Compton MacKenzie

“ He remembered how in reading of Christina Rossetti's renunciation of a lover who did not believe as she believed, he had thought of the incident as a poet's exaggeration. And it might well have happened. Now indeed he could see why she was so much the greatest poetess of them all: her faith had been real. Lines from that Sonnet of sonnets came back to him, broken lines but full of dread:
I love ... God the most;
Would lose not Him but you, must one be lost:
And if Pauline should speak so to him, if Pauline should disown him at the bidding of her phantom gods? ”

“ He was surely now in the midway of the thorny path of love, and whether he progressed or retreated he could not escape the spines. Well had he said to himself that night in May: 'La belle Dame sans mercy bath thee in thrall.'
All the fire and fever of his present life on the outskirts of a haunted country was for his imagination alone. However timidly his pen approached those dreams, they vanished; and whenever his pen betrayed him, Guy turned despairingly again to Pauline herself. These days without her were every day more unendurable. ”

“ How many such birthday breakfasts had been eaten on this cool lawn by these people who in their simplicity were akin to the birds in their shrubberies and the flowers in their borders; and Guy thought of an old photograph taken by an uncle of Pauline's tenth birthday breakfast, when the table was heaped high with dolls and toys and Pauline in the middle of them, while Monica and Margaret with legs as thin as thrushes' stood shy and graceful in the background. He sighed to himself with amazement at the fortune which like a genie had whisked him into this dear assemblage. ”

“ The lawn in front stretched before it in decent whiteness, and the veiling of the ragged unhealthy grass took away from the front of the house that air of wan caducity, endowing the stones by contrast with tinted warmth and richness. The decrepit roof was hidden, and Wychford Abbey dreamed under its weight of snow with all the placid romance of a house on a Christmas card. The dark plantation was deprived of its gloom, and what was usually a kind of haunted stillness was now aspectful peace. Guy went over the crinching ground and strolled down the broad walk through the shrubbery. ”

“ Pauline's bedroom was immediately over the nursery; but so roundabout was the construction of the Rectory that, to reach the one from the other, all sorts of corridors and twisting stairways had to be passed; and when finally she flung herself down in her small armchair she was breathless. Soon, however, the tranquillity of the room restored her. The faded blue linen so cool to her cheeks quieted all the passionate indignation. On the wall Saint Ursula asleep in her bed seemed inconsistent with a proud rage; nor did Tobit laughing in the angel's company encourage her to sulk. ”

“ The journey to Wychford seemed effortless, for whatever the arduousness of a course steadily upstream, it was nullified by the knowledge that every time the paddle was dipped into the water it brought him by his own action nearer to Pauline. A railway journey would have given him none of this endless anticipation, travelling through what at this time of the year before the season of boating was a delicious solitude. Guy could sing all the way if he wished, for there was nothing but buttercups and daisies, lambs and meadows and greening willows to overlook his progress. ”

“ Gently the daffodils swayed in this light breeze of dying March, and the grass was already tall enough to sigh forth its transitory summer tune. Guy in a flood of penitence hastened at once to the Rectory to accuse himself to Pauline, and when he saw her watching for him at the nursery window he had no regrets that could stab to wound him as deeply as he deserved to be wounded. She was very tender and still that afternoon, and as he held her in his arms there seemed to him nothing more worth while in life than her cherishing. ”

“ I always must be alone to blame if the treasure that you are is not proved to the world."
How was she to convince him of her unworthiness, how was she to persuade this lover of hers that she was too simple a creature for his splendid enthronement? Suddenly one day he would see her in all her dulness and ordinariness, and turning from her in disillusion, he would hold her culpable for anything in his work that might seem to have betrayed his ambition.
"Guy," she called into the future. "You will always love me?"
"Will there ever be another Pauline?" ”

