Night and Day Read online

  CHAPTER XV

  The village of Disham lies somewhere on the rolling piece of cultivatedground in the neighborhood of Lincoln, not so far inland but that asound, bringing rumors of the sea, can be heard on summer nights or whenthe winter storms fling the waves upon the long beach. So large isthe church, and in particular the church tower, in comparison with thelittle street of cottages which compose the village, that the traveleris apt to cast his mind back to the Middle Ages, as the only time whenso much piety could have been kept alive. So great a trust in the Churchcan surely not belong to our day, and he goes on to conjecture thatevery one of the villagers has reached the extreme limit of human life.Such are the reflections of the superficial stranger, and his sight ofthe population, as it is represented by two or three men hoeing in aturnip-field, a small child carrying a jug, and a young woman shakinga piece of carpet outside her cottage door, will not lead him to seeanything very much out of keeping with the Middle Ages in the villageof Disham as it is to-day. These people, though they seem young enough,look so angular and so crude that they remind him of the little picturespainted by monks in the capital letters of their manuscripts. He onlyhalf understands what they say, and speaks very loud and clearly, asthough, indeed, his voice had to carry through a hundred years ormore before it reached them. He would have a far better chance ofunderstanding some dweller in Paris or Rome, Berlin or Madrid, thanthese countrymen of his who have lived for the last two thousand yearsnot two hundred miles from the City of London.

  The Rectory stands about half a mile beyond the village. It is a largehouse, and has been growing steadily for some centuries round the greatkitchen, with its narrow red tiles, as the Rector would point out tohis guests on the first night of their arrival, taking his brasscandlestick, and bidding them mind the steps up and the steps down,and notice the immense thickness of the walls, the old beams across theceiling, the staircases as steep as ladders, and the attics, with theirdeep, tent-like roofs, in which swallows bred, and once a white owl.But nothing very interesting or very beautiful had resulted from thedifferent additions made by the different rectors.

  The house, however, was surrounded by a garden, in which the Rector tookconsiderable pride. The lawn, which fronted the drawing-room windows,was a rich and uniform green, unspotted by a single daisy, and on theother side of it two straight paths led past beds of tall, standingflowers to a charming grassy walk, where the Rev. Wyndham Datchet wouldpace up and down at the same hour every morning, with a sundial tomeasure the time for him. As often as not, he carried a book in hishand, into which he would glance, then shut it up, and repeat the restof the ode from memory. He had most of Horace by heart, and had got intothe habit of connecting this particular walk with certain odes which herepeated duly, at the same time noting the condition of his flowers, andstooping now and again to pick any that were withered or overblown. Onwet days, such was the power of habit over him, he rose from his chairat the same hour, and paced his study for the same length of time,pausing now and then to straighten some book in the bookcase, oralter the position of the two brass crucifixes standing upon cairns ofserpentine stone upon the mantelpiece. His children had a great respectfor him, credited him with far more learning than he actually possessed,and saw that his habits were not interfered with, if possible. Like mostpeople who do things methodically, the Rector himself had morestrength of purpose and power of self-sacrifice than of intellect or oforiginality. On cold and windy nights he rode off to visit sick people,who might need him, without a murmur; and by virtue of doing dull dutiespunctually, he was much employed upon committees and local Boards andCouncils; and at this period of his life (he was sixty-eight) he wasbeginning to be commiserated by tender old ladies for the extremeleanness of his person, which, they said, was worn out upon the roadswhen it should have been resting before a comfortable fire. His elderdaughter, Elizabeth, lived with him and managed the house, and alreadymuch resembled him in dry sincerity and methodical habit of mind; of thetwo sons one, Richard, was an estate agent, the other, Christopher, wasreading for the Bar. At Christmas, naturally, they met together; and fora month past the arrangement of the Christmas week had been much inthe mind of mistress and maid, who prided themselves every year moreconfidently upon the excellence of their equipment. The late Mrs.Datchet had left an excellent cupboard of linen, to which Elizabeth hadsucceeded at the age of nineteen, when her mother died, and the chargeof the family rested upon the shoulders of the eldest daughter. She kepta fine flock of yellow chickens, sketched a little, certain rose-treesin the garden were committed specially to her care; and what with thecare of the house, the care of the chickens, and the care of thepoor, she scarcely knew what it was to have an idle minute. An extremerectitude of mind, rather than any gift, gave her weight in the family.When Mary wrote to say that she had asked Ralph Denham to stay withthem, she added, out of deference to Elizabeth's character, that hewas very nice, though rather queer, and had been overworking himself inLondon. No doubt Elizabeth would conclude that Ralph was in love withher, but there could be no doubt either that not a word of this would bespoken by either of them, unless, indeed, some catastrophe made mentionof it unavoidable.

