Calladine

“ This with Calladine was one of the few appointments she had ever made in her free life, and it irked her curiously. From the first moment of her waking in the morning she had felt tied. Like a hobbled colt she wanted to kick herself free. That her afternoon should be restricted, ordained in advance,— [Pg 67] in the midst of her resentment she had laughed at her childishness, had been ashamed of her egoism. What would become of her were she suddenly to find herself bound for life? ”

“ Did the sense of enclosure give you strength? Would the Downs have compelled you to be more honest? I believe it was that. One can lie better,—can’t one?—in a room; and as you had no room you took the shelter of the trees. You couldn’t tell me lies out on the Downs?”
“Is that why Calladine prefers a room?” he enquired.
“Mr. Calladine tells me no lies,” she said, with a small flicker of pride.
“Oh, no,” said Lovel easily; “he only tells lies to himself. Through and through. Or are they lies? Romances, perhaps. Only romances. And you are part of them. But they couldn’t thrive in sunshine.” ”

“ Oh, if it had not been for them and my blood, then there would have been the Downs [Pg 205] for you and me, Clare. Don’t share the Downs with Calladine; he lives among them, but he isn’t strong enough to endure them. There are some countries that it takes a strong man to endure. They don’t generate strength, and they crush weakness. Calladine should have lived in towns. But now that he has got you he may be rescued.”
“You know that Mr. Calladine has not got me, and never will have me, except in name,” said Clare.
“That’s true,” replied Lovel, not disputing her statement. ”

“ It was upon the women that civilisation had had the most effect. Calladine himself, the most highly civilised man that Clare knew, had always seemed to her instinct more like a woman,—sitting in his house and picking his griefs into smaller and smaller pieces. ”

“ Olver laughed at him. “Lost? They?”
“They are only human!” cried Calladine, afraid. He got up and stood over Olver. “Tell me, they are human, aren’t they?”
Olver laughed again.
Calladine went to the door. He opened it and looked out; the cold met him, and the stars in the blackness. “Clare!” he cried. “Clare!”
“I am going mad,” he said to himself. “I am going out of my mind.”
Looking back into the hut, he saw Olver still on his knees on the floor, prodding at the meat over the lamp. He went back, bent down, and cried close to Olver’s ear, “What are we doing here? they are keeping us waiting.” ”

“ That was why I said I envied Calladine having only himself to overcome, when here am I as hard as flint, who might beget sons with that soft squelch in them that has rotted Olver. A bad stock, I said to myself; be strong; let it die out. And then the irony ... well, you know nothing about that, and even that seems not to matter now. Never be surprised, now, if you hear that I have been borne a son or a daughter, only don’t judge me too harshly. But how could I have brought you to my mother and Olver? and our children, yours and mine,—how could I, Clare? ”

“ A fine tradition among shepherds—for what else have they to do? They don’t read in books, but they read in the heavens through the long, lonely nights; and observe, Calladine, that in winter, when the pleasures of the earth are less, the heavens in compensation [Pg 321] treble their magnificence. I don’t believe that a man who spends his nights alone in the open remains similar to other men. He’s soaked in the sense of space; and young Lovel....”
“Yes, yes,” said Calladine impatiently, “but there is no time to be lost if you are to reach King’s Avon before dark. Follow our tracks ”

“ Good Olver; he brings our food. But do they eat it? they seem like they don’t need food.”
“Have you seen them, then?” said Calladine.
“Seen them? Lord bless you, yes; and seen you too, wandering round with Daisy. I was behind you, many and many a time, but you didn’t turn.”
He began now to unpack his parcels, bringing out a loaf of bread, a tin of milk, some eggs, and finally some raw meat in slices. Calladine watched him in silence. He disposed of everything in a business-like manner, fetching two plates out of the cupboard, laying the table, putting ready the tea-pot and the canister. ”

“ Calladine, father, I told you.” “Ah, to be sure, to be sure; well, he has all the luck; you’re a pretty thing to see.” She kissed him, laughed, sprang up into the gig, it started off clumsily, swaying from side to side, and the Manor House was lost to sight behind the trees.
The gaunt horse spanked along the lanes; Clare did not talk to the groom, who drove with a serious concentration which promised no unbending. She wondered whether all the servants with whom Calladine surrounded himself were as unprepossessing. ”

