they were married abroad as it happened. jim had exchanged; but his regiment, before going on to india, had been appointed to the garrison at malta. there the family had joined him for the winter.
fate had spared sir harry his last disappointment in life. jim had not told him about eleanor. there was no hurry. it could be done at any time. and he had died, after a few days illness, early in the spring. he had been busy, unknown to the others, fixing up with his sister mary for eleanor to come out in london during the season, and had built great hopes upon the result. thus, so far as that matter was concerned, the poor old gentleman had died happy. eleanor and her mother stopped on at a little place up in the hills. anthony came out at the end of the summer; and they had been married in the english church. it was arranged that lady coomber should remain at malta till jim left for india; it might be the next year or the year after. then she would come back to england and live with them at the abbey. anthony had not hoped to be able to take eleanor back to the[pg 190] abbey, but the summer had brought him unusual good fortune. as a matter of fact, everything seemed to be prospering with him just now. he was getting nervous about it, wondering how long it would last. he was glad that he had been able to pay jim a good price for the place; beyond that, when everything was cleared up and lady coomber’s annuity provided for, there would not be much left.
mrs. strong’nth’arm would not come to live at the abbey, though eleanor was anxious that she should and tried to persuade her. whether she thought eleanor did not really want her or whether the reasons she gave him were genuine anthony could not be sure.
“i should be wandering, without knowing it, into the kitchen,” she explained; “or be jumping up suddenly to answer a bell. or maybe,” she added with a smile, “i’d be slipping out of the back door of an evening to the little gate behind the stables, and thinking i saw your father under the shadow of the elms, where he used to be always waiting for me. i’ll be happier in the old square. there are no ghosts there—leastways, not for my eyes to see.”
besides, there was his aunt to be considered. he had thought that she might find a home with one[pg 191] or another of her chapel friends. but mrs. newt had fallen away from grace, as it was termed, and was no longer in touch with her former circle. she had given back her fine tombstone to old batson the stonemason who, not knowing what else to do with it, had used it to replace a broken doorstep leading to his office. she had come to picture her safe arrival at the gates of endless bliss with less complacency. she no longer felt sure of her welcome.
“don’t see what i’ve done to deserve it,” she said. “all that i’ve ever tried to do has been to make myself comfortable in this world and to take good care, as i thought, to be on the right road for the next. i used to think it all depended upon faith: that all you had to do was to believe. but your poor uncle used to say it sounded a bit too cheap to be true. and if he was right and the lord demands works, guess i’ll cut a poor figure.”
the idea had come to her to replace the optimism of her discarded tombstone by a simple statement of facts with underneath: “lord be merciful to me, a sinner.” but the head sexton, on being consulted as a friend, had objected to the quotation as one calculated to let down the tone of the cemetery, and had urged something less committal.
so the two old ladies remained at bruton square, keeping for themselves the basement and the three[pg 192] small rooms at the top. anthony added an extra kitchen and let the rest of the house to a mr. arnold landripp, an architect. he had for some years been occupying the two large schoolrooms as an office. he was a widower. his daughter, who had been at school in the south of england and afterwards at university college, had now joined him. she was aged about twenty, and was said to be a “high-brow.” the term was just coming into use. she was a tall, pale girl with coal black eyes. she wore her hair brushed back from her forehead and, in secret, smoked cigarettes, it was rumoured.
betty and her father lived practically abroad. they had taken a flat in florence and had let the priory furnished to a cousin of mr. mowbray who owned the big steel works at shawley, half-way up the valley.
anthony had been generous over the sharing of profits; and mr. mowbray had expressed himself as more than satisfied.
“i was running the business on to the rocks,” he confessed. “there wouldn’t have been much left for betty. as it is, i shall die with an easy mind, thanks to you.”
he held out his hand. he and anthony had been having a general talk in the great room with its three domed windows that had been mr. [pg 193]mowbray’s private office and was now anthony’s. he and betty would be leaving early the next morning on their return to italy. he hesitated a moment, still holding anthony’s hand, and then spoke again.
“i thought at one time,” he said, “that it might have been a closer relationship than that of mere partners. but she’s a strange girl. i don’t expect she ever will marry. i fancy i frightened her off it.” he laughed. “she knew that i loved her mother with as great a love as any woman could hope for. but it didn’t save me from making her life one of sorrow.
“do you know what’s wrong with the apostles creed?” he said. “they’ve left out the devil. don’t you make the mistake, my lad, of not believing in him. he doesn’t want us to believe in him. he wants us to believe that he is dead, that he never lived, that he’s just an old wives’ tale. we talk about the still small voice of god. yes, if we listen very hard and if it’s all quiet about us, we can hear it. what about the insistent tireless voice of the other one who whispers to us day and night, sits beside us at table, creeps with us into bed? david made a mistake; he should have said, ‘the fear of the devil is the beginning of wisdom.’ it began in the garden of eden. if the lord only hadn’t forgot the serpent! it has been the trouble[pg 194] of all the reformers. they might have accomplished something: if they hadn’t forgotten the devil. it’s the trouble of every youngster, thinking he sees his life before him; they all forget the devil.”
anthony laughed.
“what line of tactics do you suggest for overcoming him?” he asked.
“haven’t myself had sufficient success to justify my giving advice,” answered mr. mowbray. “all i can warn you is that he takes many shapes. sometimes he dresses himself up as a dear old lady and calls himself mother nature. sometimes he wears a shiny hat and claims to be nothing more than a plain man of business. sometimes he comes clothed in glory and calls himself love.”
the old gentleman reached for his hat.
“didn’t expect to find me among the prophets, did you?” he added with a smile.
he was growing feeble, and anthony walked back with him to the priory. they passed st. aldys churchyard on their way.