  Mary went down to Disham without knowing whether Ralph intended to come;but two or three days before Christmas she received a telegram fromRalph, asking her to take a room for him in the village. This wasfollowed by a letter explaining that he hoped he might have his mealswith them; but quiet, essential for his work, made it necessary to sleepout.

  Mary was walking in the garden with Elizabeth, and inspecting the roses,when the letter arrived.

  "But that's absurd," said Elizabeth decidedly, when the plan wasexplained to her. "There are five spare rooms, even when the boys arehere. Besides, he wouldn't get a room in the village. And he oughtn't towork if he's overworked."

  "But perhaps he doesn't want to see so much of us," Mary thought toherself, although outwardly she assented, and felt grateful to Elizabethfor supporting her in what was, of course, her desire. They were cuttingroses at the time, and laying them, head by head, in a shallow basket.

  "If Ralph were here, he'd find this very dull," Mary thought, with alittle shiver of irritation, which led her to place her rose the wrongway in the basket. Meanwhile, they had come to the end of the path, andwhile Elizabeth straightened some flowers, and made them stand uprightwithin their fence of string, Mary looked at her father, who waspacing up and down, with his hand behind his back and his head bowedin meditation. Obeying an impulse which sprang from some desire tointerrupt this methodical marching, Mary stepped on to the grass walkand put her hand on his arm.

  "A flower for your buttonhole, father," she said, presenting a rose.

  "Eh, dear?" said Mr. Datchet, taking the flower, and holding it at anangle which suited his bad eyesight, without pausing in his walk.

  "Where does this fellow come from? One of Elizabeth's roses--I hope youasked her leave. Elizabeth doesn't like having her roses picked withouther leave, and quite right, too."

  He had a habit, Mary remarked, and she had never noticed it so clearlybefore, of letting his sentences tail away in a continuous murmur,whereupon he passed into a state of abstraction, presumed by hischildren to indicate some train of thought too profound for utterance.

  "What?" said Mary, interrupting, for the first time in her life,perhaps, when the murmur ceased. He made no reply. She knew very wellthat he wished to be left alone, but she stuck to his side much asshe might have stuck to some sleep-walker, whom she thought it rightgradually to awaken. She could think of nothing to rouse him withexcept:

  "The garden's looking very nice, father."

  "Yes, yes, yes," said Mr. Datchet, running his words together in thesame abstracted manner, and sinking his head yet lower upon his breast.And suddenly, as they turned their steps to retrace their way, he jerkedout:

  "The traffic's very much increased, you know. More rolling-stock neededalready. Forty trucks went down yesterday by the 12.15--counted themmyself. They've taken of
f the 9.3, and given us an 8.30 instead--suitsthe business men, you know. You came by the old 3.10 yesterday, Isuppose?"

