No doubt he knew this, and felt that her sharing would be disturbing by its violence. In the ordinary course of events I suppose he expected that she would have another child, but as this interest was denied her, she was thrown more and more upon her own resources.

Her promise to Mrs. Payne gave her a reasonable excuse for her growing interest in Arthur. She had never returned to the card-playing incident; but as time went on a number of others equally distressing presented themselves. Having const.i.tuted herself his special protectress and the saviour of his reputation she tackled each of them with courage. In every case she found herself baffled by the fact that arguments which seemed to her unanswerable made no appeal to him, not because he wasn't anxious to see things with her eyes, but because they came within the area of a kind of blind-spot in his brain. She soon found that she couldn't appeal on moral grounds to an a-moral intelligence. She would have appealed on grounds material, but it seemed to be ironically decreed that material and moral grounds should be rarely at one. Sweet persuasion was equally useless. And indeed, how could she expect to succeed by her influence where maternal love had failed so signally? Even so, she would not own herself beaten. It was tantalising; for the more she saw of Arthur the better she liked him, and in these days she was seeing a good deal of him.

The opportunity arose from Arthur's trouble. He had told her the truth when he said his fellow-pupils at Lapton were already aware of his lack of honour in games. Nothing is less easily forgiven by boys, and when the others discovered that he cheated and lied, not so much by accident as on principle, they began to treat him as an outcast from their decent society. The Traceys went so far as to report his failing to Considine. An unpleasant _contretemps_, but one that Considine had expected. He explained to them that Payne was not entirely to blame, and that his const.i.tution was not normal. He advised them to take the weakness for granted. Even when he did this he knew that such distinctions were unlikely to be acceptable to a boyish code of honour.

On the other hand the special fees that Mrs. Payne was paying him were essential to the development of his plans. As a compromise he decided to keep Arthur apart from the others in their amus.e.m.e.nts in the most natural way he could devise. Practically for want of a better solution he handed him over to the care of Gabrielle.

Arthur resented this. He was fond of games and of sport. He liked winning and he liked killing; he thought it humiliating to his manly dignity to be relegated to Gabrielle's society. He wrote bitterly to his mother about it, using the contemptuous nickname that the boys had invented for Mrs. Considine.

"_I think old Considine,_" he wrote, "_must be thinking of turning me into a nursemaid. I'm always being told off to help Gaby in the garden or take her for drives in the pony-cart. Not much fun taking a woman shopping!_"

But Gabrielle was glad of it. The new plan supplied her with the first prolonged companionship of a person of her own age--there were less than three years between them--that she had known. Little by little Arthur accepted it, and they became great friends.

It was a curious relation, for though it must have been simple on his side, on hers it was full of complication. To begin with his society was a great relief from her loneliness. Again, she had already, for want of another enthusiasm, conceived an acute interest in his curious temperament, and her eagerness to get to the bottom of it, and, if possible, to find a cure, was now fanned by something that resembled a maternal pa.s.sion. They spent the greater part of his spare time together, and often, at hours when he would normally have been working with Considine, she would ask for him to take her driving into Totnes or Dartmouth, their two market towns. In the evenings they would walk out together in search of air along the lip of the basin in which Lapton Manor lay.

On one of these evening walks a strange thing happened. They had climbed the hills and had sat for a few minutes on the summit watching the sun go down behind the level ridges that lead inward from the Start. While they were sitting there in silence, Arthur suddenly slipped away over the brim of a little hollow full of bracken on the edge of the wood. A moment later Gabrielle heard him laughing, and walked over quietly to see what he was doing. She saw him crouched, quite unconscious of her presence, among the ferns at the bottom of the hollow. He had caught a baby rabbit, and now he was torturing the small terrified creature, its beady eyes set with fear, just as a cat plays with a mouse. He was watching it intently: letting it escape to the verge of freedom and then catching it and throwing it violently back. For a second it would lie motionless with terror and then make another feeble attempt at escape. She watched this display of animal cruelty with horror, and yet she could not speak, for she wanted to see what he would do next. At last the rabbit refused to keep up the heartless game any longer. It simply lay and trembled. Arthur prodded it with his foot, but it would not move. This appeared to incense him.

He took a flying kick at the poor beast and killed it. It lay for a moment twitching, its muzzle covered in blood. A little thing no bigger than a kitten two months old----

Gabrielle ran to him flaming with anger. She picked up the mutilated rabbit and hugged it to her breast.

"Why did you do that? You beast, you devil!" she cried.

