Watersprings

VI

THE HOME CIRCLE

He returned somewhat late, to find tea over and Mrs. Graves gone to her room; but there was tea waiting for him in the library; he went there, and for a while turned over his book, which seemed to him now to be illumined with a new light. It was this that he had been looking for, this gift of power; it was that which lay behind his speculations; he had suspected it, inferred it, but not perceived it; he saw now whither his thought had been conducting him, and why he had flagged in the pursuit.

He went up to dress for dinner, and came down as soon as the bell rang. He found that Jack's father and sister had arrived. He went into the dimly lighted room. Mr. Sandys, a fine-looking robust man, clean-shaven, curly-haired, carefully and clerically dressed, was standing by Mrs. Graves; he came forward and shook hands. "I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr. Kennedy," he said, "though indeed I seem to know a great deal about you from Jack. You are quite a hero of his, you know, and I want to thank you for all your kindness to him. I am looking forward to having a good talk with you about his future. By the way, here is my daughter, Maud, who is quite as anxious to see you as I am." A figure sitting in a corner, talking to Miss Merry, rose up, came forward into the light, and held out her hand with rather a shy smile.

Howard was amazed at what he saw. Maud had an extraordinary likeness to her brother, but with what a difference! Howard saw in an instant what it was that had haunted him in the aspect of Jack. This was what he seemed to have discerned all the time, and what had been baffling him. He knew that she was nineteen, but she looked younger. She was not, he thought, exactly beautiful—but how much more than beautiful; she was very finely and delicately made, and moved with an extraordinary grace; pale and fair, but with a look of perfect health; her features were very small, and softly rather than finely moulded; she had the air of some flower—a lily he thought—which was emphasised by her simple white dress. The under-lip was a little drawn in, which gave the least touch of melancholy to the face; but she had clear blue trustful eyes, the expression of which moved him in a very singular manner, because they seemed to offer a sweet and frank confidence. Her self-possession gave the least little sense of effort. He took the small firm and delicate hand in his, and was conscious of something strong and resolute in the grasp of the tiny fingers. She murmured something about Jack being so sorry to be away; and Howard to recover himself said: "Yes, he wrote to me to explain—we are going to do some work together, I believe."

"Yes, it's most kind of you," said Mr. Sandys, putting his arm within his daughter's with a pleasant air of fatherliness. "I am afraid industry isn't Jack's strong point? Of course I am anxious about his future—you must be used to that sort of thing! but we will defer all this until after dinner, when Mrs. Graves will allow us to have a good talk."

"We will see," said Mrs. Graves, rising; "Howard is here for a holiday, you know. Howard, will you lead the way; you don't know how my ceremonial soul enjoys having a real host to preside!"

Maud took Howard's arm, and the touch gave him a quite unreasonable thrill of pleasure; but he felt too quite insupportably elderly. What could he find to talk to this enchanting child about? He wished he had learned more about her tastes and ideas. Was this the creature of whom Jack had talked so patronisingly? He felt almost angry with his absent pupil for not having prepared him for what he would meet.

As soon as they were seated Mr. Sandys launched into the talk, like an eagle dallying with the wind. He struck Howard as an extremely good-natured, sensible, buoyant man, with a perpetual flow of healthy interests. Nothing that he said had the slightest distinction, and his power of expression was quite unequal to the evident vividness of his impressions. He had a taste for antithesis, but no grasp of synonyms. Every idea in Mr. Sandys' mind fell into halves, but the second clause was produced, not to express any new thought, but rather to echo the previous clause. He began at once on University topics. He had himself been a Pembroke man, and it had cost him an effort, he said, to send Jack elsewhere. "I don't take quite the orthodox view of education," he said, "in fact I am decidedly heterodox about its aims and the object that it has. It ought not to fall behind its object, and all this specialisation seems to me to be dangerous, and in fact decidedly perilous. My own education was on the old classical lines—an excellent gymnastic, I think, and distinctly fortifying. The old masterpieces, you know, Thucydides and so forth—they should be the basis—the foundation so to speak. But we must not forget the superstructure, the house of thought, if I may use the expression. You must forgive my ventilating these crude ideas, Mr. Kennedy. I went in myself, after taking my degree, for a course of general reading. Goethe and Schiller, you know. Yes, how fine that all is, though I sometimes feel it is a little Teutonic? One needs to correct the Teutonic bias, and it is just there that the gymnastic of the classics comes in; it gives one a standard—a criterion in fact. One must have a criterion, mustn't one, or it is all loose, and indeed, so to speak, illusive? I am all for formative education; and it is there that women—I speak frankly in the presence of three intelligent women—it is there that they suffer. Their education is not formative enough—not formal enough, in fact! Now, I have tried with dear Maud to communicate just that touch of formality. You would be surprised, Mr. Kennedy, to know what Maud has read under my guidance. Not learned, you know—I don't care for that—but with a standard, or if I may revert to my former expression, a criterion."