  She said "Yes," as he seemed to wish for a reply, and then he lookedat his watch, and made off down the path towards the house, holding therose at the same angle in front of him. Elizabeth had gone round to theside of the house, where the chickens lived, so that Mary found herselfalone, holding Ralph's letter in her hand. She was uneasy. She had putoff the season for thinking things out very successfully, and now thatRalph was actually coming, the next day, she could only wonder how herfamily would impress him. She thought it likely that her father woulddiscuss the train service with him; Elizabeth would be bright andsensible, and always leaving the room to give messages to the servants.Her brothers had already said that they would give him a day's shooting.She was content to leave the problem of Ralph's relations to theyoung men obscure, trusting that they would find some common ground ofmasculine agreement. But what would he think of HER? Would he see thatshe was different from the rest of the family? She devised a plan fortaking him to her sitting-room, and artfully leading the talk towardsthe English poets, who now occupied prominent places in her littlebookcase. Moreover, she might give him to understand, privately, thatshe, too, thought her family a queer one--queer, yes, but not dull. Thatwas the rock past which she was bent on steering him. And she thoughthow she would draw his attention to Edward's passion for Jorrocks, andthe enthusiasm which led Christopher to collect moths and butterfliesthough he was now twenty-two. Perhaps Elizabeth's sketching, if thefruits were invisible, might lend color to the general effect which shewished to produce of a family, eccentric and limited, perhaps, butnot dull. Edward, she perceived, was rolling the lawn, for the sake ofexercise; and the sight of him, with pink cheeks, bright little browneyes, and a general resemblance to a clumsy young cart-horse in itswinter coat of dusty brown hair, made Mary violently ashamed of herambitious scheming. She loved him precisely as he was; she loved themall; and as she walked by his side, up and down, and down and up,her strong moral sense administered a sound drubbing to the vain andromantic element aroused in her by the mere thought of Ralph. She feltquite certain that, for good or for bad, she was very like the rest ofher family.

  Sitting in the corner of a third-class railway carriage, on theafternoon of the following day, Ralph made several inquiries of acommercial traveler in the opposite corner. They centered round avillage called Lampsher, not three miles, he understood, from Lincoln;was there a big house in Lampsher, he asked, inhabited by a gentleman ofthe name of Otway?

  The traveler knew nothing, but rolled the name of Otway on his tongue,reflectively, and the sound of it gratified Ralph amazingly. It gavehim an excuse to take a letter from his pocket in order to verify theaddress.

  "Stogdon House, Lampsher, Lincoln," he read out.

  "You'll find somebody to direct you at Lincoln," said the man; and Ralphhad to confess that he was not bound there this very evening.

  "I've got to walk over from Disham," he said, and in the heart of himcould not help marveling at the pleasure which he derived from makinga bagman in a train believe what he himself did not believe. For theletter, though signed by Katharine's father, contained no invitation orwarrant for thinking that Katharine herself was there; the only fact itdisclosed was that for a fortnight this address would be Mr. Hilbery'saddress. But when he looked out of the window, it was of her he thought;she, too, had seen these gray fields, and, perhaps, she was there wherethe trees ran up a slope, and one yellow light shone now, and then wentout again, at the foot of the hill. The light shone in the windows ofan old gray house, he thought. He lay back in his corner and forgot thecommercial traveler altogether. The process of visualizing Katharinestopped short at the old gray manor-house; instinct warned him that ifhe went much further with this process reality would soon force itselfin; he could not altogether neglect the figure of William Rodney. Sincethe day when he had heard from Katharine's lips of her engagement, hehad refrained from investing his dream of her with the details ofreal life. But the light of the late afternoon glowed green behind thestraight trees, and became a symbol of her. The light seemed to expandhis heart. She brooded over the gray fields, and was with him now inthe railway carriage, thoughtful, silent, and infinitely tender; butthe vision pressed too close, and must be dismissed, for the trainwas slackening. Its abrupt jerks shook him wide awake, and he saw MaryDatchet, a sturdy russet figure, with a dash of scarlet about it, as thecarriage slid down the platform. A tall youth who accompanied her shookhim by the hand, took his bag, and led the way without uttering onearticulate word.

