By the time the coffee was made, and the porridge, and Mary had emerged from the tent, washed and brushed and sparkling, she bethought her of the boy. “I’ll fetch him,” she told Senhouse. “He must be fed.” Senhouse nodded, so she went back to her g?te of the night. The boy had disappeared, and with him her cloak. Senhouse chuckled when he heard her faltered tale. “Nature all over—bless her free way,” he said. “She’ll lap you like a mother—and stare you down for a trespasser within the hour. She takes her profit where she finds it, and if she can’t find it will cry herself to sleep. Don’t you see that you were so much to the good for our friend? Well, what have you to regret? You warmed him, cuddled him, fed him—and he’s gone, warmed, cuddled, and fed. You’ve been the Bona Dea—and he’s not a bit obliged to you; very likely he thinks you were a fool. Perhaps you were, my dear; but I tell you, fools are the salt of the earth.”
“Yes, I know,” Mary said. “Of course I don’t mind the cloak. He wanted it more than I did. But what will become of him—poor little pinched boy?”
Senhouse picked up a bleached leaf of rowan—a gossamer leaf—and showed it to her. “What will become of that, think you? It all goes back again. Nothing is lost.” He threw it up, and watched it drift away on the light morning wind. Then, “Come and have your breakfast,” he bade her.
As they ate and drank she found herself talking to him of matters which London might have shrieked to hear. But it seemed not at all strange that Senhouse should listen calmly, or she candidly discuss them. He had not shown the least curiosity either to find her here or to know why she had come; in fact, after his question of “No trouble, I hope?” and her reply, he had become absorbed in what he had to do that day—the meal to be prepared, and the plantation of Mariposa lilies which he was to show her. “The work of three years—just in flower for the first time. You’re lucky in the time of your visit—another week and you would have missed them.” But her need to speak was imperious, and so she gave him to understand.
She told him, therefore, everything which had been implied in former colloquies—and found him prepared to believe her. Indeed, he told her fairly that when he had first heard from her that she was to marry John Germain he recognized that she would not be married at all. “Mind you,” he went on, “that need not have mattered a bit if the good man had had any other career to open to you. It was a question of that. You might have been his secretary, or his confidante, or his conscience, or his housekeeper. But he’s so damned self-contained—if you’ll forgive me for saying that—that he and the likes of him start in life filled up with everything except nature. There was really nothing for you to be to him except an object of charity. Nor did he want you to be anything else. He actually bought you, don’t you see, so that he might do his benevolence comfortably at home. You were to be beneficiary and admiring bystander at once. And you must have made him extremely happy until you began to make use of his bounties, and learn by what you had to do without them. Where was he then? It’s like a mother with a sucking child. She makes it strong, makes a man of it; and then, when it leaves her lap and goes to forage for itself, she resents it. What else could she expect? What else could Germain expect? He gives you the uses of the world; you find out that you are a woman with parts; you proceed to exercise yourself—and affront him mortally. I’ll warrant that man quivering all over with mortification—but I am sure he will die sooner than let you know it.”
Her eyes shone bright. “Yes, that’s true. He is like that. Well, but——”
Senhouse went on, speaking between pulls at his pipe. He did not look at her; he looked at his sandalled feet.
“I may be wrong, but I do not see what you owe him that has not been at his disposal any day these two years and a half. I suppose, indeed, that the blessed Law would relieve you—but by process so abominable and disgusting that a person who would seek that way of escape would be hardly fit to be let loose on the world. That being so, what are you to do? The fact is, Germain’s not sane. One who misreads himself so fatally, so much at another’s expense, is not sane. Then, I say, the world’s before you, if you have courage enough to face the policeman. He can’t touch you, you know, but he can stare you up and down and make you feel mean.” Then he looked at her, kindly but coolly—as if to ask, Well, what do you make of that? And if he saw what was behind her hot cheeks and lit eyes he did not betray the knowledge.
She could herself hardly see him for the mist, and hardly trust herself to speak for the trembling which possessed her. “Oh, I would dare any scorn in the world, and face any hardships if—” but she bit her lip at that point, and looked away; he saw tears hover at her eyes’ brink.
Presently he asked her, “What brought you up here to see me?” and she almost betrayed herself.
“Do you ask me that?” Her heart was like to choke her.
“Well,” said he, “yes, I do.” She schooled herself—looked down and smoothed out the creases in her skirt.
“There’s some one—who wants me.”
