Watersprings

XVIII

THE PICNIC

Jack arrived at Windlow in due course, and brought with him Guthrie to stay. Howard thought, and was ashamed of thinking, that Jack had some scheme on foot; and the arrival of Guthrie was embarrassing to him, as likely to complicate an already too complicated situation.

A plan was made for a luncheon picnic on the hill. There was a tower on the highest eminence of the down, some five miles away, a folly built by some wealthy squire among woodlands, and commanding wide views; it was possible to drive to a village at the foot, and to put up vehicles at a country inn; and it was proposed that they should take luncheon up to the tower, and eat it there. The Sandys party were to drive there, and Howard was to drive over with Miss Merry and meet them. Howard did not at all relish the prospect. He had a torturing desire for the presence of Maud, and yet he seemed unable to establish any communication with her; and he felt that the liveliness of the young men would reduce him to a condition of amiable ineffectiveness which would make him, as Marie Bashkirtseff naively said, hardly worth seeing. However, there was no way out, and on a delicious July morning, with soft sunlight everywhere, and great white clouds floating in a sky of turquoise blue, Howard and Miss Merry started from Windlow. The little lady was full of decorous glee, and her mirth, like a working cauldron, threw all her high-minded tastes to the surface. She asked Howard's opinion about quite a number of literary masterpieces, and she ingenuously gave utterance to her meek and joyful views of life, the privileges she enjoyed, and the inspiration which she derived from the ethical views of Robert Browning. Howard found himself wondering why it was all so dreadfully uninteresting and devoid of charm; he asked himself whether, if the little spinster had been personally more attractive, her optimistic chirpings would have seemed to have more significance. Miss Merry had a perfectly definite view of life, and she made life into a distinct success; she was a happy woman, sustained by an abundance of meek enthusiasm. She accepted everything that happened to her, whether good or evil, with the same eager interest. Suffering, according to Miss Merry, had an educative quality, and life was haunted for her by echoes of excellent literature, accurately remembered. But Howard had a feeling that one must not swallow life quite so uncritically, that there ought somehow to be more discrimination; and Miss Merry's eager adoration of everything and everybody reduced him to a flatness which he found it difficult to conceal. He could not think what was the matter with her views. She revelled in what she called problems, and the more incomplete that anything appeared, the more certain was Miss Merry of ultimate perfection. There did not seem any room for humanity, with its varying moods, in her outlook; and yet Howard had the grace to be ashamed of his own sullen dreariness, which certainly did not appear to lend any dignity to life. But he had not the heart to spoil the little lady's pleasure, and engaged in small talk upon moderately abstract topics with courteous industry. "Of course," said his companion confidingly, "all that I do is on a very small scale, but I think that the quality of it is what matters—the quality of one's ideal, I mean." Howard murmuringly assented. "I have sometimes even wished," she went on, "that I had some real trouble of my own—that seems foolish to you, no doubt, because my life is such an easy one—but I do feel that my happiness rather cuts me off from other people—and I don't want to be cut off from other people; I desire to know how and why they suffer."

"Ah," said Howard, "while you feel that, it is all right; but the worst of real suffering is, I believe, that it is apt to be entirely dreary—it is not at all romantic, as it seems from the outside; indeed it is the loss of all that sense of excitement which makes suffering what it is. But really I have no right to speak either, for I have had a very happy life too."

Miss Merry heard him moist-eyed and intent. "Yes, I am sure that is true!" she said. "I suppose we all have just as much as we can use—just as much as it is good for us to have."

They found that the others had arrived, and were unpacking the luncheon. Maud greeted Howard with a shy expectancy; but the sight of her, slender and fresh in her rough walking-dress, renewed his strange pangs. What did he want of her, he asked himself; what was this mysterious and unmanning sense, that made him conscious of every movement and every word of the girl? Why could he not meet her in a cheerful, friendly, simple way, and make the most of her enchanting company?

Mr. Sandys was in great spirits, revelling in arrangements and directions. But the wind was taken out of his sails by the two young men, who were engaged in enacting a bewildering kind of drama, a saga, of which the venerable Mr. Redmayne appeared to be the hero. Guthrie, who was in almost overpowering spirits, took the part of Mr. Redmayne, whom he imitated with amazing fidelity. He had become, it seemed, a man of low and degrading tastes—'Erb Redmayne, he was called, or old 'Erb, whose role was to lead the other authorities of the college into all kinds of disreputable haunts, to prompt them to absurd misdeeds, to take advantage of their ingenuousness, to make scapegoats of them, and to adroitly evade justice himself.

