Chapter V

I REFUSE to describe the flower-show held at Sir Samuel Cohen's beyond saying that it was exactly like all other flower-shows; and I forget whether it was in support of any charitable institution. I think it must have been; otherwise I do not think that even Lady Carberry would have made a speech. There were all the usual things — hot tents, moderately cold ices, awnings over the windows, grass trampled till it bled a dark green, a nerve-shattering noise of talking and brass-band playing, an enormous crowd that ebbed and flowed continually, motor-cars, carriages, dust, turnstiles, a good deal of crossness, small girls with black legs and white frocks, men in straw hats, women with Zulu head-dresses: and there were some flowers, I think. Sir Samuel walked about indefatigably, in a frock-coat and white waistcoat, and his wife sat in the drawing-room and said the same things over and over again during three hours and a half. There seems to be a vacuum in life which this kind of business fills; and it filled it on this occasion; at least everybody said it would have been a great success if only the champagne and strawberries had been a little better iced.

The point of it, however, so far as I am concerned, la)' in a conversation that took place in the morning-room — a small place with the blinds drawn down, whither Lady Carberry retired with Miss Fakenham after her opening speech in the biggest tent.

Mary had come, as befitted her position, though without Jack, and was wandering with Sarah, whom she had suddenly met, to and fro, up and down an unfrequented path behind the shrubbery. Sarah could not altogether make out her friend; and she had hardly begun to put a few leading questions when Miss Fakenham's sunshade appeared round the corner. The summons was issued, and Mary, after one enigmatical glance at the girl beside her, disappeared in captivity.

Sarah remained conscience-stricken, and sat down to consider the situation. She had been on the very point of disclosing her mother's intention to deal with the matter in person, when the summons had come: she wondered what in the world would happen.

To her entered presently Jim Fakenham, cool and unperturbed, round the corner of the protecting shrubbery. He did not know a great many people here. He had strayed into the dining-room to look at a reputed Gainsborough, and out again after a glance;

n6 A WINNOWING he had stood absorbed in a small green book, leaning against the library shelves; and he had soon afterwards congratulated his host on possessing a book of which the owner was not aware, though he pretended to be; and had said nothing at all about the Gainsborough. He felt it would have been very painful if he had. Then he had wondered where Sarah was, and had wandered gently away to look for her. I think he very likely wanted her to observe him as the Philosopher at a Flower Show.

He said nothing at all. He sat down beside her, placed one knee over the other, drew out his cigarette-case and the little matchbox engraved "Jim," and went through the series of actions necessary for smoking with a precise air.

" Mother's started on Mary," burst out Sarah suddenly.

"So I perceived," said Jim, looking at her.

Sarah looked charming in her afternoon party costume — far more charming to an aesthetic eye than in her rather short skirts and blouse and jacket that she wore usually, more charming even than in her riding-habit. She had that simple and fundamental kind of good looks and healthiness of the rather fair sort, that fitted most costumes; but her large, shady hat to-day, trimmed with red roses; her white dress, which I do not propose to describe, beyond saying that it presented a general appearance of grace and white lace and cambric and silver; her silver-buckled brown shoes, and the rest — all this made her more feminine and youthful and even delicate. Jim looked and approved.... Besides, she had expectations of two thousand pounds a year and two houses — and that would make three. All these things were combining consciously in his mind, this year for the first time.

Jim too, to her eyes, looked all that he should. I really cannot bother with his dress too; but it suited him. His clean-shaven, clever face, thin and blackeyed and cool, his precise, rather fastidious mouth, his pleasant detached air — in fact that air which he wished to carry — his assumption of homely friendliness and intimacy in sitting down beside her like this, away from the crowds who buzzed like bees forty yards away behind the screening shrubbery — all this made her feel friendly and confidential.

"And I don't know what to do. Shall I go and interrupt? I don't think I dare."

" Shall I do it for you? " suggested Jim. " I might go in and forget to throw away my cigarette. That would cause a diversion."

Sarah smiled with one side of her mouth, and looked serious again.

" Really," she said, " I'm rather anxious. Mary will be driven quite desperate. She had just time to tell me that Mr. Weston wouldn't come, when your aunt fetched her away. And now mother's at her."

n8 A WINNOWING

" I can't make out why you bother so much," said Jim.

