The Reef

  XV

  Madame de Chantelle and Anna had planned, for the afternoon, a visit toa remotely situated acquaintance whom the introduction of the motor hadtransformed into a neighbour. Effie was to pay for her morning's holidayby an hour or two in the school-room, and Owen suggested that he andDarrow should betake themselves to a distant covert in the desultoryquest for pheasants.

  Darrow was not an ardent sportsman, but any pretext for physicalactivity would have been acceptable at the moment; and he was glad bothto get away from the house and not to be left to himself.

  When he came downstairs the motor was at the door, and Anna stood beforethe hall mirror, swathing her hat in veils. She turned at the sound ofhis step and smiled at him for a long full moment.

  "I'd no idea you knew Miss Viner," she said, as he helped her into herlong coat.

  "It came back to me, luckily, that I'd seen her two or three times inLondon, several years ago. She was secretary, or something of the sort,in the background of a house where I used to dine."

  He loathed the slighting indifference of the phrase, but he had utteredit deliberately, had been secretly practising it all through theinterminable hour at the luncheon-table. Now that it was spoken, heshivered at its note of condescension. In such cases one was almost sureto overdo...But Anna seemed to notice nothing unusual.

  "Was she really? You must tell me all about it--tell me exactly how shestruck you. I'm so glad it turns out that you know her."

  "'Know' is rather exaggerated: we used to pass each other on thestairs."

  Madame de Chantelle and Owen appeared together as he spoke, and Anna,gathering up her wraps, said: "You'll tell me about that, then. Try andremember everything you can."

  As he tramped through the woods at his young host's side, Darrow feltthe partial relief from thought produced by exercise and the obligationto talk. Little as he cared for shooting, he had the habit ofconcentration which makes it natural for a man to throw himself whollyinto whatever business he has in hand, and there were moments of theafternoon when a sudden whirr in the undergrowth, a vivider gleamagainst the hazy browns and greys of the woods, was enough to fill theforeground of his attention. But all the while, behind these voluntarilyemphasized sensations, his secret consciousness continued to revolve ona loud wheel of thought. For a time it seemed to be sweeping him throughdeep gulfs of darkness. His sensations were too swift and swarming to bedisentangled. He had an almost physical sense of struggling for air,of battling helplessly with material obstructions, as though the russetcovert through which he trudged were the heart of a maleficent jungle...

  Snatches of his companion's talk drifted to him intermittently throughthe confusion of his thoughts. He caught eager self-revealing phrases,and understood that Owen was saying things about himself, perhapshinting indirectly at the hopes for which Darrow had been prepared byAnna's confidences. He had already become aware that the lad likedhim, and had meant to take the first opportunity of showing that hereciprocated the feeling. But the effort of fixing his attention onOwen's words was so great that it left no power for more than thebriefest and most inexpressive replies.

  Young Leath, it appeared, felt that he had reached a turning-point inhis career, a height from which he could impartially survey his pastprogress and projected endeavour. At one time he had had musical andliterary yearnings, visions of desultory artistic indulgence; but thesehad of late been superseded by the resolute determination to plunge intopractical life.

  "I don't want, you see," Darrow heard him explaining, "to drift intowhat my grandmother, poor dear, is trying to make of me: an adjunct ofGivre. I don't want--hang it all!--to slip into collecting sensationsas my father collected snuff-boxes. I want Effie to have Givre--it's mygrandmother's, you know, to do as she likes with; and I've understoodlately that if it belonged to me it would gradually gobble me up. I wantto get out of it, into a life that's big and ugly and struggling. IfI can extract beauty out of THAT, so much the better: that'll prove myvocation. But I want to MAKE beauty, not be drowned in the ready-made,like a bee in a pot of honey."

  Darrow knew that he was being appealed to for corroboration of theseviews and for encouragement in the course to which they pointed. To hisown ears his answers sounded now curt, now irrelevant: at one moment heseemed chillingly indifferent, at another he heard himself launching outon a flood of hazy discursiveness. He dared not look at Owen, for fearof detecting the lad's surprise at these senseless transitions. Andthrough the confusion of his inward struggles and outward loquacity heheard the ceaseless trip-hammer beat of the question: "What in God'sname shall I do?"...

  To get back to the house before Anna's return seemed his most pressingnecessity. He did not clearly know why: he simply felt that he ought tobe there. At one moment it occurred to him that Miss Viner might want tospeak to him alone--and again, in the same flash, that it would probablybe the last thing she would want...At any rate, he felt he ought to tryto speak to HER; or at least be prepared to do so, if the chance shouldoccur...

