CHAPTER x.x.xII

WILDERNESS

When he had read this note, Shelton put it down beside his sleeve-links on his dressing table, stared in the mirror at himself, and laughed. But his lips soon stopped him laughing; he threw himself upon his bed and pressed his face into the pillows. He lay there half-dressed throughout the night, and when he rose, soon after dawn, he had not made his mind up what to do. The only thing he knew for certain was that he must not meet Antonia.

At last he penned the following:

I have had a sleepless night with toothache, and think it best to run up to the dentist at once. If a tooth must come out, the sooner the better.

He addressed it to Mrs. Dennant, and left it on his table. After doing this he threw himself once more upon his bed, and this time fell into a doze.

He woke with a start, dressed, and let himself quietly out. The likeness of his going to that of Ferrand struck him. "Both outcasts now," he thought.

He tramped on till noon without knowing or caring where he went; then, entering a field, threw himself down under the hedge, and fell asleep.

He was awakened by a whirr. A covey of partridges, with wings glistening in the sun, were straggling out across the adjoining field of mustard.

They soon settled in the old-maidish way of partridges, and began to call upon each other.

Some cattle had approached him in his sleep, and a beautiful bay cow, with her head turned sideways, was snuffing at him gently, exhaling her peculiar sweetness. She was as fine in legs and coat as any race-horse.

She dribbled at the corners of her black, moist lips; her eye was soft and cynical. Breathing the vague sweetness of the mustard-field, rubbing dry grasp-stalks in his fingers, Shelton had a moment's happiness--the happiness of sun and sky, of the eternal quiet, and untold movements of the fields. Why could not human beings let their troubles be as this cow left the flies that clung about her eyes? He dozed again, and woke up with a laugh, for this was what he dreamed:

He fancied he was in a room, at once the hall and drawing-room of some country house. In the centre of this room a lady stood, who was looking in a hand-gla.s.s at her face. Beyond a door or window could be seen a garden with a row of statues, and through this door people pa.s.sed without apparent object.

Suddenly Shelton saw his mother advancing to the lady with the hand-gla.s.s, whom now he recognised as Mrs. Foliot. But, as he looked, his mother changed to Mrs. Dennant, and began speaking in a voice that was a sort of abstract of refinement. "Je fais de la philosophic," it said; "I take the individual for what she's worth. I do not condemn; above all, one must have spirit!" The lady with the mirror continued looking in the gla.s.s; and, though he could not see her face, he could see its image-pale, with greenish eyes, and a smile like scorn itself.

Then, by a swift transition, he was walking in the garden talking to Mrs. Dennant.

It was from this talk that he awoke with laughter. "But," she had been saying, "d.i.c.k, I've always been accustomed to believe what I was told. It was so unkind of her to scorn me just because I happen to be second-hand." And her voice awakened Shelton's pity; it was like a frightened child's. "I don't know what I shall do if I have to form opinions for myself. I was n't brought up to it. I 've always had them nice and secondhand. How am I to go to work? One must believe what other people do; not that I think much of other people, but, you do know what it is--one feels so much more comfortable," and her skirts rustled.

"But, d.i.c.k, whatever happens"--her voice entreated--"do let Antonia get her judgments secondhand. Never mind for me--if I must form opinions for myself, I must--but don't let her; any old opinions so long as they are old. It 's dreadful to have to think out new ones for oneself." And he awoke. His dream had had in it the element called Art, for, in its gross absurdity, Mrs. Dennant had said things that showed her soul more fully than anything she would have said in life.

"No," said a voice quite close, behind the hedge, "not many Frenchmen, thank the Lord! A few coveys of Hungarians over from the Duke's. Sir James, some pie?"

Shelton raised himself with drowsy curiosity--still half asleep--and applied his face to a gap in the high, thick osiers of the hedge. Four men were seated on camp-stools round a folding-table, on which was a pie and other things to eat. A game-cart, well-adorned with birds and hares, stood at a short distance; the tails of some dogs were seen moving humbly, and a valet opening bottles. Shelton had forgotten that it was "the first." The host was a soldierly and freckled man; an older man sat next him, square-jawed, with an absent-looking eye and sharpened nose; next him, again, there was a bearded person whom they seemed to call the Commodore; in the fourth, to his alarm, Shelton recognised the gentleman called Mabbey. It was really no matter for surprise to meet him miles from his own place, for he was one of those who wander with a valet and two guns from the twelfth of August to the end of January, and are then supposed to go to Monte Carlo or to sleep until the twelfth of August comes again.

