THEY ALL EAT CHICKEN IN THE GORSE AND FLY BEFORE THE STORM
 
“It’s the most ripping rag,” said Tony, as he watched people climb into the wagonette. “Things,” he added, “will probably happen.” Lady Gale herself, as she watched them arrange themselves, had her doubts; she knew, as very few women in England knew, how to make things go, and no situation had ever been too much for her, but the day was dreadfully hot and there were, as she vaguely put it to herself, “things in the air.” What these things were, she could not, as yet, decide; but she hoped that the afternoon would reveal them to her, that it would, indeed, show a good deal that this last week had caused her to wonder about.
The chief reasons for alarm were the Maradicks and Mrs. Lawrence, without them it would have been quite a family party; Alice, Rupert, Tony, and herself. She wondered a little why she had asked the others. She had wanted to invite Maradick, partly because she liked the man for himself and partly for Tony’s sake; then, too, he held the key to Tony now. He knew better than any of the others what the boy was doing; he was standing guard.
And so then, of course, she had to ask Mrs. Maradick. She didn’t like the little woman, there was no question about that, but you couldn’t ask one without the other. And then she had to give her some one with whom to pair off, and so she had asked Mrs. Lawrence; and there you were.
But it wasn’t only because of the Maradicks that the air was thundery; the Lesters had quarrelled again. He sat in the wagonette with his lips tightly closed and his eyes staring straight in front of him right through Mrs. Maradick as though she were non-existent. And Mrs. Lester was holding her head very high and her cheeks were flushed. Oh! they would both be difficult.
She relied, in the main, on Tony to pull things through. She had never yet known a party hang fire when he was there; one simply couldn’t lose one’s temper and sulk with Tony about the place, but then he too had been different during this last week, and for the first time in his life she was not sure of him. And then, again, there was Alice. That was really worrying her very badly. She had come down with them quite obviously to marry Tony; everyone had understood that, including Tony himself. And yet ever since the first evening of arrival things had changed, very subtly, almost imperceptibly, so that it had been very difficult to realise that it was only by looking back that she could see how great the difference had been. It was not only, she could see, that he had altered in himself, but that he had altered also with regard to Alice. He struck her as being even on his guard, as though he were afraid, poor boy, that they would drive him into a position that he could not honourably sustain. Of this she was quite sure, that whereas on his coming down to Treliss he had fully intended to propose to Alice within the fortnight, now, in less than a week after his arrival, he did not intend to propose at all, was determined, indeed, to wriggle as speedily as might be out of the whole situation. Now there could be only one possible explanation of such a change: that he had, namely, found some one else. Who was it? When was it? Maradick knew and she would trust him.
And what surprised her most in the whole affair was her feeling about it all, that she rather liked it. That was most astonishing, because, of course, Tony’s marriage with Alice was from every point of view a most suitable and admirable business; it was the very thing. But she had looked on it, in spite of herself, as a kind of chest into which Tony’s youth and vitality were inevitably going; a splendid chest with beautiful carving and studded with golden nails, but nevertheless a chest. Alice was so perfectly right for anybody that she was perfectly wrong for Tony; Lady Gale before the world must approve and even further the affair, but Lady Gale the mother of Tony had had her doubts, and perhaps this new something, whatever it might be, was romantic, exciting, young and adventurous. Mr. Maradick knew.
But it is Mrs. Maradick’s view of the drive that must be recorded, because it was, in fact, round her that everything revolved. The reason for her prominence was Rupert, and it was he who, quite unconsciously and with no after knowledge of having done anything at all, saved the afternoon.
He was looking very cool and rather handsome; so was Mrs. Maradick. She was indeed by far the coolest of them all in very pale mauve and a bunch of carnations at her breast and a broad grey hat that shaded her eyes. He had admired her from the first, and to-day everyone else seemed hot and flustered in comparison. Neither Alice nor Mrs. Lester were at their best, and Mrs. Lawrence was obviously ill at ease, but Mrs. Maradick leaned back against the cushions and talked to him with the most charming little smile and eyes of the deepest blue. He had expected to find the afternoon boring in the extreme, but now it promised to be amusing, very amusing.
Mrs. Maradick had come out in the spirit of conquest. She would show these people, all of them, what they had missed during these last two weeks. They should compare her husband and herself, and she had no fear of the result; this was her chance, and she meant to seize it. She never looked at him, and they had not, as yet, spoken, but she was acutely conscious of his presence. He was sitting in a grey flannel suit, rather red and hot, next to Mrs. Lester. He would probably try and use the afternoon as the means for another abject apology.
