Coningsby Dawson

“ Beneath a tree in the clear sunshine a young mother sat sewing. Other men's women! Other men's babies! He would have to set out in search of his kingdom afresh; all his old quests had been mistaken. But he was older now and lame; he lacked the energy for a new journey. It seemed to him that he would be alone and unwanted always.
A telegraph-girl was mounting the steps. He heard the bell ring without interest. Gazing out, with his back towards Terry, he put to her what he intended should be his final question. "You promised him last night—then why did you hurry round to me this morning?" ”

“ The moment she had spoken Tabs had recognized that nothing that she had done or might do could obscure her atmosphere of breeding. He had met men like that, whose sense of race, even when they were at the lowest depths, had kept them superior to their environment. A pale woman of spun silk and gossamer, with cornflower eyes and lips like parted poppy-petals! This woman could be kind to the point of folly—so kind that her folly would appear almost virtue. She was a woman who, though she might love too often, would love so much that to her much would always be forgiven. ”

“ He was young, barely thirty, lean, tall and swift-moving as an arrow—very much what Tabs had been before he had spent himself at the war.
"Hulloa, Terry! This is ripping. I didn't expect you—— But what's all this? An accident! What have you been doing to Prentys?"
The voice was glad and frank, though its habit of command was unmistakable. Every gesture bespoke authority and arrogance of body. Even in this moment of geniality, "Obedience and no explanations" was written all over him. He was a man who believed his acceptable importance to be a verity established beyond the pale of challenge. ”

“ But the moment they were seated in the car, she turned to him. She looked her full age. Her face was pale with more than weariness. He noticed the threads of gray in her hair. Ever since he had seen Ann in her flushed shy exaltation, he had felt more keenly the pathos of Lady Dawn. It was a pathos that found an echo in his heart—the pathos of approaching separation. What purpose did it serve her to be beautiful, if she had no man of her own to admire her? ”

“ Tabs guessed the way the ground lay and went back to the question with which he had started. "What on earth do you see in him? That's what I can't make out."
She kept him waiting for his answer. While he waited, like sunshine struggling through cloud, amused happiness fought its way into her expression. When she turned, she met his gaze with complete candor. She was again a woman of the world. "What do I see in him? Not much—only a makeshift, a second best. Only a man who needs me for the moment because he's lost his direction. ”

“ Adair appeared not to have heard. He stood like a living statue, his top-hat extended, his bunch of roses dangling—the picture of idiotic futility. Genuine emotion, however mean its origin, always has its grand moments. Tabs forgot the silly beginnings of this upset and the endless troubles it had caused. All he saw was a typical ragamuffin of humanity in the grip of the policeman, Nemesis. Adair had been caught trying to do what thousands of other ragamuffins achieved daily with success. He had been arrested red-handed in the act of stealing forbidden happiness. ”

“ Far below in a curving streak of blessedness the Thames ran silvered by the moonlight. He could see the clumped shadows of woods and the flicker of ripples striking fire against the banks. More distantly London glowed—a golden flower cupped in the hollowed hand of night. Holding his breath he [Pg 281] listened to the loudness of the quiet. Subtle ecstasies drifted to him, fluttering like moths against the windows of his mind—"lilies like thoughts, roses like words, in the sweet brain of June." There was a design. Maisie had found her kingdom. ”

“ Sir Tobias, I'm afraid I'm being far too personal, but you're a sample of millions who weren't there. You're living in a totally altered world of whose very existence you're content to be unaware. Your complacency drives men like myself to the point of madness. We hold that you have no right to be complacent until the bill you put your hand to has been settled. I don't know how Lord Taborley feels; he's not expressed——"
"Tabs feels exactly the way you do and so do I." It was Terry speaking, like the shrill courage of a bugle answering the slow bass of a trumpet-call. ”

“ I'd always held that great living was a matter of pressing forward, of wearing an air of triumph when you knew you were defeated, of believing, in spite of every proof to the contrary, that further up the road your kingdom waited for you."
He felt the pressure of her friendly hand. "It does," she assured him. "That's what you've taught me. It's what you taught Maisie; it's almost as though you'd willed her husband to come back. You're a great believer. All great believers have been doubters. They give away so much of their faith that at times they have none left for themselves. You limp. ”

“ Braithwaite's bewilderment made him hostile. "How could I have caused her to change her mind? I parted with her after midnight; it must have been shortly after nine that she was seeing you. I held no communication with her in any shape or form during the eight or nine hours that elapsed."
"Nevertheless, you were the cause. She realized in the meanwhile that in love everything isn't fair. It isn't fair to ignore a young girl's happiness in order to win her hand. You had done that; though she has no proofs, instinctively she feels it." ”

