F. Marion Crawford

“ HERE is nothing equal to the absolute fearlessness of a naturally brave man who has no experience of the risk he runs and is bent on saving the life of the woman he loves. Louis Lawrence remembered afterwards what he had done and how he had done it, but he was unconscious of what he was doing at the time.
He rushed down the hill between the closer trees, and with utter recklessness sprang at the bridle as the infuriated mare dashed past him. ”

“ Fanny looked round and met Lawrence's eyes.
"You seem to be the only one who is ready," she said, laughing again. "One isn't a crowd, as the little boys say."
"Where do you get such expressions, my dear child? " asked Cordelia. "I really think you've learned more slang since you've been here this summer, though I shouldn't have believed it possible!"
"There!" exclaimed Fanny, turning to Mr. Brinsley again. "That's the kind of flattery my relatives lavish on me from morning till night! As if you didn't all talk slang, the whole time!" ”

“ Brinsley that I'm to be trusted at sea," Fanny answered.
"My dear child," said Miss Cordelia, "Mr. Brinsley knows that, and he must be a good judge, having been in the navy."
"Oh, I didn't know you'd been in the navy, Mr. Brinsley," said the pitiless young girl, fixing her eyes on his with an expression which he, perhaps, understood, though no one else noticed it. "The English navy, of course?"
"The English navy," repeated Mr. Brinsley, sharply.
"Oh, well—that accounts for your not knowing how to club-haul a ship. Your own people are always saying that your service is going to the dogs." ”

“ He had never had any cause to expect from Fanny Trehearne anything in the way of sentiment, but he was none the less persuaded that he had a moral right to look for something more than chaff and good-natured hospitality, spiced with such vigorous reproof as "don t be a spoilt baby."
The words rankled. He was asking himself just then whether he was a 'spoilt baby' or not. It was of great importance to him to know the truth. If he was a spoilt baby, of course Miss Trehearne had a right to say so if she liked,
though the expression was not complimentary. ”

“ Lawrence did not say anything in reply, but looked out over the blue water at the dark green islands or the deep bay as the Sappho paddled along, beating up a wake of egg-white froth. He was glad that Professor Knowles was going over to the other side to dwell amongst the placid inhabitants of North East Harbour, where the joke dieth not, even at an advanced age; where there are people who believe in Ruskin and swear by Herbert Spencer, who coin words ending in 'ism,' and intellectually subsist on the 'ologies'—with the notable exception of theology. ”

“ You ought to see Brinsley—Mr. Brinsley—you'd understand better."
"But I understand perfectly, as it is," said Lawrence, rather gloomily.
"Do you? I wonder whether you really do. Do you think there's any—any excuse for me?"
The words were spoken in a faltering shamefaced way very unlike Fanny's usual manner.
"As though you needed any excuse for taking a fancy to any one who pleases you!" answered Lawrence, rather coldly. "Aren't you perfectly free to like anybody who turns up?"
During the pause which followed, he slowly relighted his pipe, which had quite gone out by this time. ”

“ Before Brinsley was mounted, Fanny was over the fence with her mare, and waiting for him in the road.
"Oh, come along! " she cried. "Don't be all day getting on!"
"You needn't be so tremendously rough on a fellow," said Brinsley, as his horse landed in the road. "It wasn't my fault that I wasn't waiting for a runaway under the trees up there."
"Yes it was! Everything's your fault," answered Fanny, emphatically. "No—you needn't play Orlando Furioso and make papa's old rocking-horse waltz like that. My mare's got to walk a mile, at least, for her nerves." ”

“ So I began to like him very much."
"They're all excellent reasons for liking a man," observed Lawrence, with a little contempt.
"Don't scoff at things you can't do yourself," said Fanny, severely. "It's not in good taste. Besides, I don't care. All women admire men who are stronger, and quicker, and better with their hands than other men. One always thinks they must be braver, too."
"Yes, that's true," assented Lawrence, seeking to retrieve himself by meekness.
"And they generally are. It takes courage to ride well, and it needs nerve to handle a boat in a squall. ”

“ As an artist, he could not but admire the perfect proportions of the visitor, the strength of him, and the satisfactory equilibrium of forces which showed itself in his whole physical being; but as a gentleman he was repelled by something not easily defined, and as a lover he suspected a rival. He had not much right, indeed, to believe that Fanny Trehearne cared especially for him, any more than to predicate that she was in love with Brinsley. ”

“ We do not make love to an argument, so to speak, nor to a set of ideas, nor to a preconceived opinion of our merits or demerits. We make love to our own idea of what the woman is—and the depth of our disillusionment is the measure of our sincerity, when love is gasping between the death-blow and the death. ”

