A Young Man's Year

"I haven't had my excursion yet," Arthur complained. "The fact is we've done hardly anything since I came."

"Well, you shall have yours to-morrow, if it's fine," Bernadette promised.

"For how long does Oliver Wyse propose to honour us?" asked Godfrey, glowering and glum at the other end of the table.

"I really don't exactly know. A week or so, I should think."

Godfrey grunted surlily. "A week too much!" the grunt plainly said. He turned to Arthur. "Yes, you'd better get your excursion while you can. When Wyse is here, we none of us get much chance at the car."

Saintliness ignored the grumble. Arthur fidgeted under it. "If you want the car, I'm sure I don't want to take it from you, Godfrey," he said rather hotly.

"Oh, I spoke in your interest. I'm not likely to be asked to go on a motor excursion!"

"You wouldn't go for the world, if you were asked," said Judith.

"It'll hold us all. Anybody can come who likes," remarked Bernadette meekly.

"That's a very pressing invitation, isn't it?" Godfrey growled to Arthur, asking his sympathy.

Little scenes like this were frequent now, though Oliver Wyse's name was not often dragged into them; Godfrey shrank from doing that often, for fear of defiance and open war. More commonly it was just a sneer at Bernadette, a "damper" administered to her merriment. But Arthur resented it all, and came to fear it, so that he no longer sought his cousin's company on walks or in his study, but left him to his own melancholy devices. The unhappy man, sensitive as he was, saw the change in a moment and hailed a new grievance; his own kinsman now his wife was setting against him!

In fact Bernadette's influence was all thrown in the other scale. It was she who prevented Arthur from open remonstrance, forbade him to be her champion, insisted that he should still, to as great a degree as his feelings would allow, be his cousin's friend and companion. She was really and honestly sorry for Godfrey, and felt a genuine compunction about him – though not an overwhelming one. Godfrey had not loved her for a long while; Oliver Wyse was not responsible for that. But she had led him to suppose that she was content with the state of affairs between them; in fact she had been pretty well content with it. Now she had changed – and proposed to act accordingly. Acting accordingly would mean not breaking his heart, but dealing a sore blow at his pride, shattering his home, upsetting his life utterly. She really wanted to soften the blow as much as possible; if she left him, she wanted to leave him with friends – people he liked – about him; with Margaret, with Judith, and with Arthur. Then she could picture him as presently settling down comfortably enough. Perhaps there was an alloy of self-regard in this feeling – a salve to a conscience easily salved – but in the main it came of the claim of habit and old partnership, and of her natural kindliness. These carried her now beyond her first delight in the drama of the situation; that persisted and recurred, but she was also honestly trying to make the catastrophe as little of a catastrophe as was possible, consistently with the effecting of its main object. So it came about that, in these last days before Oliver Wyse arrived, she thought more about her husband than she had done for years before, and treated his surliness with a most commendable patience.

Although Arthur's relations with Godfrey had thus suffered a check, his friendship with little Margaret throve; the shy child gradually allowed him an approach to intimacy. They had rambles together, and consultations over guinea-pigs and gardening. Here Arthur saw a chance of seconding Judith's efforts after family unity. Here there was room, even in his eyes – for Bernadette, though kind and affectionate in her bearing towards the child, did not make a companion of her. Inspired by this idea, he offered a considerable sacrifice of his own inclination. When the day came for his motor excursion, he proposed to Bernadette that Margaret should be of the party. "It'll be such a tremendous treat for her to be taken with you," he said.

Bernadette was surprised, amused, just a little chagrined. In her own mind she had invested this excursion with a certain garb of romance or of sentiment. It was to be, as she reckoned, in all likelihood her last long tête-à-tête (the driver on the front seat did not count) with Cousin Arthur; it was to be in some sort a farewell – not to a lover indeed, but yet to a devotee. True, the devotee was not aware of that fact, but he must know that Oliver Wyse's arrival would entail a considerable interruption of his opportunities for devotion. Arthur's proposal was reassuring, of course, in regard to his feelings, for it did not seem to her that it could come from one who was in any danger of succumbing to a passion, and once or twice in these later days a suspicion that the situation might develop in that awkward fashion had made its way into her mind. Arthur must be safe enough as to that if he were ready to abandon his long tête-à-tête! She was really glad to think that she could dismiss the suspicion. But she was also a little disappointed over her sentimental excursion – at having it turned into what was in effect a family party. Even talk about sentiment would be at a discount with Margaret there.