" Oh, you can't help it with Mary. I've got frightfully fond of her. She's the sort you can't help liking."

" But what are you afraid of? "

" I don't know. Catholics are so hopeless. And their priests!..." She broke off eloquently.

Jim nodded gravely.

" And— er— Weston too? " he asked.

" Oh, you know him as well as I do. He's exactly what he looks. He'd be quite sensible — in fact he was — until this absurd thing happened. It doesn't suit him at all. You can see it in his face."

Jim considered this. By " sensible " he knew quite well what Sarah meant — she meant what he himself called Philistine — cricket-playing, sunburnt, conventional— that is by conventions that were not Jim's — quite transparent and rather dull. It seemed a queer thing — almost ironical — that this elusive thing called religion, above all that most elusive aspect of it that is called Catholicism, should have been overlaid on such a foundation. It was like looking at a green meadow through a magenta glass. The two things didn't mix: they looked just unreal and rather repellent.

He presently put this more or less into words with a wistful air of not being understood. The air was justified.

" Magenta glass! I don't understand. Please don't be clever, Mr. Fakenham."

Jim sighed inaudibly; but he determined to be tolerant.

" I mean that it doesn't suit Mr. Weston," he said. " He isn't really religious, you know; it's only a phase."

" Yes, I think that's true. But he's a Catholic, you know."

" Only by education."

Sarah reflected. Her face looked delightful in meditative repose.

" Yes, I think I agree. That's rather clever, Mr. Fakenham. How did you notice that? "

" Oh! it's pretty obvious," said Jim. " He's rather dull, you know, really. Now it seems to me that the only point of religion is to make people interesting."

Sarah glanced at him sideways.

" But " she began.

Jim said nothing. He felt more a philosopher than ever.

" And do you think it won't last with him? " she asked.

" I shouldn't think so. You've got to take away the magenta glass some time, you know. Besides* you can see it in his face, as you said."

Sarah got up suddenly.

" Well, let's move about a bit. We can't sit here all the afternoon. It isn't polite."

| The] "crowd wore rather a fatigued air as they emerged into it again. There was not the previous activity visible: the hot tents were almost empty; groups were tending to sit upon and lean against everything that could support the human frame; and there were distinctly fewer people. Suddenly Sarah made a small sound.

" Look," she said, " there's Mr. Weston. I wonder what he's doing here, after all."

Jack was indeed coming towards them, alone; but he was eyed a little as he came, and people dropped their voices. It was obvious that he was beginning to be talked about. For one thing, at least, Sarah was thankful: he was, at least, respectably dressed. She had not been quite comfortable on the point: visions of sackcloth or camel's hair had moved before her, or the absence of a shirt collar, or even of shoes and socks. Another thought also struck her, and she moved quickly towards him.

" Are you looking for Mary? " she said. " She's with Lady Carberry in the morning-room, I think."

Jack saluted her.

"Thanks very much," he said. "Yes, I was beginning to wonder "

" So you came after all," said Sarah as they went together, with Jim looking philosophical in the rear.

" I — I thought I would," said Jack, rather feebly.

She glanced at him again. Yes; he looked uneasy somehow — it was in his face — but it was so slight an air that she hesitated to draw any conclusions.

" Here's the window," she said, and rustled in before him.

It was quite a dramatic scene, on a very small scale, that opened before them. Miss Fakenham was absent; no doubt she had discreetly withdrawn. But the two figures were placed admirably. Lady Carberry's likeness to Queen Victoria was quite extraordinary; her dignity was supreme. She sat in a tall chair with her handled eyeglasses on her knee, and a look of furious commiseration on her face. Opposite her, on a sofa, sat Mary, also bolt upright, rather white in the face, but so exceedingly composed that it was obvious that she had determined to remain so against all odds. Her voice when she said a word of astonishment to Jack was cool and high-pitched.

" Ah! " said the old lady; " so here is Mr. Weston, after all."

Jack shook hands carefully and drew himself up.

Sarah began, hypocritically, to hope that she had not interrupted, but that Mr. Weston

" Not at all," said her mother. " I am most pleased that Mr. Weston came so opportunely. Do sit down, Mr. Weston."