She was irritated, nevertheless, with herself for thinking about him at all; she had never considered him before. Why should she do so now? She glanced quickly across for a moment at him. How she hated that Mrs. Lester! There was a cat for you, if ever there was one!
They had climbed the hill, and now a breeze danced about them; and there were trees, tall and shining birch, above their heads. On their right lay the sea, so intensely blue that it flung into the air a scent as of a wilderness of blue flowers, a scent of all the blue things that the world has ever known. No breeze ruffled it, no sails crossed its surface; it was so motionless that one would have expected, had one flung a pebble, to have seen it crack like ice. Behind them ran the road, a white, twisting serpent, down to the town.
The town itself shone like a jewel in a golden ring of corn; its towers and walls gleamed and flashed and sparkled. The world lay breathless, with the hard glazed appearance that it wears when the sun is very hot. The colour was so intense that the eye rested with relief on a black clump of firs clustered against the horizon. Nothing moved save the carriage; the horses crawled over the brow of the hill.
“Well, that’s awfully funny,” said Mrs. Maradick, leaning over and smiling at Rupert. “Because I feel just as you do about it. We can’t often come up, of course, and the last train to Epsom’s so dreadfully late that unless it’s something really good, you know——”
“It’s dreadfully boring anyhow,” said Rupert, “turning out at night and all that sort of rot, and generally the same old play, you know. . . . Give me musical comedy—dancing and stuff.”
“Oh! you young men!” said Mrs. Maradick, “we know you’re all the same. And I must say I enjoyed ‘The Girl and the Cheese’ the other day, positively the only thing I’ve seen for ages.”
From the other side Mrs. Lawrence could be heard making attack on Mr. Lester. “It was really too awfully sweet of you to put it that way, Mr. Lester. It was just what I’d been feeling, but couldn’t put into words; and when I came across it in your book I said to myself, ‘There, that’s just what I’ve been feeling all along.’ I simply love your book, Mr. Lester. I feel as if it had been written specially for me, you know.”
Mr. Lester flushed with annoyance. He hated, beyond everything, that people should talk to him about his books, and now this silly woman! It was such a hot day, and he had quarrelled with his wife.
“But what I’ve really always so often wanted to ask you,” pursued Mrs. Lawrence, “is whether you took Mrs. Abbey in ‘To Paradise’ from anyone? I think you must have done; and I know some one so exactly like her that I couldn’t help wondering—Mrs. Roland Temmett—she lives in Hankin Street, No. 3 I think it is. Do you know her? If you don’t you must meet her, because she’s the very image, exactly like. You know in that chapter when she goes down to poor Mr. Elliot——”
But this was too much for Mr. Lester.
“I have never met her,” he said brusquely, and his lips closed as though he never meant to open them again. Mrs. Lester watched them and was amused. She knew how her husband hated it; she could even sympathise with him, but it would punish him for having been so horrid to her.
She herself was rapidly recovering her temper. It was such a lovely day that it was impossible to be cross for long, and then her husband had often been cross and disagreeable before, it wasn’t as though it were anything new. What a dreadful woman that Mrs. Maradick was! Why had Lady Gale invited her? Poor Mr. Maradick! She rather liked him, his size and strength and stolidity, but how dreadful to be tied to such a woman for life! Even worse, she reflected, than to be tied for life to a man such as her own special treasure! Oh! our marriage system.
She turned round to Maradick.
“It’s better, thank you,” she said.
“What is?” he asked her.
“My temper,” she answered. “It was just the Devil when we started. I was positively fuming. You must have noticed——”
“You have been perfectly charming,” he said.
“Well, it’s very nice of you to say so, but I assure you it was through my clenched teeth. My hubby and I had a tiff before we started, and it was hot, and my maid did everything wrong. Oh! little things! but all enough to upset me. But it’s simply impossible to stay cross with a view and a day like this. I don’t suppose you know,” she said, looking up at him, “what it is to be bad-tempered.”
“I?” He laughed. “Don’t I? I’m always in a bad temper all the year round. One has to be in business, it impresses people; it’s the only kind of authority that the office-boy understands.”
“Don’t you get awfully tired of it all?” she asked him. “Blotting-paper, I mean, and pens and sealing-wax?”
“No. I never used to think about it. One lived by rule so. There were regular hours at which one did things and always every day the same regular things to do. But now, after this fortnight, it will, I think, be hard. I shall remember things and places, and it will be difficult to settle down.”
She looked at him critically. “Yes, you’re not the sort of man to whom business would be enough. Some men can go on and never want anything else at all. I know plenty of men like that, but you’re not one of them.” She paused for a moment and then said suddenly, “But oh, Mr. Maradick, why did you come to Treliss?”