“ Was it she, wondered Guy, who was the ultimate lure of this house, or was it Pauline? Of her, as she swayed to the violin, nothing could be said but that from a rose-bloomed radiance issued a sound of music. And how clearly in the united effect of the three sisters was written the beauty of their lives. Guy could almost see every hour of their girlhood passing in orderly pattern, as the divine Hours dance along a Grecian frieze. ”

“ I climbed up to the top of the church tower to-day, and oh, the tulips in your garden and oh, the emptiness of that garden notwithstanding! Come back, my Pauline, for you'll see the iris buds in the paddock and you've no idea of the way in which that river of ours sparkles on these April mornings. I wish I could tell you how remote this Winter already has grown. It has crept out of memory like a dejected nightmare at breakfast. You are never to think again about the stupid things I've said about religion: think only, my dearest, that I hope always for your faith. ”

“ And why do you think you're not in love with him?"
"I haven't really explained well," said Margaret. "What I'm sure of is that I'm not as much in love with him as I want to be in love."
"You're living opposite a looking-glass," said Guy. "That's what is the matter."
They had reached the stile leading over into the high road, and Margaret gazed back wistfully at the footprints in the snow, before they crossed it and went on their way.
"Yes," she said. "I am conceited. But my conceit is really cowardice. I long for admiration, and when I am admired I despise it. ”

“ Guy was too early when he crept over the lawn, for there were still lights in all the upper windows, and he withdrew to the plantation, where he waited in rapt patience while the branches dripped and pattered, dripped and pattered ceaselessly. One by one the lights had faded out, but still he must not signal to Pauline. How should he after all make known to her his presence on that dark lawn? Scarcely would she perceive from her window his shadowy form. He must not even whisper; he must not strike a match. ”

“ Every hour they spent on the river made them long to spend more hours together, and Pauline began to tell herself she was more deeply in love than anyone she had ever known. Everything except love was floating away from her like the landscape astern of the canoe. She began to neglect various people in Wychford over whom she had hitherto watched with maternal solicitude: even Miss Verney was not often visited, because she and Guy could not go together, the one original rule to which Mrs. Grey still clung being a prohibition of walking together through the town. ”

“ She rose from her knees at the same moment as Monica, who at once began to talk lightly of the tiresome people at dinner and seemed utterly unconscious of having wounded Pauline's thoughts. Yet when the room was dark, for a long while these wounded thoughts danced upon the wintry air that breathed of Wychford. 'Even supposing Guy is in love with you.' It was curious that she could not feel very angry with Monica. 'Even supposing Guy is in love with you.' It really seemed a pity to fall asleep: it was like falling asleep when music was being played. ”

“ Those gusty eves were almost preferable to this protracted and luminous melancholy in which the sinking crescent of the moon hung scarcely more bright than ivory. The pensive beauty was too much for Pauline, who wished that she could shut out the obstinate day and read by candlelight such a book as Alice in Wonderland until it was time to go to bed. Her white fastness, rose-bloomed by sunset as she dressed for dinner, reproached her intention of abandoning its shelter to-night, and she determined that this should really be the last escapade. ”

“ And anyway you do criticize Guy and me. Both you and Monica criticize us."
"Only when you tell us we don't understand about love."
"Well, you don't."
"All of us don't want to be in love quite so obviously as you," said Margaret. "And Monica agrees with me."
Monica nodded.
"Well, it's my character," said Pauline. "I always knew that when I did fall in love, I should fall dreadfully deep in love. I don't want to be thinking all the while about my personal dignity. I adore Guy. Why shouldn't I show it? Margaret loves Richard, but simply because she's so self-conscious she can't bear to show it. ”

“ The louder the wind beat against the house, the more feasibly in the lamplit quiet within did the scheme present itself; and Michael Fane, who was always searching for an object in life, would be the very person to involve in the materialization. He would say nothing to anybody else; not even would he mention the idea to Pauline herself. These sanguine dreams occupied his evenings prosperously enough, while March swept past with searing winds from Muscovy that skimmed the rich earth of the ploughlands with a dusty pallor, tarnished the daffodils and seemed to crack the very bird-song. ”