“ The man you love is Braithwaite. What difference has this confession of his made?"
She shrugged her shoulders and looked away, so that he should not see the quivering of her mouth. "It's made everything impossible. I admire him more than ever. I admire him for having told the truth and for having climbed so far up by his gallantry. But—— I'm no fool, Tabs. I know that I couldn't marry him without bringing ridicule upon all of us. Noble notions about human equality don't work in practice. He's what he is—fine of his kind. He's finer than you or I, Tabs, only he's not our sort. ”

“ A strange woman—strangely maternal and beautiful! She never seemed to think of herself. The women whom he had known had always demanded that men should do all the giving. Even Terry had been like that. His conception, of love had been of a continual bestowing with no hope of reciprocity. To be allowed to give throughout one's life to the woman beloved had seemed to him to be the maximum of married blessedness. He knew better now. Lady Dawn had given so generously that she had established a new standard; he would never again ask so little from any woman. ”

“ But you're not really different from women like myself. Crises come to all of us, when life grows desperate—when to be alone becomes intolerable: when everything, even one's pleasures, becomes a burden, because they are unshared. Such a crisis would have come to you sooner or later in any event. It comes to every unmarried man and woman. The war only happened to be the means of bringing home to you your loneliness. When it broke, you didn't have time to choose; you seized on Terry, because she was young and pretty and susceptible. ”

“ After she had joined Lady Dawn's Nursing Unit and had gone to France he had missed her on his leaves; by some fatality they had been always missing. She had existed for him only in their correspondence and in his vivid imagination. And now, after so much hoping, she had become again a reality. He had been prepared for strangeness, but not for—— Was it her youth, which was to have flung wide all doors, that formed the barricade? Her youth which, if shared, would have put back the hands on the face of Time! Her relentless, flaunting youth! Youth which is forever hostile to age! ”

“ I want to be hard on myself. Let me finish what I'm saying. I've only met you twice; on each occasion I've suffered a loss of dignity. The other time was when I tried to turn you away from Maisie's door. You're probably aware that since then, until Pollock's return, I've seen far more of your sister than was wise. In fact I've offered myself like a job lot. And yet there was a time when I was content to wait. I believed that one had only to be faithful and he'd find what he hoped for round some future corner. You're a proud woman, Lady Dawn. You admire strength almost cruelly. ”

“ Through the open window the companionable mutter of London entered. The normality of everything on which his eyes rested did its best to reassure him—the mellow evening sunlight in the friendly room, the flowers in the rockery, the toy-boat on the pond. "I never dig up my dead." He remembered Maisie's motto. But what if the dead——
He pulled himself together. Pollock not dead! An absurd suggestion! Maisie had changed her name twice since then—a sufficient proof! The poor fellow was demented. Everything that he had done bore the hall-mark of insanity. ”

“ Lockwood in, Porter?"
"Why, certainly, your Ladyship."
"Then why was I shut out? Who is this gentleman who——"
The rest was lost as their voices sank. The next words he caught were her Ladyship's, running up the scale of laughter. "Then I'm not de trop! That's a blessing!"
He fell back, trying to obliterate himself, as with every sign of deference Porter admitted her; but in crossing the hall, she had to pass him. Scarcely pausing, she swept him with a pair of stone-gray eyes, made mischievous for the moment with merriment. "You're no good as a butler," she whispered. ”

“ Somewhere at the back of his head he remembered the pleading of Delilah with Samson, "Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth."
He laughed. "Perhaps you have guessed. I'm what you might call a round-the-corner person. I have a philosophy all my own; it's a round-the-corner philosophy. I believe that we find everything that we've lost or longed for, if we'll only press on. Everything that we've ever loved or wanted waits for us further up the road, round some hidden turning. It's always further up the road and just out of sight. ”

“ Tabs' face had gone suddenly white. He acknowledged to himself that, had he been Terry's father, he would have said no less. When he spoke it was with quiet intensity.
"I am annoyed, Sir Tobias—a good deal more annoyed than I care to own to myself; but I try not to let my annoyance obscure my sense of justice. It isn't fair to consider Braithwaite in the light of a servant. He isn't a servant; he's won his spurs. He arrived at the position he occupies to-day through original and unaided merit. That the man who was my servant, happens to be my rival, is bitterly galling. ”