THE DOMINANT NOTE
THOUGH it is a matter of no importance to this history, it may as well be stated that Laurence Graves was a fair young man with blue eyes—honest blue eyes that looked straight at you. He wore spectacles, which was a pity; but luckily, he was rather pleased with them himself and thought they gave him an air of discrimination. He had a pleasant voice, and there was humour in his smile as well as in his eyes, even though he imagined that he was a bit of a cynic, and could be slashing with his pen. Occasionally—only occasionally—he gave himself airs; but they were not offensive, and he did what he liked with an air of boyish obstinacy that he took to be manly: in reality it was merely charming. He had arrived at the mature age of twenty-four. In town he deported himself as becometh a man who knows the world, even though he looks down upon it; that is, he gave occasion for a tailor’s bill, and for some others. Whether he paid them or not is no concern of ours. In the country—and he was in the country, of course, when he stayed near Milford four years ago and the writer of these pages met him—he shaved badly and not too frequently, wore cocoa-coloured clothes and a red tie that had seen better days. Luckily, his perfectly simple manner did most things for him, and left him as free as he pleased in regard to appearance.
That he had some intellect as well as extreme frankness was obvious; he was a scholar—an academical person in fact as well as in feeling; but he wrote with ease, which academical persons do not always achieve, and, as already hinted, he enjoyed the expression of his own opinions. He was a journalist, of course—journalism is so popular a profession in these days that there is no escape from it; but he was a journalist of a very superior sort. He did not write for a morning daily, for instance; he was above that, as every man on the right side of five-and-thirty should be. He wrote for an evening paper, which is quite another matter. The new order of young men, who are without fear and hope to regenerate the world, remember that the strength of the day does not belong to the dawn; that the greatest battles have been fought, and the finest strokes of diplomacy achieved, in the afternoon. Laurence modestly flattered himself—he was always modest—that when he wrote the country stood still and looked to itself, and the nations gathered, as it were, under a lamp-post to see clearly. Also the Parisian papers quoted him next morning. He was glad of that; he felt, indeed, that peace and order hung on his words. Not that he cared for peace and order; on the contrary, he thought that war would ‘ be a lark’— for he descended to slang sometimes, and high spirits for the life of him he could not conquer. He had no particular line, though he inclined towards the management of the universe. He knew nothing about Ireland, except that it bored him. Home politics he refused to consider: they had grown vulgar since Socialism came in, and should be left, he thought, to the Country Council. But foreign politics he felt he understood. He had (this was four years ago) excellent reasons why we should not join the Triple Alliance, though he held that it would be a fine and daring stroke for a Liberal Prime Minister; and, as a rule, he thought we were much too conciliatory towards France. The worst of it was that he took things eagerly: an annexation by a foreign Power made him feel as if h ought to carry pistols, and even a row in the French Chamber, though he treated it with contempt, excited him past his evening appetite. One day he broke down, and telegraphed to the office that the doctor said he was done for; it worried him, but, after all, a man usually comforts himself with the reflection that overwork is disease with honour.
‘ Better take a couple of months off,’ his editor said, ‘ and go to the country.’ Laurence reflected that it was July and broiling.
‘ Suppose I had,’ he answered. ‘ Awful bore, but I can do some work while I am away; shan’t knock off altogether.’ He went to a farmhouse in Surrey: there he began a novel without a heroine, but struck at the fifth chapter, because he could not manage to take the slightest interest in the hero. So he wrote some articles on subjects that were not in a hurry, hired a pony-trap, and investigated the surrounding country.
In a week he was much better and enjoyed the quiet enormously. At the end of a fortnight he thought he would ask two or three men down from Saturday to Monday. He remembered that Burrard—Charles Burrard, the artist—was always in good spirits. ‘ I suppose his wife won’t mind his coming,’ he said; ‘ he hasn’t been married quite long enough to be independent, of course. However, there are no women about here to disturb her; I’ll give a hint of that.’