“ I should never feel ... oh, no, Monica, it would really be impossible for me to talk to Guy about his faith."
"His faith seems rather to have frozen lately," said Monica.
"He's been upset and disappointed."
"All the more reason for going to church," Monica argued.
"Yes, for you, darling, or for me; but Guy may be different."
"There's no room for moods in one's religious duties. The artistic temperament is not provided for."
That serene and nun-like conviction of tone made Pauline feel a little rebellious, and yet in its corroboration of her own uneasiness she could not laugh it aside. ”

“ Self-consciousness under the critical glances of Monica and Margaret vanished in the atmosphere of intimacy shed by the occasion. She could laugh and make a great noise without being reproved, and Guy himself was obviously more at home than he had ever been. There seemed a likelihood that now once again the progress of simple friendship would advance undisturbed by the complications of love, and Pauline was glad to be able to assure herself that Guy did not that afternoon display the slightest sign of a hopeless passion for Margaret. ”

“ The matting worn silky with age seemed so eternally unprofaned, and on the wall outside the door the cuckoo calling five o'clock was like a confident bird in some paradise where neither time nor humanity was of much importance. Janet, the elderly parlourmaid, came stumping in behind them with the nursery tea-things; and, as Guy sat by the small hob-grate and saw the moist autumnal sun etherealize with wan gold the tattered volumes of childhood, the very plumcake on the tea-table was endowed with the romantic perfection of a cake in a picture-book. ”

“ There was nothing but gorse and turf and a turquoise sky floating on silver deeps and distances above the winter landscape.
"When the gorse is out of bloom, kissing's out of fashion," he said, pointing to a golden spray.
Pauline had heard the jingle often enough, but spoken solemnly like this by Guy on Wychford down it flooded her cheeks with blushes, and in a sort of dear alarm the truth of it declared itself. She was startlingly aware of a new life, as it were demanding all sorts of questions of her. ”

“ If only Plashers Mead were within view, they would be able to sit at their windows in the dark hours and sometimes signal to one another. Or would that be what Margaret called 'cheapening' herself? Had she cheapened herself this evening, when she had kissed him for the gift of this ring? Yet could she cheapen herself to Guy? He loved her as much as she loved him; and always she and he must be equal in their love. She could never be very much reserved with Guy: she did not want to be. ”

“ When he was in the canoe and driving it with silent strokes along the straight black stream; when the lantern was put out and the darkness was at first so thick that like the water it seemed to resist the sweep of his paddle, Guy could no longer imagine that Pauline would venture out. He became oppressed by the impenetrable and humid air, and he began to long for rain to fall as if it would reassure him that nature in such an annihilation of form was still alive. Now he had swung past the overhanging willows of the churchyard ”

“ Tea-cups floating on laughter against that wall-paper of berries, birds and daisies; a pair of sugar-tongs clicking to the pressure of long white fingers (so much could he recapture of Margaret) ; crumpets in a rosy mist (so much was Pauline) ; a copper kettle singing; the lisp of the wind; a disarray of tambour-frames and music, these were all that kept him company on his way back to Plashers Mead through the colourless twilight. ”

“ Grey and Margaret were bending over a table.
"Guy has left his card," said Margaret.
"Is that the man who came to see me about the rats?" asked the Rector.
"No, no, Francis," said Mrs. Grey. "Guy is the young man at Plashers Mead."
"Isn't Francis sweet?" cried Pauline, reaching up to kiss him.
"Hush, Pauline. Pauline, you must not call your father Francis in the hall," said Mrs. Grey.
"How touching of Guy to leave a card," Pauline murmured, looking at the oblong of pasteboard shimmering in the gloom.
"Now we've just time to practise the Mendelssohn trio before dinner," declared Mrs. Grey. ”