“ Lawrence was not thinking of the Miss Miners as he watched the dark green islands. If he had thought of them at all during the last half-hour, it had been with a certain undefined gratitude to them for being the means of allowing him to spend a fortnight in the society of Fanny Trehearne.
Professor Knowles had not moved from his side during the long silence. Lawrence looked up and saw that he was still there, his extraordinary profile cut out against the cloudless sky.
"Will you smoke?" enquired Lawrence, offering him a cigarette. ”

“ Lawrence laughed incredulously.
"Yes—really. It's a rather dismal sort of love—they've kept their hearts in pickle for such an age, you know—old pickles aren't good, either. I've no patience with old maids who fall in love and make fools of themselves!"
"Perhaps they can't help it," suggested the young man. "Nobody can help falling in love, you know."
"No," answered Fanny, rather doubtfully. "Perhaps not. I don't know. It depends."
"People don't generally try to keep themselves from falling in love," remarked Lawrence, with the air of a philosopher. "It's more apt to be the other way. ”

“ But behind all and above all rise the wooded hills, which are neither modern nor ancient, but eternal. And in them and through them there is secret sweetness, and fragrance, and much that is gentle and lovely—in the heart of the defiantly beautiful earth-woman with her cold face, far beyond the reach of her tide-lover, and altogether out of hearing of his sighs and complaining speeches. There grow in endless greenness the white pines and the pitch pines, the black spruce and the white ”

“ I'm sure I wasn't saying anything at all flattering."
"I only wish people would say such things to me, then," retorted the young girl.
"We're all quite ready to, I'm sure, Miss Trehearne," said Brinsley, smiling in a way that seemed to make his heavy dark mustache retreat outward, up his cheeks, like the whiskers of a cat when it grins. ”

“ To tell the truth, he thought his own chances very small; for he underestimated all his advantages by looking at them in the light of his present poverty, not seeing that in so doing he might be underestimating Fanny Trehearne as well. A somewhat excessive caution, which sometimes goes with timidity, though not at all of the sort which produces cowardice, is often the result of an education which has not brought a man closely into competition with other men. No one in common sense, save the Miss Miners and Lawrence himself, could have imagined that Brinsley had a chance against him. ”

“ Only the sea is eloquent. The deep-breathing tide runs forward to the feet of the over-perfect, heartless earth, to linger and plead love s story while he may; then sighing sadly, sweeps back unsatisfied, baring his desolate bosom to her loveless scorn. ”

“ The worst of it was, that the man might possibly succeed. A girl who will and can ride anything, who beats everybody at tennis, and who is as good as most men in a sail-boat, may naturally be supposed to admire a man who does those things, and many others, in a style bordering upon perfection. This same man, too, though not exactly clever in an intellectual way, possessed at least the gifts of fluency and tact, combined with great coolness under all circumstances, so far as Lawrence had observed him. ”

“ She bit the end of the grass blade, and slowly tore it with her teeth, looking dreamily across the brook.
"Don't try it, at all events."
"Mr. Brinsley doesn't seem to mind."
"Brinsley isn't a human being," said Lawrence, savagely.
"What is he, then?"
"A fraud—of some sort. I don't care. I hate him!"
"You're hard on Mr. Brinsley," observed Fanny, slowly, and watching her companion sideways. ”

“ But it's always the wrong people who like one."
"Why the wrong people?" asked Fanny Trehearne, not looking at him.
"Because all the liking in the world from people one doesn't care for can't make up for the not liking of the one person one does care for." ”

“ You feel that he wouldn't do anything that wasn't quite—quite—don't you know?"
"I'm not sure that I do," replied Lawrence, in some bewilderment. "But I understand what you mean," he added confidently.
"My dear," said Augusta to her eldest sister, "all that is perfectly true, as I always say. But those are not the things that make him the most charming man I ever met. Oh dear, no! Ever so many men one knows have good eyes, and talk well, and are gentlemen in every way. I'm sure you wouldn't have a man about if he wasn't a gentleman. ”

“ Fanny Trehearne fixed her cool grey eyes on his face with a critical expression.
"Can you ride?" she asked, pursuing her examination.
"Oh, yes—that is—to some extent. I'm not exactly a circus-rider, you know—but I can get on."
"Most people can do that. The important thing is not to come off. What can you do—anyway? Are you a good man in a boat? You see I've only met you in society. I've never seen you do anything."
"No," answered Lawrence. "I'm not a good man in a boat, as you call it—except that I'm never sea-sick. ”

