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Spring Days

G >> George Moore >> Spring Days




But many days had not sped when an event occurred that precipitated
the five acres into the jaws of the builders. Meason had sailed for
Melbourne, and his sister, thinking that some of Sally's letters might
be of use to Mr. Brookes, offered to surrender them upon the receipt
of a cheque for one hundred pounds--a very modest sum, she urged,
considering the character of the letters, most of which concerned
artfully laid plans to meet in the train going or coming from London.
Mr. Brookes called on the shade of dear Julia, but he was not a man to
be blackmailed--he had made all his money himself, and on that point
was immovable. He prepared to leave Southwick. He looked fondly on his
glass-houses, and despairingly on his Friths, Goodalls, and
Bouguereaus, and he wondered if they would look as well in the new
rooms as in the old, and what sum they would realise if he were to
include them in the auction; for an auction was necessary. Mr. Brookes
did not thus decide to abandon his acres without many a sob, nor is it
certain that the final step would have been taken if the gentle
builder had not gilded his insidious hand, and if certain rumours were
not about that the villas in the Southdown Road were not letting, and
that Southwick would never be anything but what it was, a dirty little
village--half suburb, half village.




XVII



Frank was grieved and troubled at the sad accounts that came to him of
Maggie's health; he was perplexed, too, for he knew himself to be the
cause, and he longed to relieve and to cure her. It seemed to him that
he would give his life to go to her, and comfort her with love, and
yet he was impotent to make the least effort to attain the end he
desired. He lay in the sad and cruel memory of Lizzie, his mind filled
with ignoble visions of her life with the waiter, or with delicate
fancies of her beauty amid the summer of the Thames. He mused on her
gracious figure and face, illuminated by reflections from the water,
set off by the bulrushes and floating blossoms which she so eagerly
coveted, and varied by the movements of the waist and shoulders, the
round white arm, the trailing scarf, and all the wistful charm of the
slumbering evening. He thought of the country light, the sound and
smell of cows, of the sparrows in the vine, the cottage looking so
cosy amid the foliage, the bit of garden full of old-fashioned
flowers, tall lilies, convolvuluses, and marigolds, and the sitting-
room full of things belonging to her--her flowers, her books, her
music, and he thought of this until his life was sick with desire, and
there grew a burning pain about his heart.

A man's struggles in the web of a vile love are as pitiful as those of
a fly in the meshes of the spider; he crawls to the edge, but only to
ensnare himself more completely; he takes pleasure in ridiculing her,
but whether he praises or blames, she remains mistress of his life;
all threads are equally fatal, and each that should have served to
bear him out of the trap only goes to bind him faster. A man in love
suggests the spider's web, and when he is seeking to escape from a
woman that will degrade his life, the cruelty which is added completes
and perfects the comparison. A man's love for a common woman is as a
fire in his vitals; sometimes it seems quenched, sometimes it is torn
out by angry hands, but always some spark remains; it contrives to
unite about its victim, and in the end has its way. It is a cancerous
disease, but it cannot be cut out like a cancer. It is more deadly; it
is inexplicable. All good things, wealth and honour, are forfeited for
it; long years of toil, trouble, privation of all kinds, are willingly
accepted; on one side all the sweetness of the world, on the other
nothing of worth, often vice, meanness, ill-temper, all that go to
make life a madness and a terror; twenty, thirty, forty, perhaps fifty
years lie a head of him and her, but the years and their burdens are
not for his eyes any more than the flowers he elects to disdain. Love
is blind, but sometimes there is no love. How then shall we explain
this inexplicable mystery; wonderful riddle that none shall explain
and that every generation propounds?

Frank lingered in Southwick, for he had promised Willy to stay with
him when he went to live at the stables on the Portslade Road. Summer
was nearly over, hunting would soon commence, and he could keep a
couple of hunters--Willy had calculated it out--for two and twenty
shillings a week. He had ceased to paint, and when he went to the
studio it was to play the piano or the violin. None knew of Lizzie,
and all knew of Maggie. It was thought a little strange that he would
not forgive her, but the obscurity of the story of this point and the
delight felt in her misfortune helped to intensify and idealise Frank
in the popular mind, and when he played Gounod in the still evenings
the young ladies would steal from the villas and wander sentimentally
through the shadows about the green. He got up late in the morning, he
lingered over breakfast, and until it was time to go to Brighton he
lay on the sofa watching the cricketers and the children playing,
shaping resolutions, and striving with himself and deceiving himself.
A dozen times, a hundred times, he had concluded he must see Maggie;
he had decided he would write to Lord Mount Rorke, that he would go to
Mr. Brookes and settle the matter off-hand. But, somehow, he did
nothing. His mind was absorbed in a novel, which he narrated when
Willy came to see him. It concerned the accident that led a man not to
marry the woman he loved, and was in the main an incoherent version of
his own life at Southwick.

"I don't think I told you," said Willy, "that they are removing the
furniture to-day."

"You don't say so--to-day? And where is your father?"