Jack sat down, and a small conversation followed that Sarah followed with all her powers at full stretch. Jim Fakenham looked in for a moment; then with-drew to a chair set outside the windows, from which he could hear every word and pretend not to be doing so.

Lady Carberry began by a little arch scolding, in which her voice now and then cracked with passion. She knew and they knew, and she knew that they knew, that it was not in the very faintest degree any business of hers if they had chosen to bring the Pope of Rome or the Grand Lama of Thibet to their upper gardens; so she was unable to loose such vials of wrath as she might have done under other circumstances; so she assumed a motherly attitude towards these two young things, with the veins on her forehead swollen with indignation. To Jack was assigned the part of the enthusiastic boy who did not know what he was doing; to Mary that of the blindly adoring, though timid wife who followed his lead. Lady Carberry's own experience of above sixty years was spread before them: her deceased husband's name appeared more than once; they were entreated to consider the situation more tranquilly, to let at least a year elapse, to make a quantity more of enquiries, to have a good talk to the Rector, to beware of the influence of the insidious Father Banting, who must, of course, have planned the whole thing from beginning to end.

" My dear young man," she said at last. " You really must let me call you that; I am more than old enough to be your mother. You really ought not to let a little thing like this — oh, yes! I heard all the story of your illness from Sarah over there — you ought not to let this little thing make all the difference in your life — and the life of your wife."

Sarah glanced at Jack, in time to see him pass his tongue softly over his lips, and then back again to Mary.

For it was not mere impatience or resignation that she saw there. There was a look she could not understand. She did not have to wait long.

After one more paragraph from the old lady, Mary rose suddenly, whiter than ever, but, it seemed, completely herself.

" Lady Carberry," she said, " I am sure you mean nothing but what is kind. You have talked to me now for nearly half an hour, and I've hardly said one word. I must say to you now what I haven't even said to Jack yet — I suppose I've been too shy — but it's this: and Jack can hear it too. I wasn't convinced at first " — she broke off — " I mean I wouldn't let myself be convinced at first, though I knew it perfectly well, and I know it now beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Jack really did die (I don't care the least what the doctors say; what else can they say from their point of view?) — that Jack really did die and was brought back again in answer — well,

I needn't go into that " (her voice faltered)—" but that he came back in order to have another chance... and — and that I might too. You're not a Catholic, Lady Carberry, and you can't possibly understand."

" My dear girl "

Then the pent-up nerves flashed a little.

" Please mind your Please don't trouble to say any more. We're perfectly determined, both of us now. It's not the least good "

" But, Mary " began Jack in such a tone that

Sarah glanced at him again sudden -and quick-eyed. But Mary seemed to notice nothing. Sarah, herself excited now, saw how she trembled as she turned to her husband.

" Yes, Jack; you've been right and I've been wrong. I'm sorry. I agree with every word you've said. Come, let's go home."

Lady Carberry arose in majesty.

" I am very sorry for you, Mrs. Weston," she said emphatically. " But I quite understand. Of course you must be loyal "

Mary flashed again a little.

" It's quite useless to say any more," she said. " I don't think I can possibly persuade you, if you insist on thinking that that's my reason. I think Jack'll tell you that that's not the reason."

She turned to him swiftly; but before he could answer (certainly he seemed a little troubled, thought Sarah) she wheeled again.

"No, I must say it," she said, "right out. It's this. It's partly you, Lady Carberry, who have helped me to see more clearly. (I'm not being in the least sarcastic or bitter.) But first when you began to speak against the Carmelites you made me rather angry; and — and I suppose when one's angry something melts. Well, my — my sham opposition melted. You made me go right over to the other side. Then I talked to Jack the same evening — a long talk; and I found I'd believed all along that his recovery was very extraordinary, and that we must do something. And now you've finished me."

She stopped abruptly; and Sarah saw the defiance fade from her face. Then she seemed to make an effort at recovery.

" Tell them, Jack," she said. " Isn't that true? "

He had been looking at her doubtfully. But he responded with a jerk; his fair-skinned face flushed a little, and his eyelids came slightly down.

" It's perfectly true," he said. " We had agreed to differ. Now we don't — I mean, we agree. We — we see perfectly together. We're going to carry it through — that — and — and perhaps other things too."

Lady Carberry's mouth mumbled a little in excitement.