He was speaking.

"Did you hear what a bag we made on the twelfth, Sir James?"

"Ah! yes; what was that? Have you sold your bay horse, Glennie?"

Shelton had not decided whether or no to sneak away, when the Commodore's thick voice began:

"My man tellsh me that Mrs. Foliot--haw--has lamed her Arab. Does she mean to come out cubbing?"

Shelton observed the smile that came on all their faces. "Foliot 's paying for his good time now; what a donkey to get caught!" it seemed to say. He turned his back and shut his eyes.

"Cubbing?" replied Glennie; "hardly."

"Never could shee anything wonderful in her looks," went on the Commodore; "so quiet, you never knew that she was in the room. I remember sayin' to her once, 'Mrs. Lutheran, now what do you like besht in all the world?' and what do you think she answered? 'Music!' Haw!"

The voice of Mabbey said:

"He was always a dark horse, Foliot: It 's always the dark horses that get let in for this kind of thing"; and there was a sound as though he licked his lips.

"They say," said the voice of the host, "he never gives you back a greeting now. Queer fish; they say that she's devoted to him."

Coming so closely on his meeting with this lady, and on the dream from which he had awakened, this conversation mesmerised the listener behind the hedge.

"If he gives up his huntin' and his shootin', I don't see what the deuce he 'll do; he's resigned his clubs; as to his chance of Parliament--"

said the voice of Mabbey.

"Thousand pities," said Sir James; "still, he knew what to expect."

"Very queer fellows, those Foliots," said the Commodore. "There was his father: he 'd always rather talk to any scarecrow he came across than to you or me. Wonder what he'll do with all his horses; I should like that chestnut of his."

"You can't tell what a fellow 'll do," said the voice of Mabbey--"take to drink or writin' books. Old Charlie Wayne came to gazin' at stars, and twice a week he used to go and paddle round in Whitechapel, teachin'

pothooks--"

"Glennie," said Sir James, "what 's become of Smollett, your old keeper?"

"Obliged to get rid of him." Shelton tried again to close his ears, but again he listened. "Getting a bit too old; lost me a lot of eggs last season."

"Ah!" said the Commodore, "when they oncesh begin to lose eggsh--"

"As a matter of fact, his son--you remember him, Sir James, he used to load for you?--got a girl into trouble; when her people gave her the chuck old Smollet took her in; beastly scandal it made, too. The girl refused to marry Smollett, and old Smollett backed her up. Naturally, the parson and the village cut up rough; my wife offered to get her into one of those reformatory what-d' you-call-'ems, but the old fellow said she should n't go if she did n't want to. Bad business altogether; put him quite off his stroke. I only got five hundred pheasants last year instead of eight."

There was a silence. Shelton again peeped through the hedge. All were eating pie.

"In Warwickshire," said the Commodore, "they always marry--haw--and live reshpectable ever after."

"Quite so," remarked the host; "it was a bit too thick, her refusing to marry him. She said he took advantage of her."

"She's sorry by this time," said Sir James; "lucky escape for young Smollett. Queer, the obstinacy of some of these old fellows!"

"What are we doing after lunch?" asked the Commodore.

"The next field," said the host, "is pasture. We line up along the hedge, and drive that mustard towards the roots; there ought to be a good few birds."

"Shelton rose, and, crouching, stole softly to the gate:

"On the twelfth, shootin' in two parties," followed the voice of Mabbey from the distance.

Whether from his walk or from his sleepless night, Shelton seemed to ache in every limb; but he continued his tramp along the road. He was no nearer to deciding what to do. It was late in the afternoon when he reached Maidenhead, and, after breaking fast, got into a London train and went to sleep. At ten o'clock that evening he walked into St.

James's Park and there sat down.

The lamplight dappled through the tired foliage on to these benches which have rested many vagrants. Darkness has ceased to be the lawful cloak of the unhappy; but Mother Night was soft and moonless, and man had not despoiled her of her comfort, quite.