"It'll be rather a long day for her, won't it?" she asked.

"It'll be such a great thing to her, and we can cut it a bit shorter," he urged.

With a slight lift of her brows and a smile Bernadette yielded. "Oh, all right, then!"

"How awfully good of you!" he cried. "How awfully good of me!" would have seemed to her an exclamation more appropriate in his mouth at the moment.

The child was sent for, to hear the great news. She came and stood dutifully by her mother's knee, and Bernadette put her arm round her waist.

"Cousin Arthur and I are going for a long drive in the car. We shall take our lunch, and eat it by the road-side, and have great fun. And you're to come with us, Margaret!"

The delighted smile which was expected (by Arthur, at least, most confidently) to illuminate the child's solemn little face did not make its appearance. After a momentary hesitation, Margaret said "Yes, mummy."

"You like to come, don't you, Margaret?"

"Yes, mummy." She looked down and fidgeted her toe on the carpet. "If you wish me to."

"No, dear, I want to know what you wish. Were you going to do something else?"

"Well, Judith had promised to take me with her to Mrs. Beard's this morning, and show me Mrs. Beard's rabbits."

The tone was undeniably wistful, whether the main attraction lay in Judith, in Mrs. Beard, or in the rabbits. The combination was a powerful one in Margaret's eyes.

"And would you rather do that than come with us?" Bernadette went on, very kindly, very gently.

The toe worked hard at the carpet.

"Do just what you like, dear. I only want you to please yourself."

"If you really don't mind, mummy, I think I would rather – "

"Very well then!" Bernadette kissed her. "Run away to Judith!"

The delighted smile came at last, as Margaret looked up in gratitude at her kind mother.

"Oh, thank you so much, mummy!" And she darted off with an unusual gleefulness.

Bernadette, her part of kind mother admirably played, looked across at Arthur. He was so crestfallen that she could not forbear from laughing. His scheme a failure, his sacrifice thwarted! The father sulked; the child, with an innocent but fatal sincerity, repelled advances. Things looked bad for the unifiers! Indeed one of them had put her foot neatly through the plan devised by the other. Judith knew about the proposed excursion; clearly she had not thought it possible that Margaret would be asked to join, or she would never have arranged the visit to Mrs. Beard.

"We're unfortunate in meeting a strong counter-attraction, Arthur. We've overrated the charms of our society, I'm afraid." Though Bernadette laughed, she spoke in dry tones, and her look was malicious.

Arthur felt foolish. When once the scheme was a failure, it came to look futile, hopeless – and terribly obvious. Bernadette saw through it, of course; her look told him that.

"Oh, well, I suppose rabbits are – !" he murmured feebly.

"Rabbits – and Judith!" She rose and went to the window. "I rather think it's going to rain." Then after a pause she went on, "I think you're rather a conventionally minded person, Arthur."

He attempted no defence. She had seen through the scheme – oh, quite clearly! She was vexed too; she was frowning now, as she stood by the window.

"You can't have the same tastes and – and likings as people have just because you happen to be some relation or other to them. It's no use trying." She gave an impatient little shake of her head. She had not altogether liked the child's being asked; she liked no better the child's being unwilling to come. Little as she had wanted Margaret's company, it was not flattering to be postponed in her regard to rabbits – and Judith. Still, if the child did prefer rabbits and Judith – well, there was the comforting reflection that she could always have rabbits at a very moderate cost, and that there was no reason to apprehend that she would be deprived of Judith. What she valued least was the thing she was most likely to lose, as matters stood at present. Hurt vanity wrested the little girl's innocent sincerity into an argument for Bernadette's secret purpose.

"I don't like the look of that cloud. I'm sure it's going to rain."

Arthur glanced out of the window in a perfunctory way; he felt that he would have to accept Bernadette's view of the weather prospects, however subjective that view might be.