" Well," she said, " it's your affair, of course; but "

Mary made a little impulsive movement forwards.

" Oh, I'm sorry," she said. " Really, we don't mean to be rude. But, you know, we are Catholics — real Catholics, both of us — and — and you cant understand."

The great lady drew herself up a little. She saw her advantage, and took it shrewdly.

" Well, I've no more to say, Mrs. Weston. You must do as you please. But you mustn't expect the rest of us "

Mary again twitched suddenly. Then she came forward and held out her hand.

" Good-bye," she said. " We must be going. Oh, don't be angry, please."

There was but one instant in which a confidential sentence could be exchanged between Sarah and Jim. And that instant Sarah took. It was as the elaborate leave-takings and congratulations were passing with Lady Cohen.

" Well, that's clear enough, anyhow," she murmured a little bitterly.

"Oh, do you think so?" said Jim.

in

It was not until after dinner that Sarah was able to pursue the subject.

Dinner was rather terrible. Lady Carberry discoursed upon the garden-party, upon the duties of landowners, upon Sir Samuel's virtues — of which she did not usually make much account; but all present fully understood her motive — upon the enormous responsibilities that rested upon persons like herself, to foster the welfare of people who lived in the country; and Miss Fakenham played a sincere, and her nephew an insincere, chorus.

Sarah contented herself with listening and pondering the situation.

Lady Carberry retired early that night, worn out, she said (presumably with the admirable discharge of her responsibilities that day), and Miss Fakenham disappeared into the morning-room. Miss Fakenham was one of those persons plainly intended by Providence always to fulfil the function of tactful admirer. Her silences, her movements, her glances, far more than her words, conveyed flattery and agreement with an eloquence that must be taken on trust. She revived like a flower in sunlight beneath Lady Carberry's presence; and, like a flower, wilted in her absence. She was a good soul, but she must be figured while living in her friend's house as a mere appreciative shadow of that friend without any perceptible personality of her own. At home she was sufficiently real; here it was almost impossible ever to remember that she was in the room. She vanished into the social atmosphere, like an animal with protective colouring.

I have caught myself in the very act of soliloquy in her presence when Lady Carberry has been absent for a moment — at least that is a vivid way of putting it. But I have found her pleasant and kindly, an excellent housekeeper, even almost a little formidable, seated at her own table in her own house in Queen's Gate after a course of Lady Carberry has had time to fade in its effects. In fact, she was a kind of shadow of Lady Carberry in the latter's absence as she was her reflection in her presence. I cannot imagine why she had never married; I suppose there was not anything of her to marry. She was about fifty-eight, and dressed in black; and that's enough of her just now.

Sarah and Jim then found themselves alone on a garden seat outside the drawing-room windows. Lady Carberry's bedroom was overhead, so they talked but cautiously. The valley lay dark and silent beneath them, seen but incoherently through the foreground of gravel and shrub and grass viewed in the light of the drawing-room windows projected from behind.

" I want you to explain," said Sarah suddenly. " Why did you say it wasn't clear this afternoon? "

(The fact that she made no preface made it obvious even to herself how much this queer little situation was on her mind.)

" Why did you say it was? " asked Jim. " At least I suppose you mean the Weston affair."

" Well, Mary's changed; that's all. Surely that's obvious. You can't say she didn't mean what she said? Somehow she's come round to the other point of view. I was afraid she might, when she was so weak about the lawns."

"Ah/1 said Jim.

" Well, isn't that so? Oh, do say what you think."

It was but proper for a Philosopher to show a little reluctance; and. Jim showed it.

" Really, you know, I was hardly attending."

"I don't care; please say what you think. I'm wild about Mary, you know. I can't think why; but it is so. Go on."

" Well," said Jim meditatively. " I think she meant more than she said; and — and Mr. Weston "

"Yes?"

" Weston, less."

" How do you mean? "

" I think — well — that she's as keen as he is, now."

This was rather a tame conclusion; but Sarah was not very sharp.

" Oh, is that all? That's what I said, isn't it? "

Jim ground the heel of his shoe gently into the gravel in a quarter-circle.

" I think there's something more behind, in Mrs. Weston, at least."

"Why?"

"Well, she interrupted herself once or twice, in F rather an odd way. And didn't it strike you she was a little feverish in her manner?"