  Never are voices so beautiful as on a winter's evening, when dusk almosthides the body, and they seem to issue from nothingness with a note ofintimacy seldom heard by day. Such an edge was there in Mary's voicewhen she greeted him. About her seemed to hang the mist of the winterhedges, and the clear red of the bramble leaves. He felt himself at oncestepping on to the firm ground of an entirely different world, but hedid not allow himself to yield to the pleasure of it directly. Theygave him his choice of driving with Edward or of walking home across thefields with Mary--not a shorter way, they explained, but Mary thought ita nicer way. He decided to walk with her, being conscious, indeed,that he got comfort from her presence. What could be the cause of hercheerfulness, he wondered, half ironically, and half enviously, as thepony-cart started briskly away, and the dusk swam between their eyesand the tall form of Edward, standing up to drive, with the reins in onehand and the whip in the other. People from the village, who had been tothe market town, were climbing into their gigs, or setting off home downthe road together in little parties. Many salutations were addressedto Mary, who shouted back, with the addition of the speaker's name. Butsoon she led the way over a stile, and along a path worn slightly darkerthan the dim green surrounding it. In front of them the sky now showeditself of a reddish-yellow, like a slice of some semilucent stone behindwhich a lamp burnt, while a fringe of black trees with distinct branchesstood against the light, which was obscured in one direction by a humpof earth, in all other directions the land lying flat to the very vergeof the sky. One of the swift and noiseless birds of the winter's nightseemed to follow them across the field, circling a few feet in front ofthem, disappearing and returning again and again.

  Mary had gone this walk many hundred times in the course of her life,generally alone, and at different stages the ghosts of past moods wouldflood her mind with a whole scene or train of thought merely at thesight of three trees from a particular angle, or at the sound of thepheasant clucking in the ditch. But to-night the circumstances werestrong enough to oust all other scenes; and she looked at the fieldand the trees with an involuntary intensity as if they had no suchassociations for her.

  "Well, Ralph," she said, "this is better than Lincoln's Inn Fields,isn't it? Look, there's a bird for you! Oh, you've brought glasses, haveyou? Edward and Christopher mean to make you shoot. Can you shoot? Ishouldn't think so--"

  "Look here, you must explain," said Ralph. "Who are these young men?Where am I staying?"

  "You are staying with us, of course," she said boldly. "Of course,you're staying with us--you don't mind coming, do you?"

  "If I had, I shouldn't have come," he said sturdily. They walked on insilence; Mary took care not to break it for a time. She wished Ralph tofeel, as she thought he would, all the fresh delights of the earth andair. She was right. In a moment he expressed his pleasure, much to hercomfort.

  "This is the sort of country I thought you'd live in, Mary," he said,pushing his hat back on his head, and looking about him. "Real country.No gentlemen's seats."

  He snuffed the air, and felt more keenly than he had done for many weeksthe pleasure of owning a body.

  "Now we have to find our way through a hedge," said Mary. In the gap ofthe hedge Ralph tore up a poacher's wire, set across a hole to trap arabbit.

  "It's quite right that they should poach," said Mary, watching himtugging at the wire. "I wonder whether it was Alfred Duggi
ns or SidRankin? How can one expect them not to, when they only make fifteenshillings a week? Fifteen shillings a week," she repeated, coming out onthe other side of the hedge, and running her fingers through her hair torid herself of a bramble which had attached itself to her. "I could liveon fifteen shillings a week--easily."

  "Could you?" said Ralph. "I don't believe you could," he added.

  "Oh yes. They have a cottage thrown in, and a garden where one can growvegetables. It wouldn't be half bad," said Mary, with a soberness whichimpressed Ralph very much.

  "But you'd get tired of it," he urged.

  "I sometimes think it's the only thing one would never get tired of,"she replied.

  The idea of a cottage where one grew one's own vegetables and lived onfifteen shillings a week, filled Ralph with an extraordinary sense ofrest and satisfaction.

  "But wouldn't it be on the main road, or next door to a woman withsix squalling children, who'd always be hanging her washing out to dryacross your garden?"

  "The cottage I'm thinking of stands by itself in a little orchard."

  "And what about the Suffrage?" he asked, attempting sarcasm.

  "Oh, there are other things in the world besides the Suffrage," shereplied, in an off-hand manner which was slightly mysterious.

  Ralph fell silent. It annoyed him that she should have plans of which heknew nothing; but he felt that he had no right to press her further. Hismind settled upon the idea of life in a country cottage. Conceivably,for he could not examine into it now, here lay a tremendous possibility;a solution of many problems. He struck his stick upon the earth, andstared through the dusk at the shape of the country.

  "D'you know the points of the compass?" he asked.