She was out of conceit with the excursion. All this "fuss" – as she expressed it in the primitive phraseology of inward reflection – spoilt it. She was rather out of humour even with Cousin Arthur. She did not mind Judith planning and scheming in the interests of family union; she was used to that and regarded it with an amused toleration. But she did not fancy Arthur's undertaking the same rôle. In her conception his proper attitude was that of a thorough-going partisan and nothing else. As such, he had been about to receive the tribute of that excursion. Now she was no more inclined to it. That sort of thing depended entirely on being in the mood for it. Arthur's – well, yes, Arthur's stupidity – and Margaret's – well, yes, Margaret's ungraciousness – had between them spoilt it. She felt tired of the whole thing – tired and impatient.

"I think we'll wait for a safer day, Arthur."

"All right. Just as you like." He was hurt, but felt himself in fault and attempted no protest; he knew that she was displeased with him – for the first time in all their acquaintance.

So the car was countermanded. But the next day was no safer, nor the day that followed. Then came Friday, which was otherwise dedicated. Neither as a sentimental farewell nor as a family party did that excursion ever happen.

CHAPTER XIX

THE LAST ENTRENCHMENT

On that Friday morning Arthur's seclusion – for thus his stay at Hilsey might be described, so remote it seemed from the rest of his life, so isolated and self-contained – was invaded by the arrival of two letters concerned with matters foreign to Hilsey and its problems or emotions.

The first he opened was from Joe Halliday and treated of the farce. Joe wrote with his usual optimism; prospects were excellent; the company which had been engaged was beyond praise. But there was a difficulty, a hitch. The producer, Mr. Langley Etheringham, a man of authority in his line, declared that the last act needed strengthening, and that he knew what would strengthen it. The author, Mr. Claud Beverley, denied that it needed strengthening and (still more vigorously) that Mr. Etheringham knew how to do it. There was friction. Joe was undecided between the two. "We three are going to meet on Sunday and have a good go at it," he wrote. "Thrash the thing out, you know, and get at a decision. I've got Claud to agree to so much after a lot of jaw – authors are silly asses, sometimes, you know. Now I want you to come up to-morrow or next day, and go through the piece with me, and then come on Sunday too. You'll bring a fresh mind to it that will, I think, be valuable – I seem to know it so well that I really can't judge it – and you've put in so much of the money that both Claud and Langley (though he's a despotic sort of gent) will be bound to listen to your opinion, whatever it is. Come if you can, old chap. I've no doubt of success anyhow, but this is rather important. Above all, we don't want Claud and Langley at loggerheads even before we begin rehearsals."

Frowning thoughtfully, Arthur proceeded to read the second letter. It came from Henry. "I beg to inform you that Messrs. Wills and Mayne rang up at two o'clock to-day to ask if you were in town. I had to say that you had been called away on business but could be here to-morrow (in accordance with your instructions). They replied that they regretted the matter could not wait. I did not therefore wire you, but I think it proper to inform you of the matter. Yours obediently – "

Appeal from Joe Halliday, plain though tacit reproach from Henry! A chance lost at the Temple! How big a chance there was no telling; there never is in such cases. A cry for help from the Syndicate! His legitimate mistress the Law was revenging herself for his neglect; Drama, the nymph of his errant fancy, whom he had wooed at the risk of a thousand pounds (or indeed, if a true psychology be brought to bear on the transaction, of fifteen hundred), might do the like unless he hastened to her side.

Pangs of self-reproach assailed Arthur as he sat on the lawn, smoking his pipe. Moreover he was not in such perfect good humour with Hilsey as he was wont to be. The miscarriage of his excursion rankled in his mind; the perfection of his harmony with Bernadette was a trifle impaired; there had been a touch of aloofness in her manner the last two days. Godfrey was too grumpy for words. Finally, to-day Oliver Wyse was coming. Was Hilsey really so fascinating that for its beaux yeux a man must risk his interests, neglect his profession, and endanger, even by the difference of a hair, a dramatic success which was to outvie the triumph of Help Me Out Quickly? Yet he was annoyed at having to put this question to himself, at having to ask himself how he stood towards Hilsey and how Hilsey stood to him. And, down in his heart, he knew that it would be very difficult to go if Bernadette really wanted him to stay – and a very distressful departure for him if it appeared that she did not!