“ In silence they travelled upstream under the vaulted willows: under the giant sycamore whose great roots came writhing out of the darkness above the sheen of the water: under Wychford bridge whose cold breath dripped down in icy beads upon the thick swirl beneath: and then out through starshine across the mill-pool. Pauline held her breath while around their course was a sound of water sucking at the vegetation, gurgling and lapping and chuckling against the invisible banks.
"The Abbey stream?" murmured Guy. ”

“ After Monica's question it was no longer possible for Pauline when she was alone to avoid facing the problem of Guy's attitude toward religion. The repression of her anxiety on this point had only increased the force of it when it was set free like this to compete with and in fact overshadow all other cares. Looking back to her earliest thoughts of the world as it would one day affect herself, she remembered how, if she had ever imagined someone in love with her, she had always created a figure whose faith would be an eternal and joyful contemplation. ”

“ Pauline asked. The house seemed to be whirling away like a leaf, such a shattering of her love were these words of her mother.
"How can I speak to Guy about it?" Mrs. Grey demanded irritably. "How can I, Pauline? It has nearly choked me to speak to you."
"I think Monica and Margaret are almost wicked," Pauline cried in flames. "They are trying to destroy everything. They are, they are. No, Mother, you shan't defend them. I knew they felt guilty when they went out of the room like that. How dare they put horrible thoughts in your mind? How dare they? They're cruel to me. ”

“ She had often been made rather miserable by Guy's tales of the ladies he had loved with airy heedlessness, but these heroines had all faded out in the unreality of his life apart from her, and they took their place with days of adventure described in Macedonia or with the old diversions of Oxford. The visit of Mr. Hazlewood with the chilly disapproval it had shed was more authentic than, for instance, the idea of Guy's dark-eyed mother, who had seemed in his narrations almost to threaten Pauline with her son's fairy ancestry, as if from the grave she might at any moment summon him away. ”

“ Guy was much excited and rushed across to the Rectory in a festivity of hopefulness. He had wired to say he would be in London next day, and all that evening the name of Worrall was lauded until round his unknown personality shone the aureole of a wise and benevolent saint. There seemed no limit to what so discerning a publisher might not do for Guy, and he and Pauline became to themselves and to her family the hero and heroine of such an adventure as never had been. ”

“ Grey equally remote at the other; while Guy would in turn be near to Margaret or Pauline or even Monica in the middle. Old fashioned glasses with spirals of green and white blown in their stems; silver that was nearly diaphanous with use and age; candlesticks solid as the Ionic columns they counterfeited, or tapering and fluted with branches that carried the candle-flames like flowers, everything seemed as if it had been created for this room alone. ”

“ Inside, the warmth and comfort of Plashers Mead were additional incentives to prosecute his resolve; every gleaming book, the breathing of the dog upon the mat before the fire, the gentle purr of the lamp, all seemed to demand that voluptuous renunciation which would later urge him forth again into the night. That it would probably be raining was not to prove an obstacle: Pauline would be more sure to come if she thought he were standing outside in the rain. ”

“ This girl was the link between all those girls at whose existence in his own past Guy had once hinted. Michael Fane appeared like the tempter and Guy like his easy prey. Distortions of the most ordinary, the most trifling incidents piled themselves upon her imagination; and that visit to London assumed a ghastly and impenetrable mysteriousness.
Guy vainly tried to laugh away her fancies: faster and still faster the evil cohorts swept up against her, almost as tangible as bats flapping into her face. ”

“ Of course it was obvious he would fall in love either with Monica or with Margaret, and really it must be managed somehow that he should choose Monica. Everybody fell in love with Margaret, which was so hard on poor Richard out in India who was much the nicest person in the world and whom Margaret must never give up. Pauline looked at her sister and felt afraid the new tenant of Plashers Mead would fall in love with her, for Margaret was so very adorable with her slim hands and her sombre hair.
"Really almost more like a lily than a girl," thought Pauline. ”