She could have flown at him in her anger. Arthur only laughed. He stood there laughing, staring straight at her with his wide honest eyes.

"It's dead. It's all right," he said.

Her fingers were all dabbled with the blood of the rabbit that twitched no longer. She could do nothing. She dropped the carcase with a pitiful gesture of despair and burst into bitter tears.

She sat sobbing on the edge of the hollow. She could not see him, but presently she heard his voice, curiously shaken with emotion, at her side.

"I say, Mrs. Considine," he said. "Don't--please don't--I simply can't stand it."

"Oh, get away--leave me alone," she sobbed. "I can't bear you to be near me. It was so little. So happy----"

He wouldn't go. He spoke again, and his voice was quite changed--she had never heard a note of feeling in it before. "I can't bear it.

You--I can't bear that you should suffer. I swear I won't do a thing like that again--not if it hurts you. On my honour I won't."

"Yes, you will. I suppose you can't help it. It's awful. You haven't a soul. You aren't human."

His voice choked as he replied. "I swear it--I do really. I could do anything for you, Mrs. Considine. I feel that I could. For G.o.d's sake try me!"

She compelled herself, still sobbing, to look at him. She saw that his face was tortured, and his eyes full of tears. But she could say no more, and they walked home in silence.

XIV

This distressing picture troubled Gabrielle for several days, and yet, beneath her remembrance of anger and disgust, she could not help feeling a curious excitement when she reflected that, for the first time since she had known him, Arthur had shown her signs of pity and tenderness. For a little while they lived under its shadow though neither of them spoke of it again. Arthur, in particular, was awkward; but whether he were ashamed of his cruelty, or merely of the effect that it had produced on her, she could not say. Although she found it difficult to believe in the first explanation she was deeply touched, and perhaps a little flattered, by the possibility of the second.

Certainly his att.i.tude toward her had changed. In everything that he said or did, he now seemed pathetically anxious to please her, and even this was encouraging. She didn't tell Considine what had happened.

She knew very well that he would consider the incident trivial and, in a few words, shatter her illusion of its significance. And this fear proved that she was not so very sure that it was significant herself.

The curious atmosphere that now developed between them revealed itself more particularly in the letters which they were both of them writing to Mrs. Payne at Overton. Arthur's had never been very fluent, but Gabrielle had found an outlet for herself in this correspondence. In his early letters from Lapton Arthur had rarely mentioned Gabrielle; whenever he had done so it had been half contemptuously, as though the feeling of repression which emanates from the best of schoolmasters had attached itself to the schoolmaster's wife. At the same time Gabrielle had been brief, but extremely natural. With the card-playing incident a new situation had developed. Arthur, as we have seen, had been inclined to turn up his nose at Gabrielle's society when it was thrust upon him by Considine, while Gabrielle had given signs of a more maternal care. In the later stages of this period Gabrielle, being taken as a matter of course, had practically dropped out of Arthur's letters. The episode of the rabbit changed all this, for while Arthur now began to expand in a nave enthusiasm, Gabrielle's attempts at writing about him fell altogether flat. Judging by her letters Mrs.

Payne might reasonably have supposed that she had grown thoroughly sick of the boy.

The real cause of her reticence was not so easily fathomable. I suppose it was her instinctive method of withdrawing a subject that was secretly precious to her from the knowledge of the one person in the world who might reasonably a.s.sert a right to share it. If she had a.n.a.lysed it, no doubt she would have proved that her interest in Arthur was more intimate than she had ever confessed. But she didn't a.n.a.lyse it. Neither, for that matter, did Mrs. Payne. Looking backward, a year later, that good woman realised what a psychological howler she had made. At the time she was merely thankful that Arthur was happy in the society of a woman whom she liked and trusted--to whom, indeed, she had more or less confided him--and sorry that at the very moment when her influence might have counted, Gabrielle appeared to be losing interest in the boy. It cheered her to think that Arthur was expressing any admiration so human and, to be frank, so unlike himself.

She was even more cheered when she received Considine's report on him at the beginning of the Christmas holidays. "_There have been one or two unpleasant incidents,_" wrote the tactful Considine, "_but during the latter part of the term I must say that your boy's conduct has been practically unexceptionable. I think it is only right to tell you that I have great hopes of him._" At the same time Gabrielle was silent.