The letter was written to Burrard, and the primitive nature of the offered hospitality plainly set forth lest he should propose to bring his wife. ‘ A man is such an ass when he hasn’t been married long,’ Laurence Graves said to himself. ‘ And a woman will imagine anything except that she is not wanted. Now I’ll write to Martin.’
Every one knew Martin—Gerald Martin of the Imperial Review. He had a pretty sister, who married a man in the Indian Civil Service. She was so pretty that very young men were delighted if Gerald cut up their books—which he always did—for she thought it hurt, and tried to be nice them by way of compensation. ‘ Martin used to be such an ass about his sister,’ Laurence thought. ‘ She was pretty though—by George!’ he added, with an air of generosity. ‘ Can’t think why she married that idiot Calvert. However, she had, and I daresay Martin is glad of it, and will be able to come down here.’
For Martin had been a good brother, and looked after his sister till Calvert appeared on the scene to do it for him; now, of course, he was free. The two letters were ready, and then Laurence hesitated.
‘ Yes, I will,’ he thought. ‘I’ll ask old Wellday, too. He is a kind old chap if he is a bit slow, and he can’t help being five-and-thirty and obliged to cultivate respectability. Don’t suppose he’ll come, but he’ll like being asked.’
By return of post all three invitations were accepted. Laurence ordered some whisky.
The farm was four miles from Milford Station, and sufficiently far from everything else made of bricks and mortar to wear a blessed air of peace and silence. The house had begun life as a priory, been prosperous, deserted, dilapidated, restored, everything, before what was left of it settled down as a well-to-do homestead, with the refectory made into a dairy, and the prior’s parlour as a big bare drawing-room, let, along with some other rooms, also sparely furnished, to strangers in the holiday season. From the outside, though its dull-red roof and grey walls, supported at one end by a moss-grown buttress, were picturesque enough, it looked like a large and venerable barn. The only blunder was a verandah along the dining-room windows; it proved that the present tenants had no idea of artistic sequence as plainly as the pastoral landscape round it suggested that its first ones had had an eye to comfort. In front of the house was a Dutch garden, on the right a duck pond, then meadows that stretched on and up to the great patches of gorse and heather bordering the woods. On the left an orchard, more meadows, clumps of beech and oak, and in the background the Surrey hills that were deepest blue in the sunshine, but grey and greyer in the evening as shadow after shadow stole up to them and waited.
Laurence went with the pony to meet his friends on Saturday afternoon. He drove them back—and the whisky that had come by the same train—with the air of a man who is satisfied. They loafed, dined,, and talked away the evening, trampled all the next morning, and lunched and sat smoking under the verandah on Sunday afternoon full of silent but exceeding content.
‘ It’s a stunning place,’ Burrard said after a bit, from the depths of a rocking-chair. ‘ How did you hear of it?’
‘ Wilson discovered it somehow.’
‘ Should like to come myself and do some painting.’ He hadn’t done a stroke since his Academy picture. He was too well off to have any time.
‘ No you don’t,’ said Laurence with determination. ‘ You’d bring your wife—and the serpent!’
‘ What do you mean by the serpent?’
‘ Any one. A married woman always brings others in her wake, and the villa-builder follows after. When you find a good place keep it to yourself.’
More silence. Then Wellday spoke.
‘ I didn’t know you were married, Burrard,’ he said. ‘ When did that happen?’
‘ Nearly a year ago. You and I have not met since the Paris days. Wellday used to come to a little studio of my own that I had near the Luxembourg,’ Burrard went on, turning to the others, ‘ and lecture me on the folly of not working in some one else’s. I wanted to worry out things for myself.’
‘ The best way to succeed is to watch others fail,’ Wellday said solemnly.
‘ You talk like a moralist.’
‘ Burrard, don’t be abusive,’ Laurence groaned, shifting his chair so as to avoid the sun’s eye. ‘ I wonder you didn’t know he was married, Wellday, for his wife is the sister of an old friend of yours—Fred Bell.’ Wellday was silent for a moment.
‘ He was a friend—once.’ He said it as if he had held the words in his hand and looked at them before speaking.