“i’ll just look in,” said mr. mowbray, “and say good-bye. i always like to before i go away.”
mr. mowbray had bought many years ago the last three vacant graves in the churchyard. his[pg 195] wife lay in the centre one and edward to the right of her.
they stood there for a while in silence.
“i suppose it’s only my fancy,” said mr. mowbray, “but you seem to me to grow more like ted every year. i don’t mean in appearance, though even there i often see a look in your eyes that reminds me of him. but in other ways. sometimes i could almost think it was he speaking.”
“i have changed,” said anthony. “i feel it myself. his death made a great void in my life. i felt that i had been left with a wound that would never heal. and then one day the thought came to me—it can hardly be called a thought. i heard his very voice speaking to me, with just that little note of irritation in it that always came to him when he was arguing and got excited. ‘i am not dead,’ he said. ‘how foolishly you are talking. how can i be dead while you are thinking of me—while you still love me and are wanting me. who wants the dead? it is because you know i live, and that i love you, and always shall, that you want me. i am not dead. i am with you.’”
“yes,” said mowbray after a little pause, “he loved you very dearly. i was puzzled at first because i thought you so opposite to one another. but now i know that it was my mistake.”
[pg 196]
they did not talk during the short remainder of their walk. at the gate of the priory the old gentleman stopped and turned.
“kiss me, anthony,” he said, “there’s nobody about.”
anthony did so. it seemed quite natural somehow. he watched mr. mowbray pass up the flagged causeway to the door and then went back to his work.
betty had been quite frank with him, or so he had thought.
“it’s fortunate we didn’t marry,” she said. “what a muddle it would have ended in—or else a tragedy. do you remember that talk we had one evening?”
“yes,” he answered. “you said that if you ever married it would be a man who would ‘like’ you—think of you as a friend, a comrade.”
“i know,” she laughed. “to be candid, i had you in my mind at the moment. i thought that you would always be so sane—the sort of husband one could rely upon never to kick over the traces. curious how little we know one another.”
“would you really have been satisfied?” he asked, “when it came to the point. would not you have demanded love as your right?”
“i don’t think so,” she answered, musing. “i[pg 197] suppose the explanation is that a woman’s love is maternal rather than sexual. it is the home she is thinking of more than the lover. of course, i don’t mean in every case. there are women for whom their exists one particular he, or no other. but i fancy they are rare.”
“i wonder sometimes,” he said, “what would have happened to me if i’d never met her. i suppose i should have gone on being quite happy and contented.”
“there are finer things than happiness,” she answered.
a child was born to them late in the year. anthony had never seen a baby before, not at close quarters. in his secret heart, he was disappointed that it was not more beautiful. but as the days went by it seemed to him that this defect was passing away. he judged it to be a very serious baby. it had large round serious eyes. even its smile was thoughtful. they called it john anthony.
the elder mrs. strong’nth’arm resented the carriage being sent down for her. she said she wasn’t so old that she could not walk a few miles to see her own grandson. both she and eleanor agreed that he was going to be like anthony. his odd ways, it was, that so strongly reminded the elder mrs. strong’nth’arm of his father at the same age.[pg 198] they came together over john anthony, the elder and the younger mrs. strong’nth’arm.
“it’s her artfulness,” had argued the elder mrs. strong’nth’arm to herself at first; “pretending to want my advice and hanging upon my words; while all the time, i reckon, she’s laughing at me.”
but the next day or the day after she would come again to answer delightedly the hundred questions put to her—to advise, discuss, to gossip and to laugh—to remember on her way home that she had kissed the girl, promising to come again soon.
returning late one afternoon she met anthony on the moor.
“i’ve left her going to sleep,” she said. “don’t disturb her. she doesn’t rest herself sufficiently. i’ve been talking to her about it.
“i’m getting to like her,” she confessed shamefacedly. “she isn’t as bad as i thought her.”
he laughed, putting an arm about her.
“you’ll end by loving her,” he said. “you won’t be able to help it.”
“it’ll depend upon you, lad,” she answered. “so long as your good is her good i shall be content.”
she kissed him good night for it was growing dusk. neither he nor eleanor had ever been able to persuade her to stay the night. with the [pg 199]nursery, which had been the former lady coomber’s dressing-room, she was familiar, having been one of the housemaids. but the big rooms on the ground floor overawed her. she never would enter by the great door, but always by a small side entrance leading to the house-keeper’s room. eleanor had given instructions that it should always be left open.
he walked on slowly after he had left his mother. there, where the sun was sinking behind the distant elms, she lay sleeping. at the bend of the road was the old white thorn that had witnessed their first kiss. reaching it he looked round stealthily and, seeing no one, flung himself upon the ground and, stretching out his arms, pressed his lips to the sweet-smelling earth.
he laughed as he rose to his feet. these lovers’ rhapsodies he had once thought idle nonsense! they were true. going through fire and water—dying for her, worshipping the ground she trod on. this dear moorland with its lonely farmsteads and its scattered cots; its old folks with their furrowed faces, its little children with shy wondering eyes; its sandy hollows where the coneys frisked at twilight; its hidden dells of fern and bracken where the primroses first blossomed; its high banks beneath the birches where the red fox had his [pg 200]dwelling; its deep woods, bird-haunted: always he would love it, for her sake.
he turned and looked back and down the winding road. the noisome town half-hidden by its pall of smoke lay stretched beneath him, a few faint lights twinkling from out the gloom. there too her feet had trod. its long sad streets with their weary white-faced people; its foul, neglected places where the children played with dirt. this city of maimed souls and stunted bodies! it must be cleansed, purified—made worthy for her feet to pass. it should be his life’s work, his gift to his beloved.