On this occasion 'Erb Redmayne seemed to have inveigled the Master, whose part was taken by Jack, to a race-meeting, to be introducing him to the Most unsatisfactory company, to force him to put money on certain horses, to evade the payment of debts incurred, to be detected in the act of absconding, and to leave the unfortunate Master to bear the brunt of public indignation. Guthrie seemed at first a little shy of enacting this drama before Howard, but Jack said reassuringly, "Oh, he won't give us away—it will amuse him!" This extravaganza continued with immense gusto and emphasis all the way to luncheon, 'Erb Redmayne treating the Master with undisguised contempt, and the Master performing meekly his bidding. Mr. Sandys was in fits of laughter. "Excellent, excellent!" he cried among his paroxysms. "You irreverent young rascals—but it was just the sort of thing we used to do, I am afraid!"

There was no doubt that it was amusing; in another mood Howard would have been enchanted by the performance, and even flattered at being allowed to overhear it. Mr. Redmayne was admirably rendered, and Jack's performance of the anxious and courteous Master, treading the primrose path reluctantly and yet subserviently, was very nearly as good. But Howard simply could not be amused, and it made it almost worse for him to see that Maud was delighted, while even Miss Merry was obviously though timidly enjoying the enlargement of her experience, and exulting in her freedom from any priggish disapproval.

They made their way to the top and found the tower, a shell of masonry, which could be ascended by a winding staircase in a turret. The view, from the platform at the summit, was certainly enchanting. The tower stood in an open heathery space, with woods enclosing it on every side; from the parapet they looked down over the steeply falling tree-tops to an immense plain, where a river widened to the sea. Howard, side by side with Maud, gazed in silence. Mr. Sandys identified landmarks with a map. "How nice it is to see a bit of the world!" said Maud, "and how happy and contented it all looks. It seems odd to think of men and women down there, creeping about their work, going to and fro as usual, and not aware that they are being looked down upon like this. It all seems a very simple business."

"Yes," said Howard, "that is the strange thing. It does seem so simple and tranquil! and yet one knows that down there people have their troubles and anxieties—people are ill, are dying—are wondering what it all means, why they are set just there, and why they have so short a time to stay!"

"I suppose it all fits into itself," said Maud, "somehow or other. I don't think that life really contradicts itself!"

"I don't know," said Howard, with a sudden access of dreariness; "that is exactly what it DOES seem to do—that's the misery of it!"

The girl looked at him but did not speak; he gave her an uneasy smile, and she presently turned away and looked over her father's map.

They went down and lunched on a green bank among the fern, under some old oaks. The sunlight fell among the glades; a flock of tits, chirruping and hunting, rushed past them and plunged downward into the wood. They could hear a dove in the high trees near them, crooning a song of peace and infinite content. Mr. Sandys, stung by emulation, related a long story, interspersed with imitations, of his undergraduate days; and Howard was content to sit and seem to listen, and to watch the light pierce downwards into the silent woodland. An old woodman, grey and bent and walking painfully, in great leather gloves and gaiters, carrying a chopper, passed slowly along the ride and touched his hat. Jack insisted on giving him some of the luncheon, and made up a package for him which the old man put away in a pocket, making some remarks about the weather, and adding with a senile pride that he was over seventy, and had worked in the woodland for sixty years and more. He was an almost mediaeval figure, Howard thought—a woodman five centuries ago would have looked and spoken much the same; he knew nothing of the world, or the thoughts and hopes of it; he was almost as much of the soil as the very woods themselves, in his dim mechanical life; was man made for that after all? How did that square with Miss Merry's eager optimism? What was the meaning of so unconscious a figure, so obviously without an ethical programme, and yet so curiously devised by God, patiently nurtured and preserved?