‘ I wish we could pull down this beastly verandah,’ Martin observed by way of changing the conversation.
‘ I like it,’ Wellday said quickly to show his gratitude.
‘ It’s comfortably on a blazing day like this,’— Burrard spoke with an authority gained from memory of his profession,—‘ and the creeper atones for it. What a chap you are, Martin; never happy unless you are going for something. Did you see how he went for me in his precious paper last spring, Laurence?’
‘ That’s his line. He’ll go for me next week.’
‘ I can’t promise,’ Martin said, ‘ you mustn’t count on it.’ Wellday looked at Martin curiously. He had never met him before, but he had known him by name as most, people did, and was surprised at finding him so young and small. He wondered if it were possible that he—Martin—could be the man who had reviewed his—Wellday’s—book with so much rancour and ability a fortnight ago that it had cost him a night’s sleep.
The Review (there was no other worth mentioning in the opinion of those who conducted it, so the adjective was of no account) was a sixpenny weekly devoted to the patronage of politics, and the suppression of new books. It was sometimes brilliant, often amusing, and occasionally dull, for the simple reason that its staff could not be made to feel that anything contemporary with itself was of the slightest importance. It thought most things vulgar and the rest foolish, went for the whole tribe of minor poets, the new school of everything it did not itself initiate, and all philosophical works that exceeded 300 pages. Wellday, who had been ‘ a smug’ at Cambridge, had lately published a volume of essays. He called it ‘ Some Hegelian Theories, with a few remarks on the Drift of the Intangible,’ and had written it chiefly to show that all theories were utter nonsense. The Review entirely agreed with him, but judged him righteously for the sin of being deadly dull, and expressed itself with a flippancy for which only the newly-born in the writing world have courage.
‘ I don’t care; he may go for me as much as he likes. Pass the matches,’ Laurence said with a lazy laugh. When he laughed his face betrayed somehow that, though most things amused him, many had disappointed him. Life had not been over-generous in some ways. He said once in an unwitting moment, ‘ A man likes to feel something just as well as a woman, though he doesn’t want to be bothered, or to let on if he can help it,’ which, perhaps, explains the disappointment. It surprised him sometimes to remember that he had never gone beyond a little affection in other direction or a good swear in another. There were the office excitements of course, but they were short-lived, and generally ended in nothing more than a very late dinner and a prolonged smoke.
‘ Don’t say that,’ put in Burrard, ‘ you’ll take the heart out of him.’ Another long pause. Then Martin looked up.
‘ It’s awfully good to be here,’ he said. ‘ Luck for you breaking down, Laurence.’
‘ Yes.’ Laurence stuffed his pipe full of tobacco, bought at the Milford grocer’s, but not without merit. ‘ It was rather a stroke, and this really is a good place. The great point of it is there are no women about.’
‘ That’s a distinct advantage,’ Wellday said firmly.
Burrard remembered that his wife was probably enjoying herself enormously with her relations, so he looked into his pipe and ejaculated with conviction, ‘ Yes, it is a relief.’
‘ Women are such a worry,’ Laurence said. ‘ I wonder why God made them. Men get on much better alone.’
‘ They are useful, of course, to people who want to be born,’ put in Martin. ‘ When some scientific swell discovers spontaneous generation we shall be more independent.’
‘ Well—that’s rather a low-down view,’ Burrard said, with an air of impartiality. ‘ Can’t do as you life, of course, when they are about; but we never managed to get on long without them in some form. Besides, women have improved. They understand things better than they did. I don’t mean girls, of course; they are no good—’
‘ Expect to marry, and you shouldn’t do that too often.’
‘ I don’t like girl—’ Martin began.
‘ You will,’ said Burrard in a tone of conviction. ‘ It comes later. When I was your age, if I may refer to anything so insulting, I only went to tea with married women a good deal older than myself.’
‘ You are two years my senior, I believe?’
‘ But married—that puts ten years on most men under thirty and takes five off any woman who is over, say, four-and-twenty at the start. Odd but true. By the way, Laurence, I must send my wife a line if it is possible to post it.’