Judith came out of the house, crossed the lawn, and sat down in a chair opposite him. They had met earlier in the day, and greeting did not seem necessary to Arthur's preoccupied mind. He was smoking rather hard, and still frowning over his problem. Judith, on the other hand, seemed to be engaged with some secret source of amusement, although amusement of a rather sardonic order. Her mouth was twisted in a satirical smile – not at Arthur's expense, but at the expense of some person or persons unknown.

Arthur did not notice her expression, but presently he announced to her the outcome of his thoughts.

"I think I shall have to go back to town to-morrow for a bit; some business has turned up."

Her eyes met his quickly and, somehow, rather suspiciously. "Oh, don't you run away too!" she said.

"Run away too! What do you mean? Who's running away? What are you grinning at, Judith?" The word, though not complimentary, really described the character of her smile.

"Godfrey's gone to bed."

"Gone to bed? Why, he was at breakfast!"

"I know. But he says he got up feeling seedy, and now he feels worse. So he's gone to bed."

Arthur looked hard at her, and gradually smiled himself. "What's the matter with him?"

"He says he's got a bad liver attack. But I – I think he's left out the first letter."

"Left out – ? Oh, no, you don't mean – ?" He burst out laughing. "Well, I'm jiggered!"

"Oliveritis – that's my diagnosis. He does go to bed sometimes, you know, when – well, when the world gets too hard for him, poor Godfrey!"

"Oh, I never heard of such a thing! It can't be that! Does he hate him as much as that?"

"He doesn't like him."

"Do you think that's why he's been so grumpy lately?"

"I suppose he'd say that was the liver attack coming on, but – well, I've told you!"

"But to go to bed!" Arthur chuckled again. "Well, I am jiggered!"

"You may be jiggered as much as you like – but must you go to London?"

"Does Bernadette know he's gone to bed?" Pursuing his own train of amused wonder, Arthur did not mark Judith's question, with its note of appeal.

"I told Barber to tell her. I didn't think I should look grave enough – or perhaps Bernadette either!"

"Why, would she tumble to its being – Oliveritis?"

"She'd have her suspicions, I think. I asked you just now whether you really must go to London, Arthur."

"Well, I don't want to – though I've a slight touch of that disease of Godfrey's myself – but I suppose I ought. It's like this." He told her of the lost chance at chambers, and of Joe Halliday's summons. "It's no use going to-day," he ended, "but I expect I ought to go to-morrow."

"Yes, I expect you ought," she agreed gravely. "You mustn't miss chances because of – because of us down here."

"It isn't obvious that I'm any particular sort of use down here, is it?"

"You're of use to me anyhow, Arthur."

"To you?" He was evidently surprised at this aspect of the case.

"Yes, but you weren't thinking of me, were you? However, you are. Things aren't always easy here, as you may have observed, and it's a great comfort to have someone to help – someone to grumble to or – or to share a smile with, you know."

"That's very nice of you. You know I've always supposed you thought me rather an ass."

"Oh, in some ways, yes, of course you are!" She laughed, but not at all unpleasantly. "I should have liked to have you here through – well, through Sir Oliver."

"The chap's a bit of a nuisance, isn't he? Well, I needn't make up my mind till to-morrow. It's no use going to-day, and to-morrow's Saturday. So Sunday for the piece, and chambers on Monday! That'd be all right – especially as I've probably lost my only chance. I'll wait till to-morrow, and see how Sir Oliver shapes!" He ended with a laugh as his mind went back to Godfrey. "Gone to bed, poor old chap!"

Judith joined again in his laugh. Godfrey's course of action struck on their humour as the culmination, the supreme expression, of his attitude towards the world and its troubles. He could not fight them in the open; he took refuge from them within his fortifications. If they laid siege and the attack pressed hotly, he retreated from the outer to the inner defences. What the philosopher found in a mind free from passions – a citadel than which a man has nothing more secure whereto he can fly for refuge and there be inexpugnable – Godfrey Lisle found in a more material form. He found it in Bed!