In the infinite peace, while the flies hummed on the shining bracken, and the breeze nestled in the firs like a falling sea, Howard had a spasm of incredulous misery. Could any heart be so heavy, so unquiet as his own?—life suddenly struck so aimless, with but one overmastering desire, which he could not fulfil. He was shocked at his feebleness. A year ago he could have devised no sweeter or more delicious day than this, with such a party, in the high sunlit wood. . . .

The imitations began again.

"I don't believe there's anyone you could not imitate!" said Mr. Sandys rapturously.

"Oh, it's only a knack," said Guthrie, "but some people are easier than others."

Howard bestirred himself to express some interest.

"Why, he can imitate YOU to the life," said Jack.

"Oh, come, nonsense!" said Guthrie, reddening; "that is really low, Jack."

"I confess to a great curiosity about it," said Mr. Sandys.

"Oh, don't mind me," said Howard; "it would amuse me above everything—like catching a glance at oneself in an unexpected mirror!"

Guthrie, after a little more pressing, yielded. He said a few sentences, supposed to be Howard teaching, in a rather soft voice, with what seemed to Howard a horribly affected and priggish emphasis. But the matter displeased him still more. It was facetious, almost jocose; and there was a jerky attempt at academic humour in it, which seemed to him particularly nauseous, as of a well-informed and quite superior person condescending to the mildest of witticisms, to put himself on a level with juvenile minds. Howard had thought himself both unaffected and elastic in his communications with undergraduates, and this was the effect he produced upon them! However, he mastered his irritation; the others laughed a little tentatively; it was felt for a moment that the affair had just passed the limits of conventional civility. Howard contrived to utter a species of laugh, and said, "Well, that's quite a revelation to me. It never occurred to me that there could be anything to imitate in my utterance; but then it is always impossible to believe that anyone can find anything to discuss in one behind one's back—though I suppose no one can escape. I must get a stock of new witticisms, I think; the typical ones seem a little threadbare."

"Oh no, indeed," said Miss Merry, gallantly; "I was just thinking how much I should like to be taught like that!"

The little incident seemed rather to damp the spirits of the party. Guthrie himself seemed deeply annoyed at having consented: and it was a relief to all when Mr. Sandys suddenly pulled out his watch and said, "Well, all pleasant things come to an end—though to be sure there is generally another pleasant thing waiting round the corner. I have to get back, but I am not going to spoil the party. I shall enjoy a bit of a walk."

"Well," said Howard, "I think I will set you on your way. I want a talk about one or two things; but I will come back to chaperon Miss Merry—I suppose I shall find you somewhere about?"

"Yes," said Miss Merry, "I am going to try a sketch—but I must not have anyone looking over my shoulder. I am no good at sketching—but I like to be made to look close at a pretty thing. I am going to try the chalk-pit and thicket near the tower—chalk-pits suit my style, because one can leave so much of the paper white!"

"Very well," said Howard, "I will be back here in an hour."

Howard and Mr. Sandys started off through the wood. Mr. Sandys was full of communications. He began to talk about Guthrie. "Such a good friend for Jack!" he said; "I hope he bears a good character in the college? Jack seems to be very much taken up with him, and says there is no nonsense about him—almost the highest commendation he has in his power to bestow—indeed I have heard him use the same phrase about yourself! Young Guthrie seems such a natural and unaffected fellow—indeed, if I may say so, Howard, it seemed to me a high compliment to yourself, and to speak volumes for your easy relation with young men, that he should have ventured to take you off to your face just now, and that you should have been so sincerely amused. It isn't as if he were a cheeky sort of boy—if I may be allowed such an expression. He treats me with the pleasantest deference and respect—and when I think of his father's wealth and political influence, that seems to me a charming trait! There is nothing uppish about him."

"No, indeed," said Howard; "he is a thoroughly nice fellow!"