  "Well, of course," said Mary. "What d'you take me for?--a Cockney likeyou?" She then told him exactly where the north lay, and where thesouth.

  "It's my native land, this," she said. "I could smell my way about itblindfold."

  As if to prove this boast, she walked a little quicker, so that Ralphfound it difficult to keep pace with her. At the same time, he feltdrawn to her as he had never been before; partly, no doubt, because shewas more independent of him than in London, and seemed to be attachedfirmly to a world where he had no place at all. Now the dusk had fallento such an extent that he had to follow her implicitly, and even leanhis hand on her shoulder when they jumped a bank into a very narrowlane. And he felt curiously shy of her when she began to shout throughher hands at a spot of light which swung upon the mist in a neighboringfield. He shouted, too, and the light stood still.

  "That's Christopher, come in already, and gone to feed his chickens,"she said.

  She introduced him to Ralph, who could see only a tall figure ingaiters, rising from a fluttering circle of soft feathery bodies, uponwhom the light fell in wavering discs, calling out now a bright spot ofyellow, now one of greenish-black and scarlet. Mary dipped her hand inthe bucket he carried, and was at once the center of a circle also; andas she cast her grain she talked alternately to the birds and to herbrother, in the same clucking, half-inarticulate voice, as it sounded toRalph, standing on the outskirts of the fluttering feathers in his blackovercoat.

  He had removed his overcoat by the time they sat round the dinner-table,but nevertheless he looked very strange among the others. A country lifeand breeding had preserved in them all a look which Mary hesitated tocall either innocent or youthful, as she compared them, now sittinground in an oval, softly illuminated by candlelight; and yet it wassomething of the kind, yes, even in the case of the Rector himself.Though superficially marked with lines, his face was a clear pink, andhis blue eyes had the long-sighted, peaceful expression of eyes seekingthe turn of the road, or a distant light through rain, or the darknessof winter. She looked at Ralph. He had never appeared to her moreconcentrated and full of purpose; as if behind his forehead were massedso much experience that he could choose for himself which part of ithe would display and which part he would keep to himself. Compared withthat dark and stern countenance, her brothers' faces, bending low overtheir soup-plates, were mere circles of pink, unmolded flesh.

  "You came by the 3.10, Mr. Denham?" said the Reverend Wyndham Datchet,tucking his napkin into his collar, so that almost the whole of his bodywas concealed by a large white diamond. "They treat us very well, onthe whole. Considering the increase of traffic, they treat us very wellindeed. I have the curiosity sometimes to count the trucks on the goods'trains, and they're well over fifty--well over fifty, at this season ofthe year."

  The old gentleman had been roused agreeably by the presence of thisattentive and well-informed young man, as was evident by the carewith which he finished the last words in his sentences, and his slightexaggeration in the number of trucks on the trains. Indeed, the chiefburden of the talk fell upon him, and he sustained it to-night in amanner which caused his sons to look at him admiringly now and then; forthey felt shy of Denham, and were glad not to have to talk themselves.The store of information about the present and past of this particularcorner of Lincolnshire which old Mr. Datchet produced really surprisedhis children, for though they knew of its existence, they had forgottenits extent, as they might have forgotten the amount of family platestored in the plate-chest, until some rare celebration brought it forth.

  After dinner, parish business took the Rector to his study, and Maryproposed that they should sit in the kitchen.

  "It's not the kitchen really," Elizabeth hastened to explain to herguest, "but we call it so--"

  "It's the nicest room in the house," said Edward.