"He is in London, at the 'Metropole.'"

The young men walked on slowly in silence, and when they came to the
lodge gate, standing wide open, and saw the curtainless windows and
the flowerless greenhouses, Willy said: "It is very sad to see all the
things you have known since you were a child sold by auction."

"Oh, yes, it is. Look at the swards. Do they not look sad already?
Those beautiful elms, under whose shade we have sat, will be cut down,
and stucco work and glass porticoes take their places. Oh, it is very
sad."

"My father never had any feeling, he never cared for the place. Had I
been in his place I should have invested my money in land and gone in
for the county families."

"How old was I when I came down to see you for the first time--
fourteen, I think? How well I remember everything. It was there, look,
through that glade, that I saw your sisters coming to meet me, they
were then only ten or eleven years old. I can see them in my mind's
eye, quite distinctly, walking towards me, Grace leading the way, and
now she is a mother; and they were all so dark. I remember thinking I
had never seen girls so dark, they were like foreigners. And do you
remember how your father scolded Sally for carrying me round the
garden on her back, and she used to wake me up in the mornings by
rolling croquet balls along the floor into my room. Oh, what good,
dear days those were, and to think they are dead and gone, and that
the house is going to be pulled down; and the garden--oh! the
moonlights in that garden, where I walked with the girls, with scarves
round their shoulders, through the dreamy light and shade. We have
sung songs, and talked of all manner of things. You don't feel as I
feel."

"Yes I do, my dear fellow, I think I feel a great deal more, only I
don't talk so much about it."

"I know it is infinitely sad. This dear old wall! There is Maggie's
window: how often have I looked up to that window for her winsome
face, and I shall never look again."

"You are as bad as my father. Cheer up; I suppose it will be all the
same a hundred years hence."

"No, no, it won't be the same. Why should all I feel and love be
forgotten. I suppose it will be all the same. There goes Berkins. I
hate that man."

"So do I."

"If time takes away pleasant things it takes unpleasant things too,
and those who live a hundred years hence will not be troubled with
that fool. True, there will be other Berkinses, and there will be
other gardens, and other girls, but that doesn't make it the least
less sad to see this garden pass into bricks and mortar."

Two footmen approached Mr. Berkins, and with all solemnity helped him
to take off his overcoat. He said a few words to Willy, and was soon
loudly ordering the workmen who were taking the Goodalls and the
Friths from the walls.

"Take care, there! Hi, you! get on the ladder and take hold of this
end of the picture. There, that's better! That's the way to do it!"

"That's what he said when he shot my bird," Willy whispered; and they
tried to laugh as they went upstairs. But their footsteps sounded
hollow, and the wardrobes, where they had so often put their clothes,
stood wide open, desolately empty. They looked out of the windows, and
heard the voices of the work-people.

"How very sad it is," said Frank; then, after a long silence: "How
beautiful a scene like this would be in a book--a young girl leaving
her home, straying through the different rooms musing on the different
pieces of furniture, all of which recall the past. I think I shall
write it. I wish you would tell me what you feel; I mean, I wish you
would tell me what impresses itself most on your mind, and, as it
were, epitomises the whole. You have known all this since you were a
child. You have played in these passages; some spot, some piece of
furniture, your toys--I suppose they are gone long ago; but something
must stand out and assert itself amid conflicting thoughts. Do tell
me."

Willy stroked his moustache. "Of course it is very sad, but it is
difficult to put one's feelings into words. I should have to think
about it; I don't think I could say off-hand."

At that moment there came a great crash.

"What the devil is that?" cried Frank.

"I hope they haven't broken the statue of Flora," said Willy, and a
look of alarm overspread his face. Frank felt that if such were the
case he should feel no great sorrow. They ran down the echoing stairs.
The workmen had got drunk in the cellars and in removing the statue
they had let it fall, and it strewed the floor--an arm here, a
fragment of drapery there.

"I knew what would happen. I told Mr. Brookes so. All my statues are
in marble."

"Come away, I can't listen to that cad. I wouldn't have had Flora
broken for a hundred pounds. When I was a child I used to stand and
look at her. I never could make out how she was made, and I always
wanted to look inside. If you'd like to know what I feel most sorry
for, it is Flora. She has stood amid the flowers in the bow window as
long as I can remember."

They followed the high road by Windmill Inn, where they struck across
the Downs, and when they reached the first crest they could see the
paddocks and enclosures situated along the road in the valley, and the
private house so trim and middle-class. "Splendid paddocks and first-
rate stabling. The house is not much. When I am making fifteen per
cent. on my money I shall go in for a little architecture. If I had a
glass I could show you Blue Mantle's stable. Do you see two horses in
the paddock, right away on the left, in the far corner--Apple Blossom
and Astarte? Apple Blossom is by See-saw out of Melody, by Stockwell
out of Fairy Queen. Is that good enough for you? Astarte is by Blue
Gown out of Merry Maid, by Beadsman out of Aurora. What do you say to
that?"

"I see you have been looking up the Stud Book."

