Wood and Stone (17 page)

He reached the carved entrance of the House with its deeply-cut armorial bearings—the Seldom falcon with the arrow in its beak. “No more will
that
bird fly,” he thought, as he waited for the door to open.

He was ushered into the spacious entrance hall, the usual place of reception for Mr. Romer’s less favoured guests. The quarry-owner was alone. He shook hands affably with his visitor and motioned him to a seat.

“I have come about that question of the Social Meeting—” he began.

Mr. Romer cut him short. “It is no longer a question,” he said. “It is a ‘fait accompli.’ I have given orders to have the place pulled down next week. I want the space for building purposes.”

Clavering turned white with anger. “We shall have to find another room then,” he said. “I cannot have those meetings dropping out from our village life. They keep the thoughtful people together as nothing else can.”

Mr. Romer smiled grimly. “You will find it
difficult
to discover another place,” he remarked.

“Then I shall have them in my own house,” said the vicar of Nevilton.

Mr. Romer crossed his hands and threw back his head; looking, with the air of one who watches the development of precisely foreseen events, straight into the sad eyes of the little Royal Servant on the wall.

“Pardon such a question, my friend,” said he, “but may I ask you what your personal income is, at this moment?”

“You know that well enough,” returned the other.
“I have nothing beyond the hundred and fifty pounds I receive as vicar of this place.”

“And what,” pursued the Quarry-owner, “may your expenditure amount to?”

“That, also, you know well,” replied Clavering. “I give away about eighty pounds, every year, to the poor of this village.”

“And where does this eighty pounds come from?” went on the Squire. The priest was silent.

“I will tell you where it comes from,” pronounced the other. “It comes from me. It is my
contribution
, out of the tithes which I receive as lay-rector. And it is the larger part of them.”

The priest was still silent.

“When I first came here,” his interlocutor
continued
, “I gave up these tithes as an offering to our village necessities; and I have not yet withdrawn them. If this Social Meeting, Mr. Clavering, is not brought to an end, I shall withdraw them. And no one will be able to blame me.”

Hugh jumped up on his feet with a gesture of fury. “I call this,” he shouted, “nothing short of sacrilege! Yes, sacrilege and tyranny! I shall
proclaim
it abroad. I shall write to the papers. I shall appeal to the bishop—to the country!”

“As you please,” said Mr. Romer quietly, “as you please. I should only like to point out that any action of this kind will tie up my purse-strings
forever
. You will not be popular with your flock, my friend. I know something of our dear Nevilton people; and I shall have only to make it plain to them that it is their vicar who has reduced this charity; and you will not find yourself greatly loved!”

Clavering fell back into his chair with a groan. He knew too well the truth of the man’s words. He knew also the straits into which this lack of money would plunge half his benevolent activities in the parish. He hung his head gloomily and stared at the floor. What would he not have given, at that
moment
, to have been able to meet this despot, man to man, unencumbered by his duty to his people!

“Let me assure you, my dear sir,” said Mr. Romer quietly, “that you are not by any means fighting the cause of your church, in supporting this wretched Meeting. If I were bidding you interrupt your services or your sacraments, it would be another matter. This Social Meeting has strong anti-clerical prejudices. You know that, as well as I. It is conducted entirely on noncomformist lines. I
happen
to be aware,” he added, “since you talk of appealing to the bishop, that the good man has
already
, on more than one occasion, protested
vigorously
against the association of his clergy with this kind of organization. I do not know whether you ever glance at that excellent paper the Guardian; but if so you will find, in this last week’s issue, a very interesting case, quite parallel to ours, in which the bishop’s sympathies were by no means on the side you are advocating.”

The young priest rose and bowed. “There is, at any rate, no necessity for me to trouble you any further,” he said. “So I will bid you
good-night
.”

He left the hall hastily, picked up his hat, and let himself out, before his host had time to reply. All the way down the drive his thoughts reverted to the
seductive wiles of this despot’s daughter. “The saints are deserting me,” he thought, “by reason of my sin.”

He was not, even then, destined to escape his temptress. Gladys, who doubtless had been
expecting
this sudden retreat, emerged from the shadow of the trees and intercepted him. “I will walk to the gate with you,” she said. The power of feminine attraction is never more insidious than at the
moment
of bitter remorse. The mind reverts so easily, so willingly, then, back to the dangerous way. The mere fact of its having lost its pride of resistance, its vanity of virtue, makes it yield to a new assault with terrible facility. She drew him into the dusky
twilight
of the scented exotic cedars which bordered the way, on the excuse of inhaling their fragrance more closely.