  "It's got the old rests by the side of the fireplace, where the menhung their guns," said Elizabeth, leading the way, with a tall brasscandlestick in her hand, down a passage. "Show Mr. Denham the steps,Christopher.... When the Ecclesiastical Commissioners were here twoyears ago they said this was the most interesting part of the house.These narrow bricks prove that it is five hundred years old--fivehundred years, I think--they may have said six." She, too, feltan impulse to exaggerate the age of the bricks, as her father hadexaggerated the number of trucks. A big lamp hung down from the centerof the ceiling and, together with a fine log fire, illuminated a largeand lofty room, with rafters running from wall to wall, a floor of redtiles, and a substantial fireplace built up of those narrow redbricks which were said to be five hundred years old. A few rugs anda sprinkling of arm-chairs had made this ancient kitchen into asitting-room. Elizabeth, after pointing out the gun-racks, and thehooks for smoking hams, and other evidence of incontestable age,and explaining that Mary had had the idea of turning the room into asitting-room--otherwise it was used for hanging out the wash and for themen to change in after shooting--considered that she had done her dutyas hostess, and sat down in an upright chair directly beneath the lamp,beside a very long and narrow oak table. She placed a pair of hornspectacles upon her nose, and drew towards her a basketful of threadsand wools. In a few minutes a smile came to her face, and remained therefor the rest of the evening.

  "Will you come out shooting with us to-morrow?" said Christopher, whohad, on the whole, formed a favorable impression of his sister's friend.

  "I won't shoot, but I'll come with you," said Ralph.

  "Don't you care about shooting?" asked Edward, whose suspicions were notyet laid to rest.

  "I've never shot in my life," said Ralph, turning and looking him in theface, because he was not sure how this confession would be received.

  "You wouldn't have much chance in London, I suppose," said Christopher."But won't you find it rather dull--just watching us?"

  "I shall watch birds," Ralph replied, with a smile.

  "I can show you the place for watching birds," said Edward, "if that'swhat you like doing. I know a fellow who comes down from London aboutthis time every year to watch them. It's a great place for the wildgeese and the ducks. I've heard this man say that it's one of the bestplaces for birds in the country."

  "It's about the best place in England," Ralph replied. They were allgratified by this praise of
their native county; and Mary now hadthe pleasure of hearing these short questions and answers lose theirundertone of suspicious inspection, so far as her brothers wereconcerned, and develop into a genuine conversation about the habitsof birds which afterwards turned to a discussion as to the habits ofsolicitors, in which it was scarcely necessary for her to take part. Shewas pleased to see that her brothers liked Ralph, to the extent, thatis, of wishing to secure his good opinion. Whether or not he liked themit was impossible to tell from his kind but experienced manner. Now andthen she fed the fire with a fresh log, and as the room filled withthe fine, dry heat of burning wood, they all, with the exception ofElizabeth, who was outside the range of the fire, felt less and lessanxious about the effect they were making, and more and more inclinedfor sleep. At this moment a vehement scratching was heard on the door.

  "Piper!--oh, damn!--I shall have to get up," murmured Christopher.

  "It's not Piper, it's Pitch," Edward grunted.

  "All the same, I shall have to get up," Christopher grumbled. He letin the dog, and stood for a moment by the door, which opened into thegarden, to revive himself with a draught of the black, starlit air.

  "Do come in and shut the door!" Mary cried, half turning in her chair.

  "We shall have a fine day to-morrow," said Christopher with complacency,and he sat himself on the floor at her feet, and leant his back againsther knees, and stretched out his long stockinged legs to the fire--allsigns that he felt no longer any restraint at the presence of thestranger. He was the youngest of the family, and Mary's favorite, partlybecause his character resembled hers, as Edward's character resembledElizabeth's. She made her knees a comfortable rest for his head, and ranher fingers through his hair.

  "I should like Mary to stroke my head like that," Ralph thought tohimself suddenly, and he looked at Christopher, almost affectionately,for calling forth his sister's caresses. Instantly he thought ofKatharine, the thought of her being surrounded by the spaces of nightand the open air; and Mary, watching him, saw the lines upon hisforehead suddenly deepen. He stretched out an arm and placed a log uponthe fire, constraining himself to fit it carefully into the frail redscaffolding, and also to limit his thoughts to this one room.

  Mary had ceased to stroke her brother's head; he moved it impatientlybetween her knees, and, much as though he were a child, she began oncemore to part the thick, reddish-colored locks this way and that. Buta far stronger passion had taken possession of her soul than any herbrother could inspire in her, and, seeing Ralph's change of expression,her hand almost automatically continued its movements, while her mindplunged desperately for some hold upon slippery banks.