“ Don't you know that a woman sometimes likes a man for what he doesn't say?"
"I never thought of it in that way. I daresay you're right. You ought to know much better than I do. Especially if you really like me, as you say you do."
"Oh—I'm honest. I never said I'd been in the navy!" Fanny laughed. "Besides, if I didn't like you, why should I say so? Just to say something civil? The way Mr. Brinsley does?"
"Brinsley's a horror! ”

“ If I'd known there wasn't—by the bye, this counts in the game, doesn't it?" "There isn't anything to count, yet," said Fanny. "Look at those fiery fish—aren't they pretty? See how they squirm about, and fizzle, and behave like mad things! Oh, I never saw anything so pretty as that!"
"Yes. If one must have an interruption, they do as well as anything."
"You weren't talking very coherently, I believe," said the young girl, turning her head to watch the fireworks. "And you've made me miss lots of pretty things, I'm sure. Oh—they've gone out already! How dark it seems, all at once! ”

“ I believe marketing is the best school in the world for learning what's worth having and what isn't. Don't you?"
"I never had a chance to learn," laughed Lawrence. "I wish you'd teach me how to get on, as you call it."
"Oh—it's very easy! You only need know exactly what you want, and then try to get it as hard as you can. Most people don't know, and don't try."
"For that matter I know perfectly well what I want."
"Then why don't you try and get it?" asked Fanny, pausing at the door of another shop as though interested in his answer. ”

“ But he had been alone then and had stopped in the mediæval hotel, a rather solitary, thinking unit amidst the horde of thoughtless summer nomads, designated by the clerk at the desk as 'Number a hundred and twenty-three,' and a candidate for a daily portion of the questionable dinner at the hotel table. It was to be different this time, he thought, as he watched for the first sight of the pier when the Sappho rounded Bar Island. ”

“ At a glance, Lawrence saw that Brinsley was an athlete, and he guessed instantly that the man must be good at all those things which Louis himself was unable to do. He was a man to ride, drive, run, pull an oar, and beat everybody at tennis. ”

“ Fanny began.
"That is," she added quickly, correcting herself, "I'm not quite sure of what I meant. I think I did mean to hurt him. He's so strong, and he's always showing that he despises Mr. Lawrence, because he isn't an athlete. As though a man must be a prize-fighter to be nice!" ”

“ But when she was not looking, he pressed one hand to his forehead with all his might, as though to drive out the pain, which increased with every minute.
Meanwhile, Fanny laid her weight to the halliards, and the sail went flapping up, throat and peak. The girl was very strong, and had been taught to handle a catboat when she had been a mere child, so that there was nothing extraordinary in her accomplishing unaided a little feat which would have puzzled many a smart young gentleman who fancies himself half a sailor. ”

“ His mustache was black and heavy, and he wore very small, closely cropped whiskers like those affected by naval officers. He had one of those arrogant, vain, astute noses which seem to point at whatever the small and beady black eyes judge to be worth having. ”

“ For anything that people knew, Brinsley might turn out to be an adventurer of the worst kind, whereas Lawrence was of good birth, a man of whom many knew who he was, and whence he came, and that he had as good a right to ask for Fanny's hand as any man. He was poor just now, but no one believed that his rich uncle, a childless widower of fifty-five, would marry again, and Lawrence was sure to have money in the end, though he might wait thirty years for it. ”

“ In the moonlight, the delicate, clearly chiselled features were lovely still, but a little ghostly, and the young girl saw that the fixed smile had disappeared for once, leaving a look of pain in its place. ”

“ Without ever saying a word which even faintly suggests prevarication, they have a masterly reticence about what they do not wish to have known, whereby their acquaintances are sometimes more completely deceived than they could be by the most ingenious falsehood. Lawrence was quite unable to judge from Fanny's face whether she liked Brinsley or not, but he was wounded by a certain deference, if that word be not too strong, which she showed for the man's opinion, and which contrasted slightly with the dictatorial superiority which she assumed towards Lawrence himself. ”

“ Fanny showed surprising alternations of firmness and condescension, for she had the gift of managing people and of getting what she wanted, which is a rare gift and one not to be despised. She asked very kindly after the fishmonger's baby, but she did not hesitate to tell the grocer the hardest of truths about the butter.
"I always do my own marketing," she said to Lawrence, in answer to his look of surprise. "It amuses me, and I get much better things. My poor dear cousins don't understand marketing a bit—though they ought to. That's the reason why they never get on, somehow. ”