She made him pull down a great perfumed
cypress-bough
, of some unusual species, so that they might press their faces against it. They stood so closely together that she could feel through her thin
evening-gown
the furious trembling that seized him. She knew that he had completely lost his self-control, and was quite at her mercy. But Gladys had not the least intention of yielding herself to the emotion she had excited. What she intended was that he should desire her to desperation, not that, by the least touch, his desire should be gratified. In another half-second, as she well knew, the poor priest would have seized her in his arms. In place of permitting this, what she did was to imprint a fleeting kiss with her warm lips upon the back of his hand, and then to leap out of danger with a ringing laugh. “
Good-bye
!”
she called back at him, as she ran off. “I’ll come in good time next week.”

It may be imagined in what a turbulence of
miserable
feelings Hugh Clavering repassed the village square. He glanced quickly at the fountain. Yes! Luke Andersen was still loitering in the same place, and the little bursts of suppressed screams and laughter, and the little fluttering struggles, of the group around him, indicated that he was still, in his manner, corrupting the maidens of Nevilton. The priest longed to put his hands to his ears and run down the street, even as Christian ran from the city of Destruction. What was this power—this
invincible
, all-pervasive power—against which he had committed himself to contend? He felt as though he were trying, with his poor human strength, to hold back the sea-tide, so that it should not cover the sands.

Could it be that, after all, the whole theory of the church was wrong, and that the great Life-Force was against her, and punishing her, for seeking, with her vain superstitions, to alter the stars in their courses?

Could it be that this fierce pleasure-lust, which he felt so fatally in Gladys, and saw in Luke, and was seduced by in his own veins, was after all the true secret of Nature, and, to contend against it, madness and impossible folly? Was he, and not they, the really morbid and infatuated one—morbid with the arbitrary pride of a desperate tradition of perverted heroic souls? He moved along the pavement under the church wall and looked up at its grand
immovable
tower. “Are you, too,” he thought, “but
the symbol of an insane caprice in the mad human race, seeking, in fond recklessness, to alter the basic laws of the great World?”

The casuistical philosophy of Mr. Taxater returned to his mind. What would the papal apologist say to him now, thus torn and tugged at by all the forces of hell? He felt a curious doubt in his heart as to the side on which, in this mad struggle, the astute theologian really stood. Perhaps, for all his learning, the man was no more Christian in his true soul, than had been many of those historic popes whose office he defended. In his desperate mood Clavering longed to get as near as possible to the altar of this God of his, who thus bade him confront the whole power of nature and all the wisdom of the world. He looked up and down the street. Two men were talking outside The Goat and Boy, but their backs were turned. With a quick sudden movement he put his hands on the top of the wall and scrambled hastily over, scraping his shins as he did so on a sharp stone at the top. He moved rapidly to the place where rose the strange tombstone designed by the atheist carver. It was here that Vennie and he had entered into their heroic covenant only
twenty-four
hours before. He looked at the enormous skull so powerfully carved and at the encircled cross
beneath
it. He laid his hand upon the skull, precisely as he had done the night before; only this time there were no little cold fingers to instil pure devotion into him. Instead of the touch of such fingers he felt the burning contact of Gladys soft lips.

No! it was an impossible task that his God had laid upon him. Why not give up the struggle? Why not
throw over this mad idol of purity he had raised for his worship, and yield himself to the great stream? The blood rushed to his head with the alluring images that this thought evoked. Perhaps, after all, Gladys would marry him, and then—why, then, he could revert to the humorous wisdom of Mr. Taxater, and
cultivate
the sweet mystical speculations of modernism; reconciling, pleasantly and easily, the natural pleasures of the senses, with the natural exigencies of the soul!

He left Gideon’s grave and walked back to the church-porch. It was now nearly dark and without fear of being observed by any one through the iron bars of the outer gate, he entered the porch and stood before the closed door. He wished he had brought the key with him. How he longed, at that moment, to fling himself down before the altar and cry aloud to his God!

By his side stood the wheeled parish bier,
ornamented
by a gilt inscription, informing the casual intruder that it had been presented to the place in honour of the accession of King George the Fifth. There was not light enough to read these touching words, but the gilt plate containing them gave forth a faint scintillating glimmer.