“I can’t doubt it. Well?”
She spoke fast. “He has—wanted me for a long time—since before I was married. Perhaps I have given him reason—I didn’t mean to do that—but certainly he used to think that I belonged to him. I was very ignorant in those days, and very stupid—and he took notice of me, and I was pleased—so he did have some reason, I think. Well, it all began again last year—imperceptibly; I couldn’t tell you how. And now he thinks that I still belong to him—and when I am with him I feel that I do. But not when I am away from him, or alone. I am sure that he does not love me; I know that I don’t love him. I feel humiliated by such a courtship; really, he insults me by his very look; and so he always did, only I couldn’t see it formerly. But now I do. I desire never to see him again—indeed, I dare not see him; because, if I do, I know what must happen. He is stronger than I, he is very strong. I know, I know very well that he could make me love him if I let him. You have no conception—how could you have? You don’t know what a woman feels when she is—when such a man as that—makes her love him. Despair. But I must not—no, no, I would sooner die. I could never lift up my head again. Slavery.” She shuddered, and shut her eyes; then turned quickly to Senhouse. “Oh, dear friend, I came to you because I was nearly lost one night. I had all but promised. I saw your sign in the road—or thought that I did—just in time, just in the nick of time. And when I saw it, though I had my letter to him in my hand, telling him where to find me the next day—Do you know, I felt so strong and splendidly free that I posted the letter to him—and came straight here without any check—and found you. Ah!” she said, straining her two hands together at the full stretch of her arms, “Ah! I did well that time. Because that very night when I was fighting for my life you were dreaming of me.” If Senhouse had looked at her now he would have seen what was the matter with her. But he was sunk in his thoughts. “This fellow,” he said, broodingly, “this fellow—Duplessis, I suppose?”
“Yes.”
“I used to know Duplessis—at Cambridge. And I’ve seen him since. He’s not much good, you know.”
She was looking now at her hands in her lap, twisting her fingers about, suddenly bashful.
“But I think,” Senhouse went on, in a level voice, “I think you had better go back and face him.”
She started, she looked at him full of alarm. “Oh, don’t tell me to do that—I implore you. Let me stay here a little while, until I’m stronger.” He smiled, but shook his head.
“No, no. Too unconventional altogether. Really I mean what I say. If you are to be free you must fight yourself free. There’s no other way. Fight Germain, if it is worth your while; but fight Duplessis at all events. That is essential. Bless you, you have only to tell him the truth, and the thing’s done.”
She was very serious. “I assure you, it is not. He won’t care for the truth; he won’t care what I tell him—No, don’t ask me to do that. It’s not—kind of you.”
Senhouse got up. “Let’s go and look at my lilies,” he said. “We’ll talk about your troubles again presently.” She jumped to her feet and followed him down the mountain.
He led her by a scrambling path round the face of Great Gable, and so past Kirkfell foot into Mosedale, bright as emerald. As they neared the mountains, he showed her by name the Pillar, Steeple and Red Pike, Windy Gap and Black Sail. High on the southern face of the Pillar there was, he said, a plateau which none knew of but he. To reach it was a half-hour’s walk for her; but he encouraged her with voice and hand. There! he could tell her, at last; now she was to look before her. They stood on a shelf which sloped gently to the south. Mary caught her breath in wonder, and gave a little shriek of delight. “Oh, how exquisite! Oh, how gloriously beautiful!” A cloud of pale flowers—violet, rose, white, golden yellow—swayed and danced in the breeze, each open-hearted to the sun on stalks so slender that each bell seemed afloat in air—a bubble of colour; she thought she had never seen so lovely a thing. Senhouse, peacefully absorbing her wonder and their beauty, presently began to explain to her what he had done. “I had seen these perfect things in California, growing in just such a place; so when I lit on this plateau I never rested till I got what it was plainly made for. Full south, you see; sheltered on the east and north; good drainage, and a peaty bottom. I had a hundred bulbs sent out, and put them in three years ago. No flowers until this year; but they’ve grown well—there are nearly two hundred of them out now. I’ve had to work at it though. I covered them with bracken every autumn, and kept the ground clean—and here they are! With luck, the tourists won’t light on them until there are enough and to spare. They are the worst. I don’t mind the Natural History Societies a bit; they take two or three, and publish the find—but I can stand that, because nobody reads their publications. The trippers take everything—or do worse. They’ll cut the lot to the ground—............