Of course Considine didn't really know as much about it as she did. He had seen the broad effects of Arthur's adoration--for that is what it was now becoming--but he knew nothing of the struggles that had gone to their making. During the latter part of the term his conduct had not been by any means "unexceptionable"; but it was part of Gabrielle's queer policy of secrecy to hide any lapse on Arthur's part from her husband. She tackled them alone, forcing herself, against her own compa.s.sionate instincts, to play upon Arthur's feelings. She had now discovered that where appeals to general morality, or even to reason, were bound to fail, the least sign of suffering on her part could reduce Arthur to a miserable and perfectly genuine repentance. Such was the end of all their struggles; and there were many; for she would not let the least sign of his old weakness pa.s.s. At times she felt that she was cruel, but she allowed herself to be harrowed, finding, perhaps, in the pain that she inflicted on both of them, something that was flattering both to her conscience and to her self-esteem.

During all this time there was nothing approaching intimacy between them. To him, however he might adore her, she was always Mrs.

Considine. In all their relations they preserved the convention that she was a creature of another world and of another age. No doubt his childishness made the illusion easy to him. With her there must surely have been moments of emotion when she realised that the barrier was artificial. It is impossible to say how soon the first of these moments came.

Certainly when he returned to Overton for the holidays with Considine's encouraging report, she felt terribly lonely. For the last two months she had concerned herself so pa.s.sionately with the discovery--one might almost say the creation--of his soul, that his departure left her not only with a physical blank, but with a spiritual anxiety. She wondered all the time what was happening to him; whether in her absence he was keeping it up or drifting into a state of tragic relapse. On the evening before he left she had made him promise to write to her, but his boyish letters were wholly unsatisfactory. She believed that he was telling her the truth in them, and yet he told her so little. She even wished that she had kept up the habit of writing to Mrs. Payne; for the least sidelight on the condition of affairs at Overton would have been grateful to her. She did write to Mrs. Payne, but destroyed the letter, feeling that a sudden revival of her custom when Arthur was no longer at Lapton would seem merely ridiculous.

The Christmas holidays were a dreary time for her. Deserted by all youth the Manor House slipped back into its ancient and melancholy peace. Winter descended on them. She had been told that the climate of South Devon resembled that of Connemara, but this was not the kind of winter that she had known before. Snow never fell, as it used to fall on her own mountains, turning Slieveannilaun into a great ghost, and bringing the distant peaks of the Twelve Pins incredibly nearer.

Perhaps snow fell on Dartmoor; but from Lapton Dartmoor could not be seen. In those deep valleys it could only be felt as a reservoir of chilly moisture, or a barrier confining cold, dank air. Instead of snowing it rained incessantly. The soft lanes became impa.s.sable with mud, turning Lapton into a peninsula, if not an island.

At the New Year they went on a visit to Halberton House. During their stay there Lady Barbara conceived a sudden and violent pa.s.sion for Gabrielle, that culminated in Gabrielle being taken solemnly to her cousin's virginal bedroom and hearing the story of an old unhappy love-affair. All the time that she listened to Lady Barbara's plaintive voice Gabrielle was wondering what had happened at Overton, and whether Arthur was keeping to the solemn undertaking that he had given her. She wondered if it were possible that regard for his mother's feelings might now be filling the place of her own influence; if Mrs. Payne were arrogantly taking to herself the credit for the miracle which Lapton had seen so laboriously begun. She hoped, knowing that it was wicked of her to do so, that this had not happened. She felt that the change in Arthur was hers and hers only. She found herself forced to confess that she was jealous of Mrs. Payne....

"And then," said Lady Barbara, "just when I was certain, positively certain that he cared for me--after that morning in church, you know--his mother broke her leg huntin' in Leicestershire. The wire came in with the mornin' letters, and the first thing I knew of his goin' was seein' the luggage cart with his hat-box in the drive. Then, poor dear, he met this widow at a dance at Belvoir. I begged mother to let me go and stay with the Pagets at Somerby, but she said it would be undignified. He was killed in the Chitral a year later. I felt I must tell you, dear, because I can't help feelin' a little envious of your happy marriage. Dr. Considine is such a man ... and I always feel it's so safe marryin' a clergyman."

The idea of envying her marriage with Considine was so ridiculous that Gabrielle couldn't repress an inexcusable smile, but Lady Barbara cut short her blushing apology. "I don't begrudge you your happiness, my dear," she said.

Seeing Lady Barbara sitting opposite to her with her thin arms sticking straight out of a camisole, and two plaits of hair pathetically trailing one on either side of her narrow forehead, Gabrielle was suddenly overwhelmed with the consciousness of her own youth--not only that, but her amazing difference in temperament from these people of her own blood. Retiring from her cousin's chaste kisses to her own room, she stood for a long while in front of her mirror, tinglingly aware of her freshness and beauty and vitality. Considine, emerging from his dressing-room, found her there.