He paused for a moment, saw that he was belated, and finished his soup hastily.

"Yes," said Howard, "of course that is the real problem of education—to give a standard, and not to extinguish the taste for intellectual things, which is too often what we contrive to do."

"Now we must not be too serious all at once," said Mrs. Graves. "If we exhaust ourselves about education, we shall have nothing to fall back upon—we shall be afraid to condescend. I am deplorably ill-educated myself. I have no standard whatever. I have to consult dear Jane, have I not? Jane is my intellectual touchstone, and saves me from entire collapse."

"Well, well," said Mr. Sandys good-humouredly, "Mr. Kennedy and I will fight it out together sometime. He will forgive an old Pembroke man for wanting to know what is going forward; for scenting the battle afar off, in fact."

Mr. Sandys found no lack of subjects to descant upon; but voluble, and indeed absurd as he was, Howard could not help liking him; he was a good fellow, he could see, and managed to diffuse a geniality over the scene. "I am interested in most things," he said, at the end of a breathless harangue, "and there is something in the presence of a real live student, from the forefront of the intellectual battle, which rouses all my old activities—stimulates them, in fact. This will be a memorable evening for me, Mr. Kennedy, and I have abundance of things to ask you." He did indeed ask a good many things, but he was content to answer them himself. Once indeed, in the course of an immense tirade, in which Mr. Sandys' intellectual curiosity took a series of ever-widening sweeps, Howard caught his neighbour regarding him with a half-amused look, and became aware that she was wondering if he were playing Jack's game. Their eyes met, and he knew that she knew that he knew. He smiled and shook his head. She gave him a delighted little smile, and Howard had that touch of absurd ecstasy, which visits men no longer young, when they find themselves still in the friendly camp of the young, and not in the hostile camp of the middle-aged.

Presently he said to her something about Jack, and how much he enjoyed seeing him at Cambridge. "He is really rather a wonderful person," he added. "There isn't anyone at Beaufort who has such a perfectly defined relation to everyone in the college, from the master down to the kitchen-boys. He talks to everyone without any embarrassment, and yet no one really knows what he is thinking! He is very deep, really, and I think he has a fine future before him."

Maud lighted up at this, and said: "Do you really think so?" and added, "You know how much he admires you?"

"I am glad to be assured of it," said Howard; "you would hardly guess it from some of the things he says to me. It's awful, but he can't be checked—and yet he never oversteps the line, somehow."

"He's a queer boy," said Maud. "The way he talked to the Archdeacon the other day was simply fearful; but the Archdeacon only laughed, and said to papa afterwards that he envied him his son. The Archdeacon was giggling half the afternoon; he felt quite youthful, he said."

"It's the greatest gift to be able to do that," said Howard; "it's a sort of fairy wand—the pumpkin becomes a coach and four."

"Jack's right ear must be burning, I think," said Maud, "and yet he never seems to want to know what anyone thinks about him."

That was all the talk that Howard had with her at dinner. After the ladies had gone, Mr. Sandys became very confidential about Jack's prospects.

"I look upon you as a sort of relation, you see," he said, "in fact I shall make bold to drop the Mr. and I hope you will do the same? May we indeed take a bold step into intimacy and be 'Howard' and 'Frank' henceforth? I can't, of course, leave Jack a fortune, but when I die the two dear children will be pretty well off—I may say that. What do you think he had better go in for? I should like him to take holy orders, but I don't press it. It brings one into touch with human beings, and I like that. I find human beings very interesting—I am not afraid of responsibility."

Howard said that he did not think Jack inclined to orders.

"Then I put that aside," cried the good-natured Mr. Sandys. "No compulsion for me—the children may do as they like, live as they like, marry whom they like. I don't believe in checking human nature. Of course if Jack could get a Fellowship, I should like him to settle down at Cambridge. There's a life for you! In the forefront of the intellectual battle! It is what I should have liked myself, of all things. To hear what is going on in the intellectual line, to ventilate ideas, to write, to teach—that's a fine life—to be able to hold one's own in talk and discussion—that's where we country people fail. I have plenty of ideas, you know, myself, but I can't put them into shape, into form, so to speak."