"I am delighted to hear you say so," said Mr. Sandys, "and your kindness emboldens me to say something which is quite confidential; but then we are practically relations, are we not? Perhaps it is only a father's partiality; but have you noticed, may I say, anything in his manner to my dear Maud? It may be only a passing fancy, of course. 'In the spring,' you remember, 'a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love'—a beautiful line that, though of course it is not strictly applicable to the end of July. I need hardly say that such a connection would gladden my heart. I am all for marriage, Howard, for early marriage, the simplest and best of human experiences; of course it has more sides than one to it. I should not like it to be supposed that a country parson like myself had in the smallest degree inveigled a young man of the highest prospects into a match—there is nothing of the matchmaker about me; but Maud is in a degree well-connected; and, as you know, she will be what the country people here call 'well-left'—a terse phrase, but expressive! I do not see that she would be in any way unworthy of the position—and I feel that her life here is a little secluded—I should like her to have a little richer material, so to speak, to work in. Well, well, we mustn't be too diplomatic about these things. 'Man proposes'—no humorous suggestion intended—'and God disposes'—but if it should so turn out, without any scheming or management—things which I cordially detest—if it should open out naturally, why, I should be lacking in candour if I pretended it would not please me. I believe in early engagements, and romance, and all that—I fear I am terribly sentimental—and it is just the thing to keep a young man straight. Sir Henry Guthrie might be disposed to view it in that light—what do you think?"

This ingenuous statement had a very distressing effect on Howard. It is one thing to dally with a thought, however seriously, in one's own mind, and something quite different to have it presented in black and white through the frank conjecture of another. He put a severe constraint upon himself and said, "Do you know, Frank, the same thought had occurred to me—I had believed that I saw something of the kind; and I can honestly say that I think Guthrie a very sound fellow indeed in every way—quite apart from his worldly prospects. He is straight, sensible, good-humoured, capable, and, I think, a really unselfish fellow. If I had a daughter of my own I could not imagine a better husband."

"You delight me inexpressibly," said Mr. Sandys. "So you had noticed it? Well, well, I trust your perception far more than my own; and of course I am biassed—you might almost incline to say dazzled—by the prospect: heir to a baronetcy (I could wish it had been of an earlier creation), rich, and, as you say, entirely reliable and straight. Of course I don't in any way wish to force matters on. I could not bear to be thought to have unduly encouraged such an alliance—and Maud may marry any nice fellow she has a fancy to marry; but I think that she is rather drawn to young Guthrie—what do you think? He amuses her, and she is at her best with him—don't you think so?"

"Yes," said Howard, "I had thought so. I think she likes him very much."

"Well, we will leave it at that," said Mr. Sandys in high gusto. "You don't mind my confiding in you thus, Howard? Somehow, if I may say it, I find it very easy to speak confidentially to you. You are so perceptive, so sympathetic! We all feel that it is the secret of your great influence."

They talked of other matters after this as they walked along the crest of the downs; and where the white road began to descend into the valley, with the roofs of Windlow glimmering in the trees a little to the north, Howard left the Vicar and retraced his steps.

He was acutely miserable; the thing had come upon him with a shock, and brought the truth home to him in a desperate way. But he experienced at the same time a certain sensation, for a moment, of grim relief. His fancy, his hope—how absurd and idiotic they had been!—were shattered. How could he ever have dreamed that the girl should come to care for him in that way—an elderly Don of settled habits, who had even mistaken a pompous condescension to the young men of his College for a natural and sympathetic relation—that was what he was. The melancholy truth stared him in the face. He was sharply disillusioned. He had lingered on, clinging pathetically to youth, and with a serene complacency he had overlooked the flight of time. He was a dull, middle-aged man, fond of sentimental relations and trivial confidences, who had done nothing, effected nothing; had even egregiously failed in the one thing he had set himself to do, the retaining his hold on youth. Well, he must face it! He must be content to settle down as a small squire; he must disentangle himself from his Cambridge work gradually—it sickened him to think of it—and he must try to lead a quiet life, and perhaps put together a stupid book or two. That was to be his programme. He must just try to be grateful for a clear line of action. If he had had nothing but Cambridge to depend upon, it would have been still worse. Now he must settle down to county business if he could, and clear his mind of all foolish regrets. Love and marriage—he was ten years too late! He had dawdled on, taking the line of least resistance, and he was now revealed to himself in a true and unsparing light. He paced swiftly on, and presently entered the wood. His feet fell soft on the grassy road among the coverts.