“ They went side by side, Calladine long and spare, Mr. Warrener, round, short and bespectacled, and as they went they tried to disguise their anxiety from one another, and to pretend that they had gone out for no more [Pg 316] serious purpose than to recall a troublesome child from an escapade. But there were periods of silence between them, broken with a jerk by Mr. Warrener with brisk questions, “Now in what direction did she ride for choice, Calladine?” or “If the fellow is a shepherd, he must have a hut up on these hills.” ”

“ Calladine is not more prompt at finding you here that he was in getting you away from the tent,” said Lovel.
“Why do you gibe at Mr. Calladine?” Clare burst out. “He has had a great deal to suffer at my hands, and it ill becomes you to sneer,” she finished inconsequently.
The inconsequence did not trouble Lovel; his mind leapt the gap with the ellipsis.
“At all events he has nothing to complain of at present,” he remarked. “Nothing, except that he is not the man to take good care of what he has obtained. Born irresolute—there’s a disadvantage of birth as bad as any other. ”

“ He ran down the stairs in a queer excitement, unlocked the street door and opened it. Joan Carew, still in her masquerade dress with her scarlet cloak about her shoulders, slipped through the opening.
"Shut the door," she whispered, drawing herself apart in a corner.
"Your cab?" asked Calladine.
"It has gone."
Calladine latched the door. Above, in the well of the stairs, the light spread out from the open door of his flat. Down here all was dark. He could just see the glimmer of her white face, the glitter of her dress, but she drew her breath like one who has run far. ”

“ You know how the men go out and snare the larks under nets on the Downs; well, it was like that. She didn’t mope; no, never; but I think she was only waiting for the day when she should fly away.”
“Nonsense, nonsense,” said Mr. Warrener. “Don’t encourage such ridiculous fancies, Richard.”
“I’ve seen her,” said Calladine, “looking out of the window, looking out of the window....”
“Come,” said Mr. Warrener again; “if you won’t come with me I must go alone.”
“And the man too,” said Calladine, obstinately; “he was always on the Downs; he wouldn’t bind himself down to a master; he slipped free.” ”

“ I believe he is a capable sort of creature; he won’t let her come to any harm.”
“Curse him,” said Calladine, resentful that the legend of Lovel’s efficiency should have percolated even to Mr. Warrener’s secluded room.
“We must go out and look for them,” said Mr. Warrener. “Come, Calladine,” he said, rousing himself, “you don’t seem able to take any action. Bestir yourself; we must go out and look for them.”
“Must we?” said Calladine without interest. [Pg 314] “But I don’t think it’s any good, you know. I have a superstitious feeling about it; there was something intangible about Clare. ”

“ Or am I mistaken? Are you a lady at heart—a lady and not a woman? Mrs. Richard Calladine. The muslin dress, or the shepherd’s cap? [Pg 194] If the muslin dress, then go to Calladine. If the shepherd’s cap, then....”
He paused.
“I should not listen to you, reducing Mr. Calladine to this insignificance,” murmured Clare in great distress.
Calladine had become a shadow; a poor grey wisp drained of blood. Only Lovel and herself seemed alive, so terribly alive that the wraith which was Calladine faded between them. So far, no one had noticed them standing up on the ridge of the embankment ”

“ He’s a straw to be swept away by a strong current, safe only so long as he may lie in shelter. If I wanted to undo Calladine, I should say to him, ‘Are you sure that you are the man to hold so untamed a thing?’ As yourself, I mean, Miss Warrener. ”

“ Ask Martha Sparrow or William Baskett or any of them. Ask Mrs. Quince over to Starvecrow. Ask her if the house isn’t being done up all grand against the lady coming. Ride over and see if Mr. Calladine isn’t picking up a patch of garden with his own hands, forsooth. Ask parson if he hasn’t had notice yet to call the banns. We’ll have ours called the same Sunday. ‘Richard Calladine and Clare Warrener, Nicholas Lovel and Margaret Morland, all of this parish.’ That’ll be a fine sit-up-and-take-notice for the congregation. ”