"I think Jack would rather like a commercial career," said Howard. "It's the only thing he has ever mentioned; and I am sure he might do well if he could get an opening; he likes real things, he says."

"He does!" said Mr. Sandys enthusiastically—"that's what he always says. Do you know, if you won't think me very vain, Howard, I believe he gets that from me. Maud is different—she takes after her dear mother—whose loss was so irreparable a calamity—my dear wife was full of imagination; it was a beautiful mind. I will show you some of her sketches when you come to see us—I am looking forward to that—not much technique, perhaps, but a real instinct for beauty; to be just, a little lacking in form, but full of feeling. Well, Jack, as I was saying, likes reality. So do I! A firm hold on reality—that's the best thing; I was not intellectual enough for the life of thought, and I fell back on humanity—vastly engrossing! I assure you, though you would hardly think it, that even these simple people down here are most interesting: no two of them alike. My old friends say to me sometimes that I must find country people very dull, but I always say, 'No two of them alike!' Of course I try to keep my intellectual tastes alive—they are only tastes, of course, not faculties, like yours—but we read and talk and ventilate our ideas, Maud and I; and when we are tired of books, why I fall back on the great book of humanity. We don't stagnate—at least I hope not—I have a horror of stagnation. I said so to the Archdeacon the other day, and he said that there was nothing stagnant about Windlow."

"No, I am quite sure there is not," said Howard politely.

"It's very good of you to say so, Howard," said Mr. Sandys delightedly. "Really quite a compliment! And I assure you, you don't know what a pleasure it is to have a talk like this with a man like yourself, so well-read, so full of ideas. I envy Jack his privileges. I do indeed. Now dear old Pembroke was not like that in my days. There was no one I could talk to, as Jack tells me he talks to you. A man like yourself is a vast improvement on the old type of don, if I may say so. I'm very free, you see! And so you think Jack might do well in commerce? Well, I quite approve. All I want is that he should not be out of touch with human beings. I'm not a metaphysician, but it seems to me that that is what we are here for—touch with humanity—of course on Church of England lines. I'm tolerant, I hope, and can see the good side of other creeds; but give me something comprehensive, and that is the glory of our English Church. Well, you have given me a lot to think of, Howard; I must just take it all away and think it over. It's well to do that, I think? Not to be in a hurry, try to see all round a question? That is my line always!"

They walked into the drawing-room together; and Howard felt curiously drawn to the warm-hearted and voluble man. Perhaps it was for the sake of his children, he thought. There must be something fine about a man who had brought up two such children—but that was not all; the Vicar was enthusiastic; he revelled in life, he adored life; and Howard felt that there was a real fund of sense and even judgment somewhere, behind the spray of the cataract. He was a man whom one could trust, he believed, and whom it was impossible not to like.

When they reached the drawing-room, Mrs. Graves called the Vicar into a corner, and began to talk to him about someone in the village; Howard heard his talk plunge steadily into the silence. Miss Merry flitted about, played a few pieces of music; and Howard found himself left to Maud. He went and sate down beside her. In the dim light the girl sate forward in a big arm-chair; there was nothing languorous or listless about her. She seemed all alert in a quiet way. She greeted him with a smile, and sate turned towards him, her chin on her hand, her eyes upon him. Her shining hair fell over the curves of her young and pure neck. She was holding a flower, which Mrs. Graves had given her, in her other hand, and its fragrance exhaled all about her. Once or twice she checked him with a little gesture of her hand, when Miss Merry began to play, and he could see that she was much affected by the music.

"It seems to me so wrong to talk during music," she said; "perhaps it wasn't polite of me to stop you, but I can't bear to interrupt music—it's like treading on flowers—it can't come again just like that!"

"Yes," said Howard, "I know exactly what you mean; but I expect it is a mistake to think of a beautiful thing being wasted, if we don't happen to hear or see it. It isn't only meant for us. It is the light or the sound or the flower, I think, being beautiful because it is glad."

"Yes," said the girl, "perhaps it is that. That is what Mrs. Graves thinks. Do you know, it seems to me strange that you have never been here before, though you are almost her only relation. She is the most wonderful person I have ever seen. The only person I know who seems always right, and yet never wants anyone else to know she is right."

"Yes," said Howard, "I feel that I have been very foolish—but it has been going on all the time, like the music and the light. It hasn't been wasted. I have had a wonderful talk with her to-day—the most wonderful talk, I think, I have ever had. I can't understand it all yet—but she has given me the sense of some fine purpose—as if I had been kept away for a purpose, because I was not ready; and as if I had come here for a purpose now."