"Business, sir, business. And if I were to go in for owning a racer or
two, just look and see what a magnificent training ground; miles upon
miles of downland. Did you ever see a handsomer view? You must paint
me some landscapes for my dining-room."




XVIII



"The pain is always here--just over the heart. You know what I mean?
Suddenly, when I am thinking of other things, the sound of her voice
and the sight of her face comes upon me, and then a dead, weary ache.
I know I cannot have her, perhaps if I did I shouldn't be wholly glad;
but glad or sorry, good fortune or ill, I cannot forget her. My life
will not be complete. You have felt all this."

"Never mind how I felt, you know I don't like talking about it. I am
sorry for you. We all have our troubles, I've had nothing else; I
often think that if I were to die to-morrow it would be a happy
release."

"If I had never seen her, or if I had married Maggie; if your father
had not put obstacles in the way; if he had not raised the wretched
money question, which you know as well as I do was dragged in quite
unnecessarily, I should not be suffering now. For, once married, I
should think of no one but my wife. I am sure I should make a good
husband. I know I could make a woman happy; she'll never find a
husband better than she'd have found in me, I don't believe if they
were to be made that you could make a better husband than I should be
--I feel it."

"I have always said that my father brings all his troubles on himself.
He never went in for the country people; he never would have people at
the Manor House. You can't shut up young girls as if they were in a
convent, and if they don't get the right people they'll have the wrong
people. My father thinks of nothing but his money, and he can't
understand that he might go for an equivalent. How could he have
expected it to have turned in your case but as it did? Lord Mount
Rorke was not going to come over to Southwick to haggle over pounds,
shillings, and pence with him--not likely. My sisters might have
married very well if he had gone the right way to work, and he would
have been saved a deal of worry and bother. I always say that my
father brings all his troubles on himself."

"So far as I was concerned he certainly acted very stupidly. Ah, if I
had married Maggie last summer, how different my life would be now."

"But you couldn't have really loved her; if you had you would never--"

"Yes, I did love her."

"I heard from my father to-day. Maggie is better. This is, of course,
a very delicate question, but we have been friends so long--would you
like me to see if--if this matter could be arranged? I don't like, as
you know, to meddle in other people's affairs, I have quite enough to
do to look after my own; but if you would like--You, of course, do not
think of marrying Lizzie Baker?"

"Of course not."

"Then you would like me to speak to my father? Are you willing? Would
you like to marry Maggie?"

"Yes, of course I should."

"I don't say so because she is my sister, but I think it is the best
thing you could do."

They had traversed the paddock, and were close to the stables. Picking
a few carrots out of a heap, they opened the door of Blue Mantle's
box. The horse came towards them, his large eyes glancing, his
beautiful crest arched. His coat shone like satin, his legs were as
fine as steel, and with exquisite relish he drew the carrots from
their hands.

The perspective of the hills was prolonged upon fading tints, and in
the pale blueness the mares feeding in the paddocks grew strangely
solitary and distinct; the trees about the coast towns were blended in
shadow, and out of the first stars fell a quiet peace.

Their dinner awaited them--a little dinner, simple and humble. After
dinner, when the lamp was brought in, Willy nursed the missus with
affection and sincerity. Cissy sat on Frank's knee, and he told her
stories and stroked her hair. This household retired at eleven. At ten
every morning Willy was busy with his letters, his cheques, his
accounts, and in the afternoon the young men walked about the fields
talking of possible successes of the forthcoming breeding season, and
so the days went. But the secret forces were busy about Frank's life.
There were mines and counter-mines. Every fort of prejudice, every
citadel of reason rested now upon foundations that quaked, and would
fall at the first shock. Doom was about him. As the silence rustles in
the deadly hush of the storm that brings winter upon the forest, he
waited unconscious as a leaf in the imminence of the autumn moment;
and in such a stillness, awaiting a change of soul, he received a
letter from Lizzie. It dropped from his hand, and such desire to go as
comes on swallow and cuckoo came on him; he struggled for a moment,
and was sucked down in his passion.

The little village--a summary of English life and custom, a symbol of
the Saxon, the church steeple pointing through the elm trees, the
villas with their various embellishment in the line of glass porticos
and privet hedges, the General, Mrs. Horlick, Messrs Brookes and
Berkins--how complete it seemed, how individual and how synthetical--
his eyes filled with tears of unpremeditated grief. The leaves were
falling, the hills were shrouded in wreaths of floating mist. Some
trees had been cut down and scaffolding had been reared about the
Manor House, some of the walls had already fallen revealing the wall
paper, the pattern of which he could almost distinguish. He was going
to the woman he loved, but he was leaving his youth behind, and those
whom he had known as children, as girls, as women; he remembered all
the gossip, all the quarrels, all the to-do about nothing; and now,
looking on the beautiful garden where he had played and passioned in
all varying moments of grief and glee, he re-lived the past; and
leaning out of the carriage window he gazed fondly, and cried out:
"Alas, those were Spring Days."

THE END

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