Surely, surely Leonard
could not be so blind as not to see the state of things! ... He
would surely seize the occasion; throw aside his diffidence and
relieve her! ... His words made a momentary music in her ears as he
spoke:
'And is this what you asked me to come here for?'
The words filled her with a great shame. She felt herself a dilemma.
It had been no part of her purpose to allude his debts. Viewed in
the light of what was to follow, it would seem to him that she was
trying to foreclose his affection. That could not be allowed to
pass; the error must be rectified. And yet! ... And yet this very
error must be cleared up before she could make her full wish
apparent. She seemed to find herself compelled by inexorable
circumstances into an unlooked-for bluntness. In any case she must
face the situation. Her pluck did not fail her; it was with a very
noble and graceful simplicity that she turned to her companion and
said:
'Leonard, I did not quite mean that. It would be a pleasure to me to
be of that or any other service to you, if I might be so happy! But
I never meant to allude to your debts. Oh! Leonard, can't you
understand! If you were my husband--or--or going to be, all such
little troubles would fall away from you. But I would not for the
world have you think ... '
Her very voice failed her. She could not speak what was in her mind;
she turned away, hiding in her hands her face which fairly seemed to
burn. This, she thought, was the time for a true lover's
opportunity! Oh, if she had been a man, and a woman had so appealed,
how he would have sprung to her side and taken her in his arms, and
in a wild rapture of declared affection have swept away all the pain
of her shame!
But she remained alone. There was no springing to her side; no
rapture of declared affection; no obliteration of her shame. She had
to bear it all alone. There, in the open; under the eyes that she
would fain have seen any other phase of her distress. Her heart beat
loud and fast; she waited to gain her self-control.
Leonard Everard had his faults, plenty of them, and he was in truth
composed of an amalgam of far baser metals than Stephen thought; but
he had been born of gentle blood and reared amongst gentlefolk. He
did not quite understand the cause or the amount of his companion's
concern; but he could not but recognise her distress. He realised
that it had followed hard upon her most generous intention towards
himself. He could not, therefore, do less than try to comfort her,
and he began his task in a conventional way, but with a blundering
awkwardness which was all manlike. He took her hand and held it in
his; this much at any rate he had learned in sitting on stairs or in
conservatories after extra dances. He said as tenderly as he could,
but with an impatient gesture unseen by her:
'Forgive me, Stephen! I suppose I have said or done something which
I shouldn't. But I don't know what it is; upon my honour I don't.
Anyhow, I am truly sorry for it. Cheer up, old girl! I'm not your
husband, you know; so you needn't be distressed.'
Stephen took her courage a deux mains. If Leonard would not speak
she must. It was manifestly impossible that the matter could be left
in its present state.
'Leonard,' she said softly and solemnly, 'might not that some day
be?'
Leonard, in addition to being an egotist and the very incarnation of
selfishness, was a prig of the first water. He had been reared
altogether in convention. Home life and Eton and Christchurch had
taught him many things, wise as well as foolish; but had tended to
fix his conviction that affairs of the heart should proceed on
adamantine lines of conventional decorum. It never even occurred to
him that a lady could so far step from the confines of convention as
to take the initiative in a matter of affection. In his blind
ignorance he blundered brutally. He struck better than he knew, as,
meaning only to pass safely by an awkward conversational corner, he
replied:
'No jolly fear of that! You're too much of a boss for me!' The
words and the levity with which they were spoken struck the girl as
with a whip. She turned for an instant as pale as ashes; then the
red blood rushed from her heart, and face and neck were dyed crimson.
It was not a blush, it was a suffusion. In his ignorance Leonard
thought it was the former, and went on with what he considered his
teasing.
'Oh yes! You know you always want to engineer a chap your own way
and make him do just as you wish. The man who has the happiness of
marrying you, Stephen, will have a hard row to hoe!' His 'chaff'
with its utter want of refinement seemed to her, in her high-strung
earnest condition, nothing short of brutal, and for a few seconds
produced a feeling of repellence. But it is in the nature of things
that opposition of any kind arouses the fighting instinct of a
naturally dominant nature. She lost sight of her femininity in the
pursuit of her purpose; and as this was to win the man to her way of
thinking, she took the logical course of answering his argument. If
Leonard Everard had purposely set himself to stimulate her efforts in
this direction he could hardly have chosen a better way. It came
somewhat as a surprise to Stephen, when she heard her own words:
'I would make a good wife, Leonard! A husband whom I loved and
honoured would, I think, not be unhappy!' The sound of her own voice
speaking these words, though the tone was low and tender and more
self-suppressing by far than was her wont, seemed to peal like
thunder in her own ears. Her last bolt seemed to have sped. The
blood rushed to her head, and she had to hold on to the arms of the
rustic chair or she would have fallen forward.
