Alix

“ She pulled up the blind, for the sun no longer beat into the room, and stood looking out for a moment without speaking, her back turned to him; then she said: “Alix, too, is kind. I do not fear for our relation, hers and mine. When she is of an age to hear the truth, she shall hear it.”
“She loves you very deeply,” said Giles.
“She loves me very deeply,” madame Vervier repeated. “I have no fear.”
Giles, too, had risen, and moved to the mantelpiece where the picture of Alix in its blue-and-silver frame stood. ”

“ Alix and Peter watched the others at the railing until the ferryboat turned. Martin smiled over Anne's head; Cherry, both little white-gloved hands on the rail, blue eyes and a glint of bright hair showing under the daisies on her hat, her small figure enveloped in a big loose coat, looked as if she would like to cry again.
"It must be fun to be married, and go off to strange places with your beau!" Alix decided. "I'm hungry, Peter; let's go over there and treat ourselves to fried oysters!" ”

“ Yes, he could see himself and Alix in Oxford together and walking in Oxfordshire and Berkshire fields and lanes. More than that. There was another figure that Toppie had not brought into her picture; but she would have thought of it. It was the figure that stood between Alix and all those other dreams he had woven round her and Jerry. Who but himself could care for Alix's mother and accept her into his life? Madame Vervier, he knew, would never have come to Oxford. ”

“ It was wonderful in her, this detachment, Alix thought, yet she found fault with it, and it was the only fault she found in Mrs. Bradley. She should have felt herself more responsible for the uncouthness of her daughter; she should have given less thought to the welfare of the London children, and more to the manners of her own. “It would have been better for them,” thought Alix, “if she could have become very angry with them. How excellent for Ruth and Rosemary if they could have been well whipped from time to time. ”

“ Alix had never cared at all about the saints, and it was strange to feel that this heretic lady, creedless and uncloistered, made them more real and more lovable to her.
“Do you not think so, too, Giles?” she said to her friend in the study. “Do you not see what I mean? She is like a modern kind of saint; so selfless and dedicated and laborious. She never thinks about being happy.”
“You make her happy, Alix. Did you know that?” said Giles.—“Yes, I see perfectly what you mean. Yet Mummy never seems to me sad. Does she to you?” ”

“ Write to Alix, of course; write constantly. Tell her all about it; your feelings, you know, and what you think about her eyes.—You both care for the same things: riding; out of doors; fancy-dress balls, and the ‘Hymn of Pan.’ What you’ve got to uphold, you see, Jerry, what you’ve got to justify, is our English conception of being in love. You must overbear convention; you must break down parental scruples. You must show yourself so much in love to Alix that you’ll convince her that romance is common-sense. ”

“ I couldn't be bothered with children, or with a husband either—It's as good as a play to hear you talk, you know, Alix—all your quaint French ideas. What can one hope of a nation that still has them!—Cradles, hearthstones, hubby's socks to mend;—that's what really appeals to you, I suppose.”
“What appeals to me is to be established,” said Alix. “I do not care for babies; but they are a part of marriage, and no doubt one would come to like them when one had them. ”

“ Lady Mary could only have come to see Alix and, after she had disappeared, he stood wondering what Alix would find to say to her. He had, while he had brooded on their disaster, almost forgotten Alix’s love-story and it seemed now to have lost all its potency. Jerry was too light, too boyish to face the resolutions that would now be needed. “She’s too good for him,” Giles muttered to himself, as he had muttered of the French order on the summer day at Les Vaudettes, standing with bent head and hands in his pockets as if listening for what next was to happen. Too good for him. ”

“ Cherry, who was breathing hard, raised her head, rested her chin on her hands, elbows on the table, and stared at Alix defiantly.
"There!" she said, almost with triumph. "There! Now, is that so easy? Now, am I to just smile and agree and say 'Certainly, Martin,' 'Of course, Martin dear!' Now you see--now you see! Now, am I to bear THAT," she rushed on, her words suddenly violent. "And go on with him--as his wife--when a common woman like that--"
"Cherry, dear!" Alix said, distressedly.
"Ah, well, you can't realize it; nobody but the woman to whom it happens can!" ”