" She was angry."

" Perhaps that was it," said Jim.

This was all so very philosophical and allusive and suggestive that Sarah entirely failed to take it in. She thought only that Mr. Fakenham was a little obscure. She pondered it by herself a moment or two.

" Well, I think it's extraordinary — such a sudden change."

Jim smiled to himself in the shadow.

" Oh, do you think people change much? " he said.

" How do you mean? "

" Well, I should have thought it was only that they showed themselves more — that they're really what they finally are, all along."

" I don't agree at all," said the girl decisively. " And there's Mr. Weston to prove you wrong."

"But he's just a case in point," murmured Jim, who was enjoying himself.

" Why, he's utterly different! Don't you remember? "

" I mean," said Jim, deliberately interrupting, "that I don't believe he has changed. He's just put it on, like — like a hat."

Sarah made a small sardonic sound resembling a laugh.

"He's crammed it on pretty tight, then" she said. " He'll never get it off again."

"Oh, I daresay the head'll come with it," murmured Jim.

Sarah made an impatient movement.

" You're so dreadfully clever," she said. " 1 wish you wouldn't."

Jim's soul expanded in him like a flower. He was quite aware of his extreme capabilities; but it was pleasant for someone else to recognise them. He felt more attraction towards this girl than ever. It was this common confidence that did it. He glanced at her with approval. She was still looking perplexed and bothered.

" Did I tell you about Father Banting? " she said suddenly.

" What about him? "

" Oh, my interview with him."

" No; tell me."

Sarah's face suddenly looked pinched.

" I think I won't," she said, " after all. l He was abominably rude to me."

Jim pursed up his mouth.

" Why do you look like that? " she asked abruptly.

" Nothing."

" Tell me. I will know."

Jim glanced at her.

"Well, I imagined you put your finger into the pie, and got it scalded."

Sarah's face positively froze.

"Suppose we leave the Westons for a bit," said Jim generously.

I cannot bring myself to write down the conversation that followed, because it has nothing whatever to do with the story, and depends only for its interest upon those two persons. Certainly they enjoyed it, since they talked for the next ten minutes almost exclusively about themselves.

Jim described with something very nearly approaching pathos the hardships and routine of his life in town. He spoke, allusively again, of papers upstairs on which, it seemed, the foreign policy of England entirely depended. He had drunk a certain amount of wine — I hasten to say not at all too much — but sherry, five glasses of claret, and three of port produce a certain expansiveness even in the most self-contained of philosophers. He did not actually say right out that nobody really understood him, but Sarah gathered as much.

Then she too began. Her life also was spread beneath the stars in the light from the drawing-room window. She acknowledged that she liked an outdoor life exceedingly, but that there were certain moments — and so on. It was quite well done. A little more crudely than Jim's, yet never passing a certain point. It was rather a hot night. She was very slightly feverish. She too had drunk two full glasses of claret. (Yes, I acknowledge that is rather a coarse thing to say.) And they were actually beginning upon religion. Jim had just conveyed an intimation that no system of belief hitherto known to the world really satisfied him, when a shadow and a rather heavy footstep behind interrupted them.

' * A note, my lady."

Sarah took it, read it in the light from behind, made a small exclamation, and paused. It took a perceptible time to read.

" No answer," she said.

Then she handed it to Jim.

" Read it."

The paper was headed Manningham Hall, no date. The handwriting was an excellent one — firm, self-contained, without flourishes.

" My dearest, — I want you to understand at once. It is this. I take back all I said to you the other day. I was perfectly sincere in everything I said this afternoon. I really have changed entirely after my talk with Jack. I fully and entirely agree now that the convent ought to be built, and that the lawn is the best place. This recovery of Jack's is really an extraordinary thing. Oh, it's no good going into that, but I am sure now that I knew all along, and that we must really do something big. Please don't think me tiresome, but you don't know what religion means to us, really. Of course we shan't alter our life very much in ordinary things, but we're going to be different. Jack's simply a dear — so simple about it all. He half withdrew this evening, thinking that perhaps I really did mind after all, but of course I wouldn't let him. So we're beginning at once. The architect's got everything ready, and the nuns ought to be here in about four months. Don't be angry. Yours,

M."

Jim handed it back.

" Well, well," he said.