Suddenly, as he turned a corner, he saw a little open glade to the right. A short way up the glade stood two figures—Guthrie and Maud—engaged in conversation. They were standing facing each other. She seemed to be expostulating with him in a laughing way; he stood bareheaded, holding his hat in his hand, eagerly defending himself. The pose of the two seemed to show an easy sort of comradeship. Maud was holding a stick in both hands behind her, and half resting upon it. They seemed entirely absorbed in what they were saying. Howard could not bear to intrude upon the scene. He fell back among the trees, retraced his steps, and then sat down on a grassy bank, a little off the path, and waited. It was the last confirmation of his fears. It was not quite a lover-like scene, but they evidently understood each other, and were wholly at their ease together, while Guthrie's admiring and passionate look did not escape him. He rested his head in his hands, and bore the truth as he might have borne a physical pain. The summer woods, the green thickets, the sunlight on the turf, the white clouds, the rich plain just visible through the falling tree-trunks, all seemed to him like a vision seen by a spirit in torment, something horribly unreal and torturing. The two streams of beauty and misery appeared to run side by side, so distinct, so unblending; but the horrible fact was that though sorrow was able not only to assert its own fiery power, like the sting of some malignant insect, it could also obliterate and efface joy; it could even press joy into its service, to accentuate its torment; while the joy and beauty of life seemed wholly unable to soothe or help him, but were brushed aside, just as a stern soldier, armed and mailed, could brush aside the onslaught of some delicate and frenzied boy. Was pain the stronger power, was it the ultimate power? In that dark moment, Howard felt that it was. Joy seemed to him like a little pool of crystalline water, charming enough if tended and sheltered, but a thing that could be soiled and scattered in a moment by the onrush of some foul and violent beast.

He came at last to the rendezvous. Miss Merry sat at her post transferring to a little block of paper a smeared and streaky picture of the chalk-pit, which seemed equally unintelligible at whatever angle it might be held. Jack was couched at a little distance in the heather, smoking a pipe. Howard went and sat down moodily beside him. "An odd thing, a picnic," said Jack musingly; "I am not sure it is not an invention of the devil. Is anything the matter, Howard? You look as if things had gone wrong. You don't mind that nonsense of Guthrie's, do you? I was an ass to get him to do it; I hate doing a stupid thing, and he is simply wild with me. It's no good saying it is not like, because it is in a way, but of course it's only a rag. It isn't absurd when you do it, only when someone else does."

"Oh no, I don't mind about that," said Howard; "do make that plain to Guthrie. I am out of sorts, I think; one gets bothered, you know—what is called the blues."

"Oh, I know," said Jack sympathetically; "I don't suffer from them myself as a rule, but I have got a touch of them to-day. I can't understand what everyone is up to. Fred Guthrie has got the jumps. It looks to me," he went on sagely, "as if he was what is commonly called in love: but when the other person is one's sister, it seems strange. Maud isn't a bad girl, as they go, but she isn't an angel, and still less a saint; but Fred has no eyes for anyone else; I can't screw a sensible word out of him. These young people!" said Jack with a sour grimace; "you and I know better. One ought to leave the women alone; there's something queer about them; you never know where you are with them."

Howard regarded him in silence for a moment: it did not seem worth while to argue; nothing seemed worth while. "Where are they?" he said drearily.

"Oh, goodness knows!" said Jack; "when I last saw them he was beating down the ferns with a stick for Maud to go through. He's absolutely demented, and she is at one of her games. I think I shall sheer off, and go to visit some sick people, like the governor; that's about all I feel up to."

At this moment, however, the truants appeared, walking silently out of a glade. Howard had an obscure feeling that something serious had happened—he did not know what. Guthrie looked dejected, and Maud was evidently preoccupied. "Oh, damn the whole show!" said Jack, getting up. "Let's get out of this!"

"We lost our way," said Maud, rather hurriedly, "and couldn't find our way back."

Maud went up to Miss Merry, asked to see her sketch, and indulged in some very intemperate praise. Guthrie came up to Howard, and stammered through an apology for his rudeness.

"Oh, don't say anything more," said Howard. "Of course I didn't mind! It really doesn't matter at all."

The day was beginning to decline; and in an awkward silence, only broken by inconsequent remarks, the party descended the hill, regained the carriages, and drove off in mournful silence. As the Vicarage party drove away, Jack glanced at Howard, raised his eyes in mock despair, and gave a solemn shake of his head.

Howard followed with Miss Merry, and talked wildly about the future of English poetry, till they drove in under the archway of the Manor and his penance was at an end.