The girl sate looking at him with open eyes, and with some strange sense of surprise. "Yes," she said, "it is just like that; but that you could have seen it so soon amazes me. I have known her all my life, and could never have put that into words. Do you know how things seem to come and go and shift about without any meaning? It is never so with her; she sees what it all means. I cannot explain it."

They sate in silence for a moment, and then Howard said: "It is very curious to be here; you know, or probably you don't know, how much interested I am in Jack; and somehow in talking to him I felt that there was something behind—something more to know. All this"—he waved his hand at the room—"my aunt, your father, yourself—it does not seem to me new and unfamiliar, but something which I have always known. I can't tell you in what a dream I have seemed to be moving ever since I came here. I have been here for twenty-four hours, and yet it seems all old and dear to me."

"I know that feeling," said the girl, "one dips into something that has been going on for ever and ever—I feel like that to-night. It seems odd to talk like this, but you must remember that Jack tells me most things, and I seem to know you quite well. I knew it would be all easy somehow."

"Well, we are a sort of cousins," said Howard lightly. "That's such a comfort; it needn't entail anything, but it can save one all sorts of fencing and ceremony. I want to talk to you about Jack. He is a little mysterious to me still."

"Yes," she said, "he is mysterious, but he really is a dear: he was the most aggravating boy that ever lived, and I sometimes used really to hate him. I am afraid we used to fight a great deal; at least I did, but I suppose he was only pretending, for he never hurt me, and I know I used to hurt him—but then he deserved it!"

"What a picture!" said Howard, smiling; "no wonder that boys go to their private schools expecting to have to fight for their lives. I never had a sister; and that accounts perhaps for my peaceful disposition." He had a sudden sense as he spoke that he was talking as if to an undergraduate in friendly irony. To his surprise and pleasure he saw that his thought had translated itself.

"I suppose that is how you talk to your pupils," said the girl, smiling; "I recognise that—and that's what makes it easy to talk to you as Jack does—it's like an easy serve at lawn-tennis."

"I am glad it is easy," said Howard, "you don't know how many of my serves go into the net!"

"Lawn-tennis!" said Mr. Sandys from the other side of the room. "There's a good game, Howard! I am not much of a hand at it myself, but I enjoy playing. I don't mind making a spectacle of myself. One misses many good things by being afraid of looking a fool. What does it matter, I say to myself, as long as one doesn't FEEL a fool? You will come and play at the vicarage, I hope. Indeed, I want you to go and come just as you like. We are relations, you know, in a sort of way—at least connections. I don't know if you go in for genealogy—it's rather a hobby of mine; it fills up little bits of time, you know. I could reel you off quite a list of names, but Mrs. Graves doesn't care for genealogy, I know."

"Oh, not that!" said Mrs. Graves. "I think it is very interesting. But I rather agree with the minister who advised his flock to pray for good ancestors."

"Ha! ha!" said Mr. Sandys, "excellent, that; but it is really very curious you know, that the further one goes back the more one's ancestors increase. Talk of over-population; why if one goes back thirty or forty generations, the world would be over-populated with the ancestors of any one of us. I remember posing a very clever mathematician with that once; but, as a fact, it's quite the reverse, one finds. Are you interested in neolithic men, Howard? There are graves of them all over the down—it is not certain if they were neolithic, but they had very curious burial customs. Knees up to the chin, you know. Well, well, it's all very fascinating, and I should like to drive you over to Dorchester to look at the museum there—there are some questions I should like to ask you. But we must be off. A delightful evening, cousin Anne; a delightful evening, Howard. I feel quite rejuvenated—such a lot to ponder over."

Howard went to the door to see them off, and was rewarded by a parting smile from Maud, which made him feel curiously elated. He went back to the drawing-room with that faint feeling of flatness which comes of parting with lively guests; and yet it somehow gave him a pleasant sense of being at home.

"Well," said Mrs. Graves, "so now you have seen the Sandys interior. Dear Frank, how he does chatter, to be sure! but he is all alive too in his own way, and that is what matters. What did you think of Maud? I want you to like her—she is a great friend of mine, and really a fine creature. Not very happy just now, perhaps. But while dear old Frank never sees past the outside of things—what a lot of things he does see!—she sees inside, I think. But I am tired to death. I always feel after talking to Frank as if I had been driving in a dog-cart over a ploughed field!"