“Why?” he said, vaguely echoing her.
“Yes, of all places in the world. There never was a place more unsettling; whatever you’ve been before Treliss will make you something different now, and if anything’s ever going to happen to you it will happen here. However, have your holiday, Mr. Maradick, have it to the full. I’m going to have mine.”
They had arrived. The wagonette had drawn up in front of a little wayside inn, “The Hearty Cow,” having for its background a sweeping moor of golden gorse; the little brown house stood like a humble penitent on the outskirts of some royal crowd.
Everyone got down and shovelled rugs and baskets and kettles; everyone protested and laughed and ran back to see if there was anything left behind, and ran on in front to look at the view. At the turn of the brow of the hill Maradick drew a deep breath. He did not think he had ever seen anything so lovely before. On both sides and behind him the gorse flamed; in front of him was the sea stretching, a burning blue, for miles; against the black cliffs in the distance it broke in little waves of hard curling white. They had brought with them a tent that was now spread over their heads to keep off the sun, they crowded round the unpacking of the baskets. Conversation was general.
“Oh, paté de foie gras, chicken, lobster salad, that’s right. No, Tony, wait a moment. Don’t open them yet, they’re jam and things. Oh! there’s the champagne. Please, Mr. Lester, would you mind?”
“So I said to him that if he couldn’t behave at a dance he’d better not come at all—yes, look at the view, isn’t it lovely?—better not come at all; don’t you think I was perfectly right, Mr. Gale? Too atrocious, you know, to speak——”
“The bounder! Can’t stand fellows that are too familiar, Mrs. Maradick. I knew a chap once——”
“Oh Lord! Look out! It’s coming! My word, Lester, you nearly let us have it. It’s all right, mother, the situation’s saved, but it was a touch and go. I say, what stuff! Look out, Milly, you’ll stick your boot into the pie. No, it’s all right. It was only my consideration for your dress, Milly, not a bit for the pie; only don’t put your foot into it. Hullo, Alice, old girl, where have you been all this time?”
This last was Tony, his face red with his exertions, his collar off and his shirt open at the neck. When he saw Alice, however, he stopped unpacking the baskets and came over to her. “I say,” he said, bending down to her, “come for a little stroll while they’re unpacking the flesh-pots. There’s a view just round the corner that will fairly make you open your eyes.”
They went out together. He put his arm through hers. “What is the matter, Miss Alice Du Cane?” he said. Then as she gave no answer, he said, “What’s up, old girl?”
“Oh! nothing’s up,” she said, looking down and digging her parasol into the ground. “Only it’s hot and, well, I suppose I’m not quite the thing. I don’t think Treliss suits me.”
“Oh! I say, I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’d noticed these last few days that you were a bit off colour. I’d been wondering about it.”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” she said, driving her parasol into the path still more furiously. “Only—I hate Treliss. I hate it. You’re all awfully good to me, of course, but I think I’d better go.”
“Go?” he said blankly.
“Yes, up to Scotland or somewhere. I’m not fit company for anyone as I am.”
“Oh! I say, I’m sorry.” He looked at her in dismay. “You said something before about it, but I thought it was only for the moment. I’ve been so jolly myself that I’ve not thought about other people. But why don’t you like the place?”
“I don’t know, I couldn’t tell you. I know it’s awfully ungrateful of me to complain when Lady Gale has given me such a good time. . . . I’ve no explanation at all. . . . It's silly of me."
She stared out to sea, and she knew quite well that the explanation was of the simplest, she was in love with Tony.
When it had come upon her she did not know. She had certainly not been in love with him when she had first come down to Treliss. The idea of marrying him had been entertained agreeably, and had seemed as pleasant a way of settling as any other. One had to be fixed and placed some time, and Tony was a very safe and honourable person to be placed with. There were things that she would have altered, of course; his very vitality led him into a kind of indiscriminate appreciation of men and things that meant change and an inability to stick to things, but she had faced the whole prospect quite readily and with a good deal of tolerance.
Then, within the week, everything had changed. She wondered, hating herself for the thought, whether it had been because he had shown himself less keen; he hadn’t sought her out in quite the way that he had once done, he had left her alone for days together. But that could not have been all; there was something else responsible. There was some further change in him, something quite apart from his relation to her, that she had been among the first to recognise. He had always had a delightful youth and vitality that people had been charmed by, but now, during the last week, there had been something more. It was as though he had at last found the thing for which he had so long been looking. There had been something or some one outside all of them, their set, that he had been seeing and watching all the time; she had seen his eyes sparkle and his mouth smile at some thought or vision that they most certainly had not given him. And this new discovery gave him a strength that he had lacked before; he seemed to have in her eyes a new grandeur, and perhaps it was this that made her love him. But no, it was something more, something that she could only very vaguely and mistily put down to the place. It was in the air, and she felt that if she could only get away from Treliss, with its sea and its view and its crooked town, she would get straight again and be rid of all this contemptible emotion.