‘ Pillar-box a mile off; we might stroll to it presently.’
‘ If there is a post out,’ Wellday said, getting up, ‘ I should like to write a couple of letters.’
‘ All right; go in peace. You’ll find what you want on my writing-table upstairs.’ Wellday lingered a moment to fill his pipe once more.
‘ It’s a bore having to write,’ he said, in an apologetic tone; ‘ but if I don’t I shall have to go north.’
‘ Future electors?’
‘ Possible electors,’ he corrected.
‘ Should think your book ought to have some weight with them. The Scotch and the Germans have done a good deal of philosophy between them; there wouldn’t be much left if they gave out. The Scotch ought to be polite to you on account of the book,’ Laurence said, wishing to be agreeable: he liked Wellday. The latter tried to evolve a mild joke at his own expense.
‘ I didn’t think of my book having weight in the matter,’ he said, rather afraid of forgetting his quip. ‘ If you mean that it’s heavy, why, of course, I agree with you.’
‘ Never read it, but I daresay Martin has.’
‘ Or at any rate gone for it,’ put in Burrard maliciously.
‘ Well, he who runs may read—’ began Wellday, still hankering after a joke.
‘ He had no time for that if he reviews,’ Laurence said, jamming the grocer’s tobacco into his pipe once more. ‘ Go and do your letters, old man; a walk will be good for us after his blazing day. Queer chap!’ he went on, turning to the others as Wellday carefully closed the door after himself. ‘ Very kind, gentle as a lamb if you know how to take him; awfully good to his people, but an unforgiving beggar. He had a row some years ago with Fred Bell—oldest friend he has on earth—and nothing will induce him to make it up, though Bell loves him as the apple of his eye, and has grovelled to him dozens of times. That’s why I brought in his name,’ he added to Burrard; ‘ thought he might be touched when he knew you had married Bell’s sister.’
‘ What was the row about,’ asked Martin, ‘ money or a woman?’
‘ Neither. He only refuses to make it up out of pure cussedness. I believe he’s just as keen as Fred; but he would offer up the soul of his mother or anything else to his convictions. As good-hearted a prig as ever lived, but if he takes a thing into his head he sticks to it like the devil.’
‘ Perhaps he is the devil?’ suggested Martin.
‘ Then he shut his door on me when I was a young ass in Paris and anxious to accept his hospitality; should have gone to the devil straight if it hadn’t been for Wellday,’ said Burrard getting up. ‘ Well, I must write that line. My wife wants us to dine with some people and go to a box at the opera to-morrow night. Wonder why women are so restless. Awful bore, that sort of thing: puts you off your work.’
‘ Should have thought it put you on it,’ said Martin; ‘ you don’t seem to do anything else.’
‘ Man,’ laughed Burrard, whose temper was imperturbable, ‘ it’s July. What would you have me do? I am neither an hotel nor an excursion train.’
He disappeared to write to his wife. Martin and Burrard smoked in silence for a few minutes: both were keenly conscious of the surrounding peacefulness.
‘ Can’t think how people manage to stick in London every Sunday, can you?’ Lawrence said.
‘ They have to sometimes, confound it. What seat does Wellday mean to contest?’
‘ Some Scotch one at the next election. He was asked to try for a little place in Kent the other day—forget what it was called, never can remember local things, not worth it while we have a whole continent to worry. But he refused, said he hated by-elections; cautious man, wants to get a full measure for his money. Look at that dog-cart going along the road. It must have been here. Two women in it; wonder who they are?’
‘ Friends of the landlady?’ suggested Martin.
‘ Perhaps they are. I say, you haven’t anything to do in town, I suppose, before Tuesday or Wednesday; couldn’t you stay out here?’
‘ Afraid I can’t. Should have liked it, but my sister goes to Paris to-morrow on her way back to India; I must go up and wish her good-bye. Rather a pity, for I have nothing else to do all day.’ He looked longingly down the Dutch garden and across it at the fat cows in the meadow.
‘ By George,’ he said, ‘ those old priors had an eye for locality.’