Worn out by the day-long struggle in his heart, Clavering sat down upon this grim “memento mori”; and then, after a minute or two, finding that position uncomfortable, deliberately stretched himself out at full length upon the thing’s bare surface. Lying here, with the bats flitting in and out above his head, the struggle in his mind continued. Supposing he did yield,—not altogether, of course; his whole nature was against that, and his public position stood in the
way,—but just a little, just a hair’s breadth, could he not enjoy a light playful flirtation with Gladys, such as she was so obviously prepared for, even if it were impossible to marry her? The worst of it was that his imagination so enlarged upon the pleasures of this “playful flirtation,” that it very quickly
became
an obsessing desire. He propped himself up upon his strange couch and looked forth into the night. The stars were just beginning to appear, and he could see one or two constellations whose names he knew. How indifferent they were, those far-off lights! What did it matter to them whether he yielded or did not yield? He had the curious sensation that the whole conflict in which he was entangled belonged to a terrestial sphere infinitely below those heavenly luminaries. Not only the Power against which he contended, but the Power on whose side he fought, seemed out-distanced and derided by those calm watchers.

He sank back again and gazed up at the carved stone roof above him. A dull inert weariness stole over his brain; a sick disgust of the whole mad business of a man’s life upon earth. Why was he born into the world with passions that he must not satisfy and ideals that he could not hold? Better not to have been born at all; or, being born, better to lie quiet and untroubled, with all these placid church-yard people, under the heavy clay! The mental weariness that assailed him gradually changed into sheer
physical
drowsiness. His head sought instinctively a more easy position and soon found what it sought. His eyes closed; and there, upon the parish bier, worn out with his struggle against Apollyon, the vicar of
Nevilton slept. When he returned to consciousness he found himself cramped, cold and miserable.
Hurriedly
he scrambled to his feet, stretched his stiff limbs and listened. The clock in the Tower above him began to strike. It struck one—two—and then stopped. He had slept for nearly five hours.

E
VERY natural locality has its hour of special self-assertion; its hour, when the peculiar
qualities
and characteristics which belong to it emphasize themselves, and attain a sort of temporary apogee or culmination. It is then that such localities—be they forests or moors, hill-sides or valleys—seem to gather themselves together and bring themselves into focus, waiting expectantly, it might almost seem, for some answering dramatic crisis in human affairs which should find in them an inevitable background.

One of the chief features of our English climate is that no two successive days, even in a spell of the warmest weather, are exactly alike. What one might call the culminant day of that summer, for the
orchards
of Nevilton, arrived shortly after Mr.
Clavering’s
unfortunate defeat. Every hour of this day seemed to add something more and more expressive to their hushed and expectant solitudes.

Though the hay had been cut, or was being cut, in the open fields, in these shadowy recesses the grass was permitted to grow lush and long, at its own unimpeded will.

Between the ancient trunks of the moss-grown apple-trees hung a soft blue vapour; and the
flickering
sunlight that pierced the denser foliage, threw shadows upon the heavy grass that were as deeply
purple as the waves of the mid-Atlantic. There was indeed something so remote from the ordinary movements of the day about this underworld of dim, rich seclusion, that the image of a sleepy
wave-lulled
land, long sunken out of reach of human
invasion
, under the ebbing and flowing tide, seemed borne in naturally upon the imagination.

It was towards the close of the afternoon of this particular segment of time that the drowsy languor of these orchards reached its richest and most luxurious moment. Grass, moss, lichen, mistletoe, gnarled trunks, and knotted roots, all seemed to cry aloud, at this privileged hour, for some human recognition of their unique quality; some human event which should give that quality its dramatic value, its planetary proportion. Not since the Hesperidean Dragon guarded its sacred charge, in the classic story, has a more responsive background offered itself to what Catullus calls the “furtive loves” of mortal men.

About six o’clock, on this day of the apogee of the orchards, Mr. Romer, seated on the north terrace of his house, caught sight of his daughter and her companion crossing the near corner of the park. He got up at once, and walked across the garden to
intercept
them. The sight of the Italian’s slender
drooping
figure, as she lingered a little behind her cousin, roused into vivid consciousness all manner of
subterranean
emotions in the quarry-owner’s mind. He felt as an oriental pasha might feel, when under the stress of some political or monetary transaction, he is compelled to hand over his favorite girl-slave to an obsequious dependent. The worst of it was that he could not be absolutely sure of Mr. Goring’s
continued adherence. It was within the bounds of possibility that once in possession of Lacrima, the farmer might breathe against him gross
Thersites-like
defiance, and carry off his captive to another county. He experienced, at that moment, a sharp pang of inverted remorse at the thought of having to relinquish his prey.

As he strode along by the edge of the herbaceous borders, where the blue spikes of the delphiniums were already in bud, his mind swung rapidly from point to point in the confused arena of his various contests and struggles.