  Finally, toward four, he told his companion that he had some letterson his mind and must get back to the house and despatch them before theladies returned. He left Owen with the beater and walked on to the edgeof the covert. At the park gates he struck obliquely through the trees,following a grass avenue at the end of which he had caught a glimpseof the roof of the chapel. A grey haze had blotted out the sun and thestill air clung about him tepidly. At length the house-front raisedbefore him its expanse of damp-silvered brick, and he was struck afreshby the high decorum of its calm lines and soberly massed surfaces. Itmade him feel, in the turbid coil of his fears and passions, like amuddy tramp forcing his way into some pure sequestered shrine...

  By and bye, he knew, he should have to think the complex horror out,slowly, systematically, bit by bit; but for the moment it was whirlinghim about so fast that he could just clutch at its sharp spikes andbe tossed off again. Only one definite immediate fact stuck in hisquivering grasp. He must give the girl every chance--must hold himselfpassive till she had taken them...

  In the court Effie ran up to him with her leaping terrier.

  "I was coming out to meet you--you and Owen. Miss Viner was coming, too,and then she couldn't because she's got such a headache. I'm afraid Igave it to her because I did my division so disgracefully. It's too bad,isn't it? But won't you walk back with me? Nurse won't mind the leastbit; she'd so much rather go in to tea."

  Darrow excused himself laughingly, on the plea that he had letters towrite, which was much worse than having a headache, and not infrequentlyresulted in one.

  "Oh, then you can go and write them in Owen's study. That's wheregentlemen always write their letters."

  She flew on with her dog and Darrow pursued his way to the house.Effie's suggestion struck him as useful. He had pictured himselfas vaguely drifting about the drawing-rooms, and had perceived thedifficulty of Miss Viner's having to seek him there; but the study,a small room on the right of the hall, was in easy sight from thestaircase, and so situated that there would be nothing marked in hisbeing found there in talk with her.

  He went in, leaving the door open, and sat down at the writing-table.The room was a friendly heterogeneous place, the one repository, in thewell-ordered and amply-servanted house, of all its unclassified odds andends: Effie's croquet-box and fishing rods, Owen's guns and golf-sticksand racquets, his step-mother's flower-baskets and gardening implements,even Madame de Chantelle's embroidery frame, and the back numbers of theCatholic Weekly. The early twilight had begun to fall, and presentlya slanting ray across the desk showed Darrow that a servant was comingacross the hall with a lamp. He pulled out a sheet of note-paper andbegan to write at random, while the man, entering, put the lamp at hiselbow and vaguely "straightened" the heap of newspapers tossed on thedivan. Then his steps died away and Darrow sat leaning his head on hislocked hands.

  Presently another step sounded on the stairs, wavered a moment and thenmoved past the threshold of the study. Darrow got up and walked int
othe hall, which was still unlighted. In the dimness he saw Sophy Vinerstanding by the hall door in her hat and jacket. She stopped at sightof him, her hand on the door-bolt, and they stood for a second withoutspeaking.

  "Have you seen Effie?" she suddenly asked. "She went out to meet you."

  "She DID meet me, just now, in the court. She's gone on to join herbrother."

  Darrow spoke as naturally as he could, but his voice sounded to his ownears like an amateur actor's in a "light" part.

  Miss Viner, without answering, drew back the bolt. He watched her insilence as the door swung open; then he said: "She has her nurse withher. She won't be long."

  She stood irresolute, and he added: "I was writing in there--won't youcome and have a little talk? Every one's out."

  The last words struck him as not well-chosen, but there was no time tochoose. She paused a second longer and then crossed the threshold of thestudy. At luncheon she had sat with her back to the window, and beyondnoting that she had grown a little thinner, and had less colour andvivacity, he had seen no change in her; but now, as the lamplight fellon her face, its whiteness startled him.

  "Poor thing...poor thing...what in heaven's name can she suppose?" hewondered.

  "Do sit down--I want to talk to you," he said and pushed a chair towardher.

  She did not seem to see it, or, if she did, she deliberately choseanother seat. He came back to his own chair and leaned his elbows on theblotter. She faced him from the farther side of the table.

  "You promised to let me hear from you now and then," he began awkwardly,and with a sharp sense of his awkwardness.

  A faint smile made her face more tragic. "Did I? There was nothing totell. I've had no history--like the happy countries..."

  He waited a moment before asking: "You ARE happy here?"

  "I WAS," she said with a faint emphasis.

  "Why do you say 'was'? You're surely not thinking of going? There can'tbe kinder people anywhere." Darrow hardly knew what he was saying; buther answer came to him with deadly definiteness.

  "I suppose it depends on you whether I go or stay."

  "On me?" He stared at her across Owen's scattered papers. "Good God!What can you think of me, to say that?"

  The mockery of the question flashed back at him from her wretched face.She stood up, wandered away, and leaned an instant in the darkeningwindow-frame. From there she turned to fling back at him: "Don't imagineI'm the least bit sorry for anything!"