"Vanity, vanity!" he said, taking her in his arms and kissing her.

Gabrielle suddenly thought how glad she would be to hand him over to the admiring Lady Barbara. She remembered the chill kiss of her cousin, and then the kiss of Considine. Neither of them, she decided, was a real kiss.

The new term began on the twenty-fifth of January. Gabrielle had awaited it with a subdued excitement. When the day came, she compelled herself to appear more placid than usual. It was a sunny morning of the kind that often gives a feeling of spring to the Devon winter, a morning full of promise. Considine had suggested that she should drive into Totnes and do some shopping before meeting the train from the Midlands, but she would not do so. All morning she made herself busy in the house, and later in the day, hearing the wheels of the wagonette on the drive, she slipped out into the garden to visit a border where the crocus spears were pushing through the soil. She could not explain her own sudden shyness. She was tremulous, tremulous with life. There was a smell of spring in the air. Arthur came out to find her in the garden. His eyes glowed with the pleasure of seeing her again, but she would not look at him.

"Well," she said, "what happened?"

"Oh, it was all right," he said. "I think it was all right. I'm almost sure of it. I always thought of you, you see. Imagined what you'd think of me." He didn't say that he had considered what his mother would think. She was suddenly, jealously, thankful.

With his return she regained her content, feeling no longer the weight of winter. He spoke no more regretfully of his exclusion from the sports of the other pupils and they settled down once again into their happy routine of walks and drives. In a little while the crocuses burst into flame in the borders, and in the hedges the wild arums began to unfold.

One Friday afternoon in the middle of March she asked Considine to let Arthur drive her into Dartmouth. The day was so mild that they chose the high-road that skirts the edge of Start Bay. There was a feeling of holiday in the air, for the sea beneath them was of a pale and shimmering blue like a stone blazing with imprisoned light or a b.u.t.terfly's wing. On the road they met a long procession of carriers'

vans heaped high with shopping baskets, and the happy faces of country people stared at them from under the hoods. The road shone white, having been scoured with rain, and all the hedgerows smelt of green things growing, with now and then a waft of the white violet. The sky was so clear that they could see the smoke of many liners, hull down, making the Start. When they reached the crest of the hill above Dartmouth a man-of-war appeared, a three-funnelled cruiser, steaming fast towards the land. She was so fleet and strong that she seemed to share in the exhilaration of the day. They dropped down slowly into Dartmouth and lost sight of her.

Gabrielle had a great deal of shopping to do, and Arthur drove her from one shop to another, waiting outside in the pony-trap while she made her purchases. Then they had tea together in a restaurant on the quay.

They had never been more happy together. When they came out of the tea-shop on to the pavement they found themselves entangled in a group of sailors, liberty-men who had been disembarked from the cruiser that now lay anch.o.r.ed in the mouth of the Dart. They came along the footpath laughing, pleased to be ash.o.r.e. Arthur and Gabrielle stood aside to let them pa.s.s, and as they did so Gabrielle saw the name _H.M.S. Pennant_ upon their cap-ribbons. She became suddenly pale and silent. The light had faded from the day. She begged Arthur to drive her home as quickly as he could.

Arthur was puzzled by her strangeness. He could not understand why she did not speak to him. They drove on in silence through the dusk. So they came to the point at which the coast road turns inward towards Lapton Huish, a lonely spot where the cliffs break away into low hills, and the highroad runs between a ridge of shingle on one side and on the other two reedy meres. The night was windless, and they heard no sound but a faint shivering of reed-beds, and the plash and withdrawal of languid waves lapping the miles of fine shingle with a faint hiss like that of grain falling on to a mound.

On the bridge that spanned the channel connecting the two meres Gabrielle asked him to stop. He did so, wondering, and she climbed out of the trap, and leaned upon the coping, looking out over the water.

He couldn't think what to make of her. He did not know how dear is mystery to the heart of a woman. He stood by, awkwardly looking at her. At last she said slowly, "I hate the sea.... I hate it. But I love lake-water," which didn't lead much further. But he knew that she was for some reason unhappy, and found this difficult to bear. He came near to her, leaning over the bridge at her side.

"I wish you'd tell me what's the matter," he said. "It's all very well your helping me, but it's a bit one-sided if I can't do anything for you."