Mixed strangely enough with his direct Napoleonic pursuit of wealth and power, there was latent in Mr. Romer, as we have already hinted, a certain dark and perverse sensuality, which was capable of betraying and distorting, in very curious ways, the massive force of his intelligence.

At this particular moment, as he emerged into the park, he found himself beginning to regret his
conversation
with his brother-in-law. But, after all, he thought, when Gladys married, it would be difficult to find any reason for keeping Lacrima at his side. His feelings towards the girl were a curious mixture of attraction and hatred. And what could better gratify this mixed emotion than a plan which would keep her within his reach and at the same time humiliate and degrade her? To do the master of Nevilton justice, he was not, at that moment, as he passed under a group of Spanish chestnuts and
observed
the object of his conspiracy rendered gentler and more fragile than ever by the loveliness of her surroundings, altogether devoid of a certain remote
feeling of compunction. He crushed it down, however, by his usual thought of the brevity and futility of all these things, and the folly of yielding to weak commiseration, when, in so short a time, nothing, one way or the other, would matter in the least! He had long ago trained himself to make use of these materialistic reasonings to suppress any irrelevant prickings of conscience which might interfere with the bias of his will. The whole world, looked at with the bold cynical eye of one who was not afraid to face the truth, was, after all, a mad, wild, unmeaning struggle; and, in the confused arena of this struggle, one could be sure of nothing but the pleasure one derived from the sensation of one’s own power. He tried, as he walked towards the girls, to imagine to himself what his feelings would be, supposing he yielded to these remote scruples, and let Lacrima go, giving her money, for instance, to enable her to live
independently
in her own country, or to marry whom she pleased. She would no doubt marry that damned fool Quincunx! Lack of money was, assuredly, all that stood in the way. And how could he
contemplate
an idea of that kind with any pleasure? He wondered, in a grim humorous manner, what sort of compensation these self-sacrificing ones really got. What satisfaction would
he
get, for instance, in the consciousness that he had thrown a girl who attracted him, into the arms of an idiot who excited his hate?

He looked long at Lacrima, as she stood with Gladys, under a sycamore, waiting his approach. It was curious, he said to himself,—very curious,—the sort of feelings she excited in him. It was not that he wished to possess her. He was scornfully cynical
about that sort of gratification. He wished to do more than possess her. He wished to humiliate her, to degrade her, to put her to shame in her inmost spirit. He wished her to know that he knew that she was suffering this shame, and that he was the cause of it. He wished her to feel herself absolutely in his power, not bodily—that was nothing!—but morally, and spiritually.

The owner of Leo’s Hill had the faculty of
detaching
himself from his own darkest thoughts, and of observing them with a humorous and cynical eye. It struck him as not a little grotesque, that he, the manipulater of far-flung financial intrigues, the
ambitious
politician, the formidable captain of industry, should be thus scheming and plotting to satisfy the caprice of a mere whim, upon the destiny of a penniless dependent. It
was
grotesque—grotesque and ridiculous. Let it be! The whole business of living was grotesque and ridiculous. One snatched fiercely at this thing or the other, as the world moved round; and one was not bound always to present oneself in a dignified mask before one’s own tribunal. It was enough that this or that fantasy of the
dominant
power-instinct demanded a certain course of action. Let it be as grotesque as it might! He, and none other, was the judge of his pleasure, of what he pleased to do, or to refrain from doing. It was his humour;—and that ended it! He lived to fulfil his humour. There was nothing else to live for, in this fantastic chaotic world! Meditating in this manner he approached the girls.

“It occurred to me,” he said, breathing a little hard, and addressing his daughter, “that you might
be seeing Mr. Clavering again tonight. If so,
perhaps
you would give him a message from me, or rather,—how shall I put it?—a suggestion, a gentle hint.”

“What are you driving at, father?” asked Gladys, pouting her lips and swinging her parasol.

“It is a message best delivered by mouth,” Mr. Romer went on, “and by your mouth.”

Then as if to turn this last remark into a delicate compliment, he playfully lifted up the girl’s chin with his finger and made as if to kiss her. Gladys, however, lightly evaded him, and tossing her head mischievously, burst out laughing. “I know you, father, I know you,” she cried. “You want me to do some intriguing for you. You never kiss me like that, unless you do!”

Lacrima glanced apprehensively at the two of them. Standing there, in the midst of that charming English scene, they represented to her mind all that was remorseless, pitiless and implacable in this island of her enforced adoption. Swiftly, from those ruddy pinnacles of the great house behind them, her mind reverted to the little white huts in a certain Apennine valley and the tinkling bells of the goats led back from pasture. Oh how she hated all this heavy foliage and these eternally murmuring doves!