“ Calladine; that was one effect being “gentry” had on people. She had nothing but scorn for men like that. Look at him now, digging up a patch for a garden, and all to please Miss Clare,—Mrs. Quince had said so,—and not as though he had been a poor man digging over his potato-patch against the day when he would have to keep a wife. Lovel wasn’t like that ”

“ His hands were upon her shoulders; she wanted to shake them off.
[Pg 283]
“Did the poacher ...” began Calladine.
“Ah, leave Lovel alone,” she cried; “what impels you to speak of him this morning? Leave him alone, with his wife and his baby; they can very well look after themselves without any interest from us.”
“But, Clare, Mrs. Quince was speaking of them; it’s only natural that my thoughts should continue to run in that direction; and even you yourself....”
“You’re fascinated by the subject of Lovel,” she said, whirling round on him, “now, aren’t you? own to it. ”

“ Even now he is probably arrived breathless at the Manor House, where he will tell your father that that gipsy fellow snatched you away, and that he has lost you altogether. He has never given me anything but black looks, ever since he came to live here. How much have you told him about yourself and me?”
“There was nothing to tell,” said Clare.
“True,” said Lovel. “There was nothing to tell.”
They were silent. She felt that he was in a highly dangerous mood. Calladine was not dangerous; violent, but not dangerous; not as Lovel’s contained quietness was dangerous. ”

“ Arrived at King’s Avon she would quicken her steps and pass rapidly down the village street, glancing about her only sufficiently to acknowledge the greetings of her humble acquaintances, and only when safe within the Manor House gates would she relax a little, and show herself gentle and affectionate towards her father, who, absent as ever, would presently forget that she was married and would invite Calladine to remain to dinner, “Clare and I, my dear friend, may so rarely welcome a visitor.” Through her laughter she looked at him wistfully ”

“ No sound; neither the tinkling of water, nor the quivering of larks, nor the quaver of sheep, nor even the wind; only the hush of quiet snow lying spread. It was a stillness that [Pg 317] grew as they climbed; a stillness, a shroud. There was the glitter of the snow, and the black clubbed trees, and the white sky, and the silence.
It occurred to them that they might get lost, for all the hills looked much the same, and the landmarks were all covered up; the White Horse, the Grey Wethers. Still, Calladine was contemptuous of that ”

“ I avoid the trees; being under them is more like having a ceiling over our heads. I keep to the lawn.—He is more in his place, within doors,” she said, making a discovery which answered many of her problems.
“Lamplight suits him,” said Lovel, his perceptions very clear and malicious.
She saw Calladine leaning over the piano ”

“ Well, and now she’s got it, and lucky for her, I say, that Lovel’s ready to turn her into an honest woman, for there’s many stouter bred than him that hasn’t stuck to their girls, and I always say....” Here Calladine had come out of the sitting-room, hearing the sound of voices; he came pleasantly towards them, rubbing his hands together and [Pg 236] bending towards Clare, “Tired, my dear? tired? a little bit, I think,—too bad, too bad, Mrs. Quince, we’ve tired her out between us ”

“ I’m over to Starvecrow now, at Mr. Calladine’s, but it’s a question how long I’ll be able to remain in the place. And I thought that you, Nick Lovel, being a decent man in spite of all your pride, would be the last one not to help a poor girl when she had no one but you to turn to, and afraid to face her own parents, and not so much [Pg 157] as a married sister she could go to, or a penny of money saved, seeing Mr. ”

“ Lady Lillico was fast asleep, under a black cloak which somebody had thrown over her. The rest sat silent in the jolting twilight with their feet in the straw.
‘It’s a lesson for all of us,’ murmured Mr. Cato at last.
‘It’s that,’ said the American; ‘it p’ints a moral sharp enough to hurt.’
As Mr. Cato stood with Joey on the jetty, [242] watching the last moments of departure, the American came to the bulwarks with Lady Wyse, and, leaning over, beckoned him.
‘“Skunk” was goin’ too fur for Huxtable. I’ve just bin tellin’ Lady Wyse; he shot himself whin the noos came. ”