The time seemed long before Leonard spoke again; every second seemed
an age. She seemed to have grown tired of waiting for the sound of
his voice; it was with a kind of surprise that she heard him say:
'You limit yourself wisely, Stephen!'
'How do you mean?' she asked, making a great effort to speak.
'You would promise to love and honour; but there isn't anything about
obeying.'
As he spoke Leonard stretched himself again luxuriously, and laughed
with the intellectual arrogance of a man who is satisfied with a
joke, however inferior, of his own manufacture. Stephen looked at
him with a long look which began in anger--that anger which comes
from an unwonted sense of impotence, and ends in tolerance, the
intermediate step being admiration. It is the primeval curse that a
woman's choice is to her husband; and it is an important part of the
teaching of a British gentlewoman, knit in the very fibres of her
being by the remorseless etiquette of a thousand years, that she be
true to him. The man who has in his person the necessary powers or
graces to evoke admiration in his wife, even for a passing moment,
has a stronghold unconquerable as a rule by all the deadliest arts of
mankind.
Leonard Everard was certainly good to look upon as he lolled at his
ease on that summer morning. Tall, straight, supple; a typical
British gentleman of the educated class, with all parts of the body
properly developed and held in some kind of suitable poise.
As Stephen looked, the anxiety and chagrin which tormented her seemed
to pass. She realised that here was a nature different from her own,
and which should be dealt with in a way unsuitable to herself; and
the conviction seemed to make the action which it necessitated more
easy as well as more natural to her. Perhaps for the first time in
her life Stephen understood that it may be necessary to apply to
individuals a standard of criticism unsuitable to self-judgment. Her
recognition might have been summed up in the thought which ran
through her mind:
'One must be a little lenient with a man one loves!'
Stephen, when once she had allowed the spirit of toleration to work
within her, felt immediately its calming influence. It was with
brighter thoughts and better humour that she went on with her task.
A task only, it seemed now; a means to an end which she desired.
'Leonard, tell me seriously, why do you think I gave you the trouble
of coming out here?'
'Upon my soul, Stephen, I don't know.'
'You don't seem to care either, lolling like that when I am serious!'
The words were acid, but the tone was soft and friendly, familiar and
genuine, putting quite a meaning of its own on them. Leonard looked
at her indolently:
'I like to loll.'
'But can't you even guess, or try to guess, what I ask you?'
'I can't guess. The day's too hot, and that shanty with the drinks
is not built yet.'
'Or may never be!' Again he looked at her sleepily.
'Never be! Why not?'
'Because, Leonard, it may depend on you.'
'All right then. Drive on! Hurry up the architect and the jerry-
builder!'
A quick blush leaped to Stephen's cheeks. The words were full of
meaning, though the tone lacked something; but the news was too good.
She could not accept it at once; she decided to herself to wait a
short time. Ere many seconds had passed she rejoiced that she had
done so as he went on:
'I hope you'll give me a say before that husband of yours comes
along. He might be a blue-ribbonite; and it wouldn't do to start
such a shanty for rot-gut!'
Again a cold wave swept over her. The absolute difference of feeling
between the man and herself; his levity against her earnestness, his
callous blindness to her purpose, even the commonness of his words
chilled her. For a few seconds she wavered again in her intention;
but once again his comeliness and her own obstinacy joined hands and
took her back to her path. With chagrin she felt that her words
almost stuck in her throat, as summoning up all her resolution she
went on:
'It would be for you I would have it built, Leonard!' The man sat up
quickly.
'For me?' he asked in a sort of wonderment.
'Yes, Leonard, for you and me!' She turned away; her blushes so
overcame her that she could not look at him. When she faced round
again he was standing up, his back towards her.
She stood up also. He was silent for a while; so long that the
silence became intolerable, and she spoke:
'Leonard, I am waiting!' He turned round and said slowly, the
absence of all emotion from his face chilling her till her face
blanched:
'I don't think I would worry about it!'
Stephen Norman was plucky, and when she was face to face with any
difficulty she was all herself. Leonard did not look pleasant; his
face was hard and there was just a suspicion of anger. Strangely
enough, this last made the next step easier to the girl; she said
slowly:
'All right! I think I understand!'