“Well,” said Mr. Romer, as Gladys waited
mockingly
, “I do want you to do something. I want you to hint to our dear clergyman that this ceremony of your reception into his church is dependent upon his good behaviour. Not
your
good behavior,” he repeated smiling, “but
his
. The truth is, dear child, if I may speak quite plainly, I know the persuasive
power of your pretty face over all these young men; and I want you to make it plain to this worthy priest that if you are to continue being nice to him, he must be very nice to
me
. Do you catch my
meaning
, my plump little bird?” As he spoke he encircled her waist with his arm. Lacrima, watching them, thought how singularly alike father and daughter were, and was conscious of an instinctive desire to run and warn this new victim of conspiracy.

“Why, what has he been doing, father?” asked the fair girl, shaking herself free, and opening her parasol.

“He has been supporting that fellow Wone. And he has been talking nonsense about Quincunx,—yes, about your friend Quincunx,” he added, nodding ironically towards Lacrima.

“And I am to punish him, am I?” laughed Gladys. “That is lovely! I love punishing people, especially people like Mr. Clavering who think they are so wonderfully good!”

Mr. Romer smiled. “Not exactly punish him, dear, but lead him gently into the right path. Lead him, in fact, to see that the party to belong to in this village is the party of capacity—not the party of chatter.”

Gladys looked at her father seriously. “You don’t mean that you are actually afraid of losing this
election
?” she said. Mr. Romer stretched out his arm and rested himself against the umbrageous sycamore, pressing his large firm hand upon its trunk.

“Losing it, child? No, I shan’t lose it. But these idiots do really annoy me. They are all such cowards and such sentimental babies. It is people like these who
have to be ruled with a firm hand. They cringe and whimper when you talk to them; and then the moment your back is turned they grow voluble and
impertinent
. My workmen are no better. They owe
everything
to me. If it wasn’t for me, half those quarries would be shut down tomorrow and they’d be out of a job. But do you think they are grateful? Not a bit of it!” His tone grew more angry. He felt a need of venting the suppressed rage of many months. “Yes, you needn’t put on that unconscious look, Lacrima. I know well enough where
your
sympathies lie. The fact is, in these rotten days, it is the incapable and miserable who give the tone to everyone! No one thinks for himself. No one goes to the bottom of things. It is all talk—talk—talk; talk about equality, about liberty, about
kindness
to the weak. I hate the weak; and I refuse to let them interfere with me! Look at the faces of these people. Well,—you know, Gladys, what they are like. They are all feeble, bloodless, sneaking,
fawning
idiots! I hate the faces of these Nevilton fools. They are always making me think of slugs and worms. This Wone is typical. His disgusting complexion and flabby mouth is characteristic of them all. No one of them has the spirit to hit one properly back, face to face. And their odious, sentimental religion!—This Clavering of yours ought to know better. He is not quite devoid of intelligence. He showed some spirit when I talked with him. But he is besotted, too, with this silly nonsense about humouring the people, and considering the people, and treating the people in a Christian spirit! As though you could treat worms and slugs in any other spirit than the
spirit of trampling upon them. They are born to be trampled upon—born for it—I tell you! You have only to look at them!” He glared forth over the soft rich fields; and continued, still more bitterly:

“Its no good your pretending not to hear me, Lacrima! I can read your thoughts like an open book. You are quoting to yourself, no doubt, at this very moment, some of the pretty speeches of your friend Quincunx. A nice fellow, he is, for a girl’s teacher! A fellow with no idea of his own in his head! A fellow afraid to raise his eyes above one’s boot-laces! Why the other day, when I was out shooting and met him in the lane, he turned straight round, and walked back on his tracks—simply from fear of passing me. I hate these
sneaking
cowards! I hate their cunning, miserable, little ways! I should like to trample them all out of existence! That is the worst of being strong in this world. One is worried to death by a lot of fools who are not worth the effort spent on them.”

Lacrima uttered no word, but looked sadly away, over the fair landscape. In her heart, in spite of her detestation of the man, she felt a strange fantastic sympathy with a good deal of what he said. Women, especially women of Latin races, have no great respect for democratic sentiments when they do not issue in definite deeds. Her private idea of a revolutionary leader was something very far removed from the voluble local candidate, and she had suffered too much herself from the frail petulance of Maurice Quincunx not to feel a secret longing that somewhere, somehow, this aggressive tyrant should be faced by a strength as firm, as capable, as fearless, as his own.