“ What fate more pitiful for a beautiful woman than to find a rival in her daughter!”
“Nothing of that sort could ever happen between Alix and her mother,” said Giles angrily.
“Nothing of that sort. Précisément. You, a young man, and I, an old woman, see eye to eye when it comes to such a comparison,” madame Dumont disconcertingly concurred. “La petite Alix is not of a type to seduce. She has distinction; an air of race; mais elle n’est pas séduisante!—Tandis que la mère!”—and madame Dumont, with eye and hand uplifted, took Heaven to witness of her appreciation. ”

“ And Alix had liked him, too--any girl would like any man under the same circumstances of age and environment. Alix would have made Martin a better wife; she would have loved the mining towns, the muddy railroad stations, and the odd women. She would have had her dogs, perhaps a child or two now. Anyway, ran Cherry's thoughts, she would have had the old home now, and that, to Alix, would have meant a very triumph of joy. She would have come to stay with Peter and Cherry while it was put in order; she would have revelled in cows and ducks and dogs here. ”

“ Toppie mused on Alix. But then, alas, she came back to Alix’s mother. “The same in loveliness; the same in dignity and security.—In what ways different, then, Giles?”
He knew that there was hardly anything he could say of madame Vervier that it would not be unwise to say. He watched an ant, disturbed by his change of posture, thread its anxious way amongst the tufts of heather and felt that he was like the ant. He, too, must go forward and find the path that promised most safety. “Well, she’s more impulsive, I feel; more selfish; less fastidious.” ”

“ She felt sure that it had been in the hope of a word with Toppie rather than to fetch herself that Giles had come.
“Oh, we have so many words; every day; all our lives long,” said Toppie, and, though she continued to advance, Alix felt a slight constraint in her voice. “He is a dear, is he not, Giles?” she added, as if irrelevantly.
“Oh, a dear!” said Alix. “I felt him that at once. And so good; and so intelligent.”—“More intelligent than Captain Owen; more good,” was in her mind. But that made, she knew, no difference. People were not loved for their intelligence, or their goodness, either. ”

“ We think for ourselves; but you, if you are a girl, may only think for yourself when you are married.”
“I like England better in that,” said Alix. “One should have a voice.”
“Perhaps your mother feels that you'll learn to have a right to a voice by being in England.”
“I do not think so,” said Alix. “I do not think she believes in having a voice. That is another great difference. You believe that one learns to have a voice by being given freedom.”
“You can't be free here, Alix; I see that for myself,” Giles said, looking at her and wondering how far her thought could follow. ”

“ It was Lady Mary who came to me,” said Alix.
“What did she say then? Had she expected it?”
Alix lifted her eyes to her friend. “That is what I find so strange, Giles. She had not expected it at all. Is that not a little naïf, do you not think? On the one hand to give perfect freedom, and on the other to imagine that nothing unforeseen shall happen. If one gives freedom, one must expect the unforeseen, must one not?—She was very kind. She said she had thought of me and Jerry as playmates, and that I was right to say to him that we were far, far too young. ”

“ Alix sat back on her heels, in the ungraceful fashion of her girlhood, and shrugged her shoulders.
"Think of the people who are worrying themselves sick over bills, or sick wives, or children to bring up!" she suggested, hopefully. "My Lord, if you have enough money, and food, and are young, and well--!"
"Yes, but, Alix," Cherry argued, eagerly, "I'm NOT well when I'm unhappy. My heart is like lead all the time; I can't seem to breathe! People--isn't it possible that people are different about that?" ”

“ Alix smiled. “Nor in a country with such fogs.”
“That's a good idea! Eh, Aunt Bella? People must see each other clearly in order to hate each other sufficiently.—What?”
“That is just it,” Alix nodded, laughing. “And you are all so kind. Kinder, I am sure, than we are.”
She and Giles understood each other. He treated her like a child, yet they understood each other, really, better than he and Aunt Bella, for she looked a little cautious when Giles embarked on his sallies, as if she did not quite know in what admission he might not involve her unless she were careful. ”