He turned from her and stood looking out on the distant prospect.
Then she felt that the blow which she had all along secretly feared
had fallen on her. But her pride as well as her obstinacy now
rebelled. She would not accept a silent answer. There must be no
doubt left to torture her afterwards. She would take care that there
was no mistake. Schooling herself to her task, and pressing one hand
for a moment to her side as though to repress the beating of her
heart, she came behind him and touched him tenderly on the arm.
'Leonard,' she said softly, 'are you sure there is no mistake? Do
you not see that I am asking you,' she intended to say 'to be my
husband,' but she could not utter the words, they seemed to stick in
her mouth, so she finished the sentence: 'that I be your wife?'
The moment the words were spoken--the bare, hard, naked, shameless
words--the revulsion came. As a lightning flash shows up the
blackness of the night the appalling truth of what she had done was
forced upon her. The blood rushed to her head till cheeks and
shoulders and neck seemed to burn. Covering her face with her hands
she sank back on the seat crying silently bitter tears that seemed to
scald her eyes and her cheeks as they ran.
Leonard was angry. When it began to dawn upon him what was the
purpose of Stephen's speech, he had been shocked. Young men are so
easily shocked by breaches of convention made by women they respect!
And his pride was hurt. Why should he have been placed in such a
ridiculous position! He did not love Stephen in that way; and she
should have known it. He liked her and all that sort of thing; but
what right had she to assume that he loved her? All the weakness of
his moral nature came out in his petulance. It was boyish that his
eyes filled with tears. He knew it, and that made him more angry
than ever. Stephen might well have been at a loss to understand his
anger, as, with manifest intention to wound, he answered her:
'What a girl you are, Stephen. You are always doing something or
other to put a chap in the wrong and make him ridiculous. I thought
you were joking--not a good joke either! Upon my soul, I don't know
what I've done that you should fix on me! I wish to goodness--'
If Stephen had suffered the red terror before, she suffered the white
terror now. It was not injured pride, it was not humiliation, it was
not fear; it was something vague and terrible that lay far deeper
than any of these. Under ordinary circumstances she would have liked
to have spoken out her mind and given back as good as she got; and
even as the thoughts whirled through her brain they came in a torrent
of vague vituperative eloquence. But now her tongue was tied.
Instinctively she knew that she had put it out of her power to
revenge, or even to defend herself. She was tied to the stake, and
must suffer without effort and in silence.
Most humiliating of all was the thought that she must propitiate the
man who had so wounded her. All love for him had in the instant
passed from her; or rather she realised fully the blank, bare truth
that she had never really loved him at all. Had she really loved
him, even a blow at his hands would have been acceptable; but now ...
She shook the feelings and thoughts from her as a bird does the water
from its wings; and, with the courage and strength and adaptability
of her nature, addressed herself to the hard task which faced her in
the immediate present. With eloquent, womanly gesture she arrested
the torrent of Leonard's indignation; and, as he paused in surprised
obedience, she said:
'That will do, Leonard! It is not necessary to say any more; and I
am sure you will see, later on, that at least there was no cause for
your indignation! I have done an unconventional thing, I know; and I
dare say I shall have to pay for it in humiliating bitterness of
thought later on! But please remember we are all alone! This is a
secret between us; no one else need ever know or suspect it!'
She rose as she concluded. The quiet dignity of her speech and
bearing brought back Leonard in some way to his sense of duty as a
gentleman. He began, in a sheepish way, to make an apology:
'I'm sure I beg your pardon, Stephen.' But again she held the
warning hand:
'There is no need for pardon; the fault, if there were any, was mine
alone. It was I, remember, who asked you to come here and who
introduced and conducted this melancholy business. I have asked you
several things, Leonard, and one more I will add--'tis only one:
that you will forget!'
As she moved away, her dismissal of the subject was that of an
empress to a serf. Leonard would have liked to answer her; to have
given vent to his indignation that, even when he had refused her
offer, she should have the power to treat him if he was the one
refused, and to make him feel small and ridiculous in his own eyes.
But somehow he felt constrained to silence; her simple dignity
outclassed him.
There was another factor too, in his forming his conclusion of
silence. He had never seen Stephen look so well, or so attractive.
He had never respected her so much as when her playfulness had turned
to majestic gravity. All the boy and girl strife of the years that
had gone seemed to have passed away. The girl whom he had played
with, and bullied, and treated as frankly as though she had been a
boy, had in an instant become a woman--and such a woman as demanded
respect and admiration even from such a man.