  He steadied his elbows on the table and hid his face in his hands.It was harder, oh, damnably harder, than he had expected! Arguments,expedients, palliations, evasions, all seemed to be slipping awayfrom him: he was left face to face with the mere graceless fact of hisinferiority. He lifted his head to ask at random: "You've been here,then, ever since?"

  "Since June; yes. It turned out that the Farlows were hunting forme--all the while--for this."

  She stood facing him, her back to the window, evidently impatient to begone, yet with something still to say, or that she expected to hear himsay. The sense of her expectancy benumbed him. What in heaven's namecould he say to her that was not an offense or a mockery?

  "Your idea of the theatre--you gave that up at once, then?"

  "Oh, the theatre!" She gave a little laugh. "I couldn't wait for thetheatre. I had to take the first thing that offered; I took this."

  He pushed on haltingly: "I'm glad--extremely glad--you're happyhere...I'd counted on your letting me know if there was anything I coulddo...The theatre, now--if you still regret it--if you're not contentedhere...I know people in that line in London--I'm certain I can manage itfor you when I get back----"

  She moved up to the table and leaned over it to ask, in a voice that washardly above a whisper: "Then you DO want me to leave? Is that it?"

  He dropped his arms with a groan. "Good heavens! How can you think suchthings? At the time, you know, I begged you to let me do what I could,but you wouldn't hear of it...and ever since I've been wanting to be ofuse--to do something, anything, to help you..."

  She heard him through, motionless, without a quiver of the clasped handsshe rested on the edge of the table.

  "If you want to help me, then--you can help me to stay here," shebrought out with low-toned intensity.

  Through the stillness of the pause which followed, the bray of amotor-horn sounded far down the drive. Instantly she turned, with a lastwhite look at him, and fled from the room and up the stairs. He stoodmotionless, benumbed by the shock of her last words. She was afraid,then--afraid of him--sick with fear of him! The discovery beat him downto a lower depth...

  The motor-horn sounded again, close at hand, and he turned and wentup to his room. His letter-writing was a sufficient pretext for notimmediately joining the party about the tea-table, and he wanted to bealone and try to put a little order into his tumultuous thinking.

  Upstairs, the room held out the intimate welcome of its lamp and fire.Everything in it exhaled the same sense of peace and stability which,two evenings before, had lulled him to complacent meditation. Hisarmchair again invited him from the hearth, but he was too agitated tosit still, and with sunk head and hands clasped behind his back he beganto wander up and down the room.

  His five minutes with Sophy Viner had flashed strange lights into theshadowy corners of his consciousness. The girl's absolute candour,her hard ardent honesty, was for the moment the vividest point in histhoughts. He wondered anew, as he had wondered before, at the way inwhich the harsh discipline of life had stripped her of false sentimentwithout laying the least touch on her pride. When they had parted, fivemonths before, she had quietly but decidedly rejected all his offersof help, even to the suggestion of his trying to further her theatricalaims: she had made it clear that she wished their brief alliance toleave no trace on their lives save that of its own smiling memory. Butnow that they were unexpectedly confronted in a situation which seemed,to her terrified fancy, to put her at his mercy, her first impulse wasto defend her right to the place she had won, and to learn as quicklyas possible if he meant to dispute it. While he had pictured her asshrinking away from him in a tremor of self-effacement she had watchedhis movements, made sure of her opportunity, and come straight down to"have it out" with him. He was so struck by the frankness and energy ofthe proceeding that for a moment he lost sight of the view of his owncharacter implied in it.

  "Poor thing...poor thing!" he could only go on saying; and with therepetition of the words the picture of himself as she must see himpitiably took shape again.

  He understood then, for the first time, how vague, in comparison withhers, had been his own vision of the part he had played in the briefepisode of their relation. The incident had left in him a sense ofexasperation and self-contempt, but that, as he now perceived, waschiefly, if not altogether, as it bore on his preconceived ideal of hisattitude toward another woman. He had fallen below his own standard ofsentimental loyalty, and if he thought of Sophy Viner it was mainlyas the chance instrument of his lapse. These considerations were notagreeable to his pride, but they were forced on him by the example ofher valiant common-sense. If he had cut a sorry figure in the business,he owed it to her not to close his eyes to the fact any longer...

  But when he opened them, what did he see? The situation, detestable atbest, would yet have been relatively simple if protecting Sophy Vinerhad been the only duty involved in it. The fact that that duty wasparamount did not do away with the contingent obligations. It wasDarrow's instinct, in difficult moments, to go straight to the bottomof the difficulty; but he had never before had to take so dark a diveas this, and for the minute he shivered on the brink...Well, his firstduty, at any rate, was to the girl: he must let her see that he meant tofulfill it to the last jot, and then try to find out how to square thefulfillment with the other problems already in his path...