But when Arthur went up to see his cousin, his amusement gave place, in some measure, to sympathy. Pity for his forlornness asserted itself. Godfrey insisted that he was ill; he detailed physical symptoms; he assumed a bravado about "sticking it out" till to-morrow, and not having the doctor till then, about "making an effort" to get up to-morrow. Through it all ran a suspicion that he was himself suspected. Bernadette was in the room part of the time. She too was sympathetic, very kind, and apparently without any suspicion. True that she did not look at Arthur much, but that might have been accidental, or the result of her care for her husband. If it were a sign that she could not trust herself in confidential glances, it was the only indication she gave of scepticism as to the liver attack.

At lunch-time too her admirable bearing and the presence of Margaret enforced gravity and a sympathetic attitude, though out of the patient's hearing it was possible to treat his condition with less seriousness.

"He's fanciful about himself sometimes," said Bernadette. "It's nerves partly, I expect. We must cheer him up all we can. Margaret can go and sit with him presently, and you might go up again later, Arthur. He likes to talk to you, you know. And" – She smiled – "if Godfrey's laid up, you'll have to help me with Sir Oliver. You must be host, if he can't."

Bernadette had not practised any of her new graces on Arthur since the miscarriage of the excursion; either the check to her sentiment, the little wound to her vanity, prevented her, or else she had grown too engrossed in the near prospect of Oliver Wyse's arrival. At all events the new manner had been in abeyance. She had been her old self, with her old unmeditated charm; it had lost nothing by being just a little pensive – not low-spirited, but thoughtful and gentle. She had borne herself thus towards all of them. She showed no uneasiness, no fear of being watched. She was quite simple and natural. Nor did she pretend any exaggerated indifference about Oliver. She accepted the fact that he came as her particular friend and that she was glad of his coming in that capacity. They all knew about that, of course, just as they knew that Cousin Arthur was her devotee. All simple and natural – when Oliver Wyse was not there. Arthur, who had not been at Hilsey during Sir Oliver's first visit, was still in the dark. Judith Arden had her certainty, gained from the observation of the two in the course of it – and Godfrey his gnawing suspicion.

For Bernadette, absorbed, fascinated, excited, had been a little off her guard then – and Oliver Wyse had not taken enough pains to be on his. He was not clever at the concealment and trickery which he so much disliked. His contempt for Godfrey Lisle made him refuse to credit him with either the feelings or the vigilance of a husband. He had not troubled his head much about Judith, not caring greatly whether she suspected what he felt or not; what could she do or say about it? As his power over Bernadette increased, as his assurance of victory had grown, so had the signs of them – those signs which had given Judith certainty, and the remembrance of which now drove Godfrey to that last citadel of his. But to Bernadette herself they had seemed small, perceptible indeed and welcome to her private eye, but so subtle, so minute – as mere signs are apt to seem to people who have beheld the fulness of the thing signified. She did not know herself betrayed, either by her own doing or by his.

Oliver Wyse was expected to arrive about tea-time; he was bringing his own car, as Bernadette had announced that morning at breakfast, not without a meaning glance at Godfrey – nobody need grudgingly give up the car to him this time! It was about four when Arthur again visited the invalid. He found Margaret with her father; they were both reading books, for Margaret could spell her way through a fairy-story by now, and they seemed happy and peaceful. When Arthur came in, Godfrey laid down his book readily, and received him with something more like his old welcome. In reply to enquiries he admitted that he felt rather better, but added that he meant to take no risks. "Tricky things, these liver attacks!" Arthur received the impression that he would think twice and thrice before he emerged from his refuge. He looked yellowish – very likely he had fretted himself into some little ailment – but there was about him an air of relief, almost of resignation. "At all events I needn't see the man when he comes" – so Arthur imagined Godfrey's inner feelings and smiled within himself at such weakness, at the mixture of timidity and bearishness which turned an unwelcome arrival into a real calamity, a thing to be feared and dodged. But there it was – old Godfrey's way, his idiosyncrasy; he was a good old fellow really, and one must make the best of it.

So for this hour the three were harmonious and content together. Timid yet eager questions from Margaret about fairies and giants and their varying ways, about rabbits and guinea-pigs and sundry diversities in their habits; from Godfrey a pride and interest in his little daughter which Arthur's easy friendship with her made him less shy of displaying; Arthur's own ready and generous pleasure in encountering no more grumpiness – all these things combined to make the hour pleasant. It was almost possible to forget Oliver Wyse.