She had always prided herself on her reserve, on the control of her emotions, on her contempt for animal passion, and now she could have flung her arms round Tony’s neck and kissed his eyes, his hair, his mouth. She watched him, his round curly head, his brown neck, the swing of his shoulders, his splendid stride.
“Let’s sit down here,” he said; “they can’t see us now. I’m not going to help ’em any more. They’ll call us when they’re ready.”
She sat down on a rock and faced the sweep of the sea, curved like a purple bow in the hands of some mighty archer. He flung himself down on to his chest and looked up at her, his face propped on his hands.
“I say, Alice, old girl,” he said, “this is the first decent talk we’ve had for days. I suppose it’s been my fault. I’m awfully sorry, and I really don’t know how the time’s gone; there’s been a lot to do, somehow, and yet it’s hard to say exactly what one’s done.”
“You’ve been with Mr. Maradick,” she said almost fiercely.
He looked up at her, surprised at her tone. “Why, yes, I suppose I have. He’s a good chap, Maradick. I have been about with him a good bit.”
“I can’t quite see,” she said slowly, looking down at the ground, “what the attraction is. He’s nice enough, of course; a nice old man, but rather dull.”
“Oh, I don’t know about old, Alice. He’s much younger than you’d think, and he’s anything but dull. That’s only because you don’t know him. He is quiet when other people are there; but he’s awfully true and straight. And you know as one gets older, without being priggish about it, one chooses one’s friends for that sort of thing, not for superficial things a bit. I used to think it mattered whether they cared about the same ideas and were—well, artistic, you know. But that’s all rot; what really matters is whether they’ll stick to you and last.”
“One thing I always said about you, Tony,” she answered, “is that you don’t, as you say, stick. It’s better, you know, to be off with the old friends before you are on with the new.”
“Oh! I say!” He could scarcely speak for astonishment. “Alice! what’s the matter? Why, you don’t think I’ve changed about you, do you? I know—these past few days——”
“Oh, please don’t apologise, Tony,” she said, speaking very quickly. “I’m not making complaints. If you would rather be with Mr. Maradick, do. Make what friends you like; only when one comes down to stay, one expects to see something of you, just at meals, you know.”
He had never seen her like this before. Alice, the most self-contained of girls, reserving her emotions for large and abstract causes and movements, and never for a moment revealing any hint of personal likes or dislikes, never, so far as he had seen, showing any pleasure at his presence or complaining of his absence; and now, this!
“Oh! I say!” he cried again, “I’m most awfully sorry. It’s only been a few days—I know it was jolly rude. But the place has been so ripping, so beautiful, that I suppose I didn’t think about people much. I’ve been awfully happy, and that makes one selfish, I suppose. But I say,” he put a hand on her dress, “please don’t be angry with me, Alice, old girl. We’ve been chums for ages now, and when one’s known some one a jolly long time it isn’t kind of necessary to go on seeing them every day, one goes on without that, takes it on trust, you know. I knew that you were there and that I was there and that nothing makes any difference.”
The touch of his hand made her cheeks flame. “I’m sorry,” she said, almost in a whisper, “I don’t know why I spoke like that; of course we’re chums, only I’ve been a bit lonely; rotten these last few days, I’m sure I don’t know why.” She paused for a moment and then went on: “What it really is, is having to change suddenly. Oh, Tony, I’m such a rotter! You know how I talked about what I’d do if I were a man and the way I could help and the way you ought to help, and all the rest of it; well; that’s all gone suddenly—I don’t know why or when—and there’s simply nothing else there. You won’t leave me quite alone the rest of the time, Tony, please? It isn’t that I want you so awfully much, you know, but there isn’t anyone else.”
“Oh! we’ll have a splendid time,” he said. “You must get to know Maradick, Alice. He’s splendid. He doesn’t talk much, but he’s so awfully genuine.”
She got up. “You don’t describe him very well, Tony; all the same, genuine people are the most awful bores, you never know where you are. Well, forgive my little bit of temper. We ought to get back. They’ll be wondering where we are.”