Wellday had written one letter, and sat looking at a blank sheet of paper. He started and took up his pen as Burrard entered. ‘ Am I in your way?’ he asked.
‘ Not a bit.’ A smug was always afraid of being in the way, Burrard thought, as he looked for a pen. ‘ I am only going to fill one of these.’ He pulled out a letter-card and wrote:—
‘SWEET LITTLE WIFE—All right, we’ll go—confound it. So you can wire to the Harmans in the morning. It’s very jolly here; but I think of you all the time, as in dooty bound.—Your devotedest, C.
‘ P. S.— Wellday is here, haughty as ever. I think he is writing to a woman. He looks rather wrathful over it; probably slanging her.’
‘ That will amuse her,’ he thought. ‘ Not that I believe he ever wrote to a woman in his life.’ He looked affectionately at the address on the post-card. ‘ Dear little girl,’ he thought; ‘ I don’t care a bit about anything without you. These chaps are awfully slow; should be bored to death—in three days. Excellent idea, these things,’ he said aloud to Wellday, who seemed as if he had been waiting for Burrard to go. ‘ You can say so little and conceal it form the public gaze: women hate post-cards. Well, I’ll leave you to finish your correspondence. We are going to stroll when you are ready.’
Wellday looked after him with an air of relief, put the letter he had written—it was addressed to a Scotch printer—on one side, and dated the blank sheet before him. Then he pulled a letter from his pocket and read it. It was two or three days old, and written on ribbed paper that had a monogram in one corner.
‘ DEAR DICK—Very well; I don’t care. You have grown so tiresome and high-toned that I find the world more amusing without you. Am having a splendid time on board Molly’s house-boat. Jim is coming to-morrow. I wrote to him. He is never slow or heavy in hand, so our festivity will be complete. I hope the Scotch will appreciate you.—Yours ever, M. H.’
‘ Women never have any common sense,’ he said, as he tore it up. ‘ She has cost me one seat already, and if she worries me much more I shan’t be up to anything for Annan. High-toned! What nonsense.’ He went back to the verandah. But he had only one letter for the post.
‘ Laurence will be here directly,’ Burrard said. ‘ We are waiting for him. He has only gone to ask about some people who drove away in a dog-cart just now. He thinks they may have heard that he was in the neighbourhood, and left cards or something in recognition of his genius. Here he is. Why, what’s up?’
Laurence’s blue eyes were full of amusement, but a smile that was rather a sorry one was on his lips.
‘ Well, I’m damned!’ he exclaimed.
‘ Not yet, perhaps,’ Burrard said soothingly, ‘ though you will be, of course. What has happened?’
‘ Why, those Sabbath-breakers just now had driven over from Haslemere. They are relations of a woman who had rooms here last summer. She is coming this week for a couple of months—a literary woman with two awful children. I shall turn out.’
‘ What a bore,’ said Martin.
Wellday looked for his hat and stood in the doorway waiting for the others. ‘ I am glad I didn’t write to Mildrid,’ he thought, ‘ but I shall be no good again if things go on as they are at present. Am half a mind to chuck everything and go abroad for a bit: might get some work done then.’
‘ I was so comfortable here,’ Laurence said, ‘ and meant to stay the whole time. Think I’ll go up with you to-morrow, Martin.’
‘ You had better curse a little,’ suggested Burrard. ‘ It’s the only thing that meets the case.’
They walked down the garden. Laurence thought it looked more lovely than ever.
‘ It’s odd,’ he said to Wellday, as they went through the gate and across the meadow, ‘ no matter how you shun women, or what you do to them, whether you run after them or whether you don’t, they contrive to keep a finger of some sort in every pie of your life.’
‘ The nature of things in themselves demands it,’ said Wellday: after all, he felt better now that he was out of doors.
‘ Heredity and all that, eh?’ answered Burrard. ‘ Anyway, they began as they meant to go on. That was plucky of them.’
‘ Yes, and by George they have kept it up,’ said Laurence, and he looked back at the green setting of the priory. ‘ Even Christianity couldn’t find its way into the world without them.’