“ They had never again spoken of their secret, but, before he met her mother he ought to know whether Alix had told her what he knew of Owen's stays with them in Paris. Before he saw madame Vervier he ought to know what she knew about him; and suddenly, his eyes fixed upon the wharves and houses of Dieppe, he said: “You think she'll feel it all right that I'm come?”
“I wrote to her that you were coming,” said Alix. Her mind had perhaps been following some train of thought not far removed from his, for she spoke as if they were continuing a theme rather than taking it up. “She will be delighted.” ”

“ But she would never have known this, just as she did not know, nor did they, that she was fonder of her boys than of Ruth and Rosemary. “But I believe that in this country everybody is fonder of sons,” thought Alix, marvelling at the reappearance of the strange cabbage cut into squares and recalling impressions of English literature where, despite romantic surfaces, it was apparent to the discerning eye that men always counted for more than women. ”

“ If he reflected thus carefully, it was, Giles felt, because from Alix they had passed to madame Vervier.
“You are right. Her mother is with you,” he said at last, surprisingly. “It is because she is with you that she sent the child last winter. She sees the difficulties that you see. She would prefer, to any artistic career in France, that Alix should marry in England. Marriage is what she intends for her. She would, I am sure, be glad to talk of any possibilities for Alix with you.” ”

“ Toppie moaned. She had fallen down upon a chair, her face still hidden in her hands. “It is terrible to be so ignorant as you are. You are too old to be so ignorant.—Yes, it is true—all true. She took him from me. Oh, I know now—I know what Giles was hiding from me!—Go away, Alix.—You drive me mad!—Go away, poor unhappy child!”
Alix had risen to her feet, but still she could not go. To fly, to escape; to hide herself for ever; this was the cry of all her nature; but there was something else. It was not only upon herself, upon Maman, that she had brought this disaster. ”

“ Maman will have to face them all. But I think she and Lady Mary will understand one another.”
“And for yourself, which do you feel the greater difficulty, Alix;—your country or your religion? You never strike me as having any religion at all, you know. You always seem to me, as I told you long ago, just a little pagan.”
“Ah, if it were for myself,” said Alix, “I could give up my religion more easily than my country. Only my Church would not allow me to marry a heretic unless I promised about the children. It is simply not allowed with us, Giles.—Do you not know?” ”

“ Alix met them in Mill Valley with vivid accounts of the day; she had been pondering the brief talk with Anne, and was anxious to have Peter's view of it. Peter was of the opinion that Anne's conduct indicated very clearly that she and Justin realized that their case was lost.
"Then you're fixed for life, Cherry," was Alix's first remark. "Oh, say!" she added, in a burst. "Let's go down to the old house to-morrow, will you? Let's see what it needs, and how much would have to be done to make it fit to live in!" ”

“ Toppie stood still, up there in the thin bright sunlight, her hands pressed now before her face; and, with the growing sickness, Alix suddenly seemed to see another figure beside her. It was as if Maman, too, was standing there, in the bright sunlight, with that intent look; dumb, like a figure in a nightmare; yet in her stillness conveying a terrible reproach. “It was not Maman’s fault,” Alix muttered. “She cannot help it if she is loved. ”

“ Alix had wheeled about on the rail to face the porch, and Peter had gotten to his feet and was hospitably pushing basket chairs about. Now he gave Alix a critical look.
"You're disgracefully dirty!" he said, fraternally.
"I know it," she answered, calmly. "Have I time to tub?"
"All the time in the world!" he answered.
"Are any clothes of mine here?" further demanded Alix, rising lazily.
"Yes, there's a blouse. It's in the linen closet; ask Kow for it or get it yourself when you get your towels. You left it the day you changed here after we all climbed the mountain. ”