But as they strolled back she was very quiet. She had found out what she wanted to know. There was some one else. She had watched his face as he looked at the sea; of course that accounted for the change. Who was she? Some fisher-girl in the town, perhaps some girl at a shop. Well, she would be no rival to anyone. She wouldn’t fight over Tony’s body; she had her pride. It was going to be a hard time for her; it would be better for her to go away, but that would be difficult. People would talk; she had better see it out.
“It’s simply too dreadfully hot in the sun,” Tony was conscious of Mrs. Lawrence saying as he joined them. He took it as a metaphor that she was sitting with her back to the sea and her eyes fixed upon the chicken. He wanted to scream, “Look at the gorse, you fool!” but instead he took a plate and flung himself down beside Mrs. Maradick.
She nodded at him gaily. “You naughty boy! You left us to unpack; you don’t deserve to have anything.”
“Indeed, Mrs. Maradick, I stayed until I was in the way. Too many cooks, you know.”
He watched everyone, and detected an air of cheerfulness that had certainly not been there before. Perhaps it was the lunch; at any rate he was hungry.
He talked, waving a piece of bread and butter. “You people don’t deserve anything. You ought to go and see a view before eating; grace before meat. Alice and I have done our duty and shall now proceed to enjoy our food twice as much as the rest of you.”
“Well, I think it’s too bad, that gorse,” said Mrs. Maradick, with a little pout and a flash of the eye towards Rupert Gale. “It puts all one’s colours out.” She gave her mauve a self-satisfied pat.
“Oh! Emmy dear! You look perfectly sweet!” ecstatically from Mrs. Lawrence.
Suddenly Mr. Lester spoke, leaning forward and looking at Mrs. Maradick very seriously. “Have you thought, Mrs. Maradick, whether perhaps you don’t put the gorse out?”
“Oh! Mr. Lester! How cruel! Poor little me! Now, Mr. Gale, do stand up for me.”
Rupert looked at the gorse with a languid air. “It simply don’t stand a chance,” he said.
“Talking about gorse,” began Mrs. Lawrence. She was always telling long stories about whose success she was in great doubt. This doubt she imparted to her audience, with the result that her stories always failed.
This one failed completely, but nobody seemed to mind. The highest spirits prevailed, and everyone was on the best of terms with everyone else. Lady Gale was delighted. She had thought that it would go off all right, but not quite so well as this.
Of course it was largely due to Tony. She watched him as he gathered people in, made them laugh, and brought the best out of them. It was a kind of “Open Sesame” that he whispered to everyone, a secret that he shared with them.
But what Lady Gale didn’t recognise was that it was all very much on the surface; nobody really had changed at all. She might have discovered that fact from her own experience had she thought about it. For instance, she didn’t care for Mrs. Maradick any more than before; she liked her, indeed, rather less, but she smiled and laughed and said “Dear Mrs. Maradick.” Everyone felt the same. They would have embraced their dearest enemies; it was in the air.
Mrs. Lester even addressed her husband—
“No, Ted dear, no more meringues. You know it’s bad for you, and you’ll be sorry to-night.”
He looked at her rather gloomily, and then turned and watched the gorse. Maradick suddenly leaned over and spoke to his wife.
“Emmy dear, do you remember that day at Cragholt? It was just like this.”
“Of course I do,” she said, nodding gaily back at him. “There was that funny Captain Bassett. . . . Such a nice man, dear Lady Gale. I wonder if you know him. Captain Godfrey Bassett. . . . Such fun.”
“I wonder,” said Lady Gale, “if that is one of the Bassetts of Hindhurst. There was a Captain Bassett——”
Maradick watched the golden curtain of gorse. The scent came to him; bees hummed in the air.
“Well, I like being by the sea, you know. But to be on it; I’ve crossed the Atlantic seven times and been ill every time. There is a stuff called—Oh! I forget—Yansfs. Yes, you can’t pronounce it—You-are-now-secure-from-sea-sickness—it wasn’t any good as far as I was concerned, but then I think you ought to take it before——”
This was his wife.
Mrs. Lester suddenly spoke to him. “You are very silent, Mr. Maradick. Take me for a stroll some time, won’t you? No, not now. I’m lazy, but later.”
She turned away from him before he could reply, and leaned over to her husband. Then he saw that Tony was at his elbow.
“Come down and bathe,” the boy said, “now. No, it isn’t bad for you, really. That’s all tommy-rot. Besides, we mayn’t be able to get away later.” They left the tent together.
“Is it champagne?” he asked.
“What?” asked Tony.
“All this amiability. I was as gruff as a—as my ordinary self—coming, and then suddenly I could have played a penny whistle; why?”
“Oh! I don’t know!” said Tony,............