Colin

“ Colin paused to light a cigarette, and spoke with gathering impatience.
“He’s got to believe it sometime,” he said. “We all begin, you and I did, by thinking it just a picturesque old story, but somehow it grows into us, or we into it.”
“It’s the curse of the house,” said Violet suddenly. “And it’s believing in it that makes it real. Oh, Colin, let Dennis grow up without it becoming real to him! Then it will stop, it and all the horror and the misery it brings. You’re quite right: it grows into us. Don’t let it grow into him.” ”

“ The face of the future, now that it was coming close, was terrible.
“Ah, Colin, no, no!” she cried. “Your soul’s your own, and you’ve chosen for yourself. But Dennis’s soul is his: his and God’s. You daren’t tamper with it.”
Colin laughed.
“Oh, but you’re inconsistent,” he said. “You’ve told me that love is stronger than me, and that I’m powerless. Now you seem to be afraid that there is something pretty powerful to back me. Have faith, darling.” ”

“ Colin stood where he was, hearing Douglas’s steps pass across the gallery and into the hall. His fingers still twitched with rage, he felt himself charged and crackling with the friendly power, and he had no doubt in his own soul that by the mere exercise of his will he could have brought to bear some disastrous force on the man who had just quitted him, that should exhibit itself in illness or misfortune, or in ways more swift and terrible. ”

“ Colin was half-inclined to reconsider his plan for sending the menagerie on tour. Just as the lover is happiest when the object of his affection is with him, so dislike and contempt sun themselves in the presence of their derision, for it supplies them with fuel. It was amusing to plant little stinging darts, to speak of drink to Uncle Ronald, to flick Violet with an allusion to their solitary evenings in the autumn, to make everybody uncomfortable with the threat that he would drown himself in the lake, for that reminded them of Raymond. ”

“ All the time, Violet felt, she was talking at Colin. These sprightly trifles, unreal as stage-dialogue, were but the steam that rose over what lay below. Whether she addressed Ronald or his wife or Violet herself, the steam blew always towards Colin. She talked impartially to one or another, just as she looked impartially at one or another, so that out of that very impartiality she might look at Colin, too. But on him her hovering glance settled for a moment. A woman always did that if she was in love with a man. ”

“ That wraith of a smile dimpled her mouth.
“Yes, I enjoyed it,” she said. “I enjoyed seeing them all doing homage to Stanier, to my Colin.”
She looked from him to Dennis.
“And here is my Colin as he was when he was a boy,” she said. “When he grows up they will do homage to him too. But before then he must know the legend instead of only hearing it. Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest. The prayer-book says that about the legend.”
Colin pushed back his chair.
“Granny, you are charming,” he said, “but we settled the first night that I was here that we were to have no prophesying at dinner.” ”

“ So long as Colin shut himself up in his room and thought only of his fears and weakness and his detestation of people who looked at him and reflected hourly on humps and early death, he was a hysterical half-crazy little hypochondriac who knew nothing of the sunshine and the spring and also did not know that he could get well and could stand upon his feet if he tried to do it. When new beautiful thoughts began to push out the old hideous ones, life began to come back to him, his blood ran healthily through his veins and strength poured into him like a flood. ”

“ Colin stretched out his hand to the blaze; the shapely smooth fingers looked redly luminous as the fire shone through them.
“The justification is that it was part of my policy,” he said. “Dennis is devoted to you at present. I must detach him. He must be devoted to me: he must love what I love, and hate what I hate. No man can serve two masters.” ”

“ You’ve got enough power of happiness to light up the midnight. Don’t waste it.”
(“She’s going it rather well,” thought Colin, “and I’m not doing it badly.”)
“I know you’re right,” he said.
He raised his eyes to hers.
“Of course I’m right,” said she. “Oh, youth passes so quickly, and with it all power of real happiness, though you may tell me that you will like to be old.... Ah, what nonsense!... Colin, you’re so different to what I thought you at first. When first we met and made friends, you were all laughter and enjoyment. Who could have guessed that you knew sorrow or unrequited love?” ”

“ What impressions would he feed Dennis with?...
“Oh, Colin,” she cried, clutching at his hand, “for God’s sake, let Dennis escape the curse of the legend. Don’t make him evil....”
Colin threw back his head and laughed aloud.
“Was there ever such a ridiculous woman?” he cried. “What on earth do you mean? You speak as if I was intending to mix brandy with his milk to give him a taste for drink, or bid him look at Aunt Hester to get a taste for cocottes, or at dear Aunt Margaret to stunt his intelligence. Really, darling, the moon must be exercising a lunatic influence on you. ”

“ The shrewd, monkey-faced boy of twelve years ago, had grown into a dark-faced silent man, wonderfully efficient as a servant. But as a server.... Colin had never seen anything so like possession: the ape-like gestures twitching and vehement, the rapt surrender, the tearing animal passion of devotion. And when the rite{148} was over, he lay sometimes on the altar step, panting with gleaming eyes of a surfeited ecstasy. Then the mask of humanity covered him again, and he became the impassive watchful valet, anticipating Colin’s wants almost before he was conscious of them himself. ”

“ Colin had not seen him since the Christmas holidays, in the interval he had greatly grown, and his boyhood had emerged from the sheath of its childish sexlessness: now the father saw in his son his own magnificent youth carried to a stage finer yet; physical perfection could go no further.... And, on the heels of that exultant pride in his son’s beauty, there came the vision again of going with Dennis up the corridor from his room and into the chapel. ”

“ Colin left a tranquil Dennis curled round in bed like a drowsy puppy when he went to his room a few minutes later. But he was not so tranquil himself. He had not imagined that any panic terror would seize the boy: he had only meant to plant a seed, a suggestion, ever so quietly, leaving it to mature.... Dennis would not come to love evil, so that, when the time for his choice arrived, he would choose ‘wisely and well,’ if it approached him with these strangling assaults of nightmare. ”

“ Colin had left Rome, and left no trace behind him. The laird knew that Tallisker had written, and he too had been hoping and expecting. But he received the news of his son's disappearance without remark. Life for some time was a dreary weight to him, he scarce felt as if he could lift it again. Hope after hope had failed him. He had longed so to be a rich man, had God in his anger granted him his wish? And was no other thing to prosper with him? All the same he clung to his gold with a deeper affection. When all other vices are old avarice is still young. ”

“ At the end of the long façade there stood the chapel unused since Douglas’s departure, and Colin going back into his room let himself into the corridor which led to it, turning up the lights as he went. He had not been there since the night of Vincenzo’s death, and now it seemed to him that if he sat and meditated there, where so often he had made the consecration of himself to evil, he could arrive at some clearer and conscious realization of it. He told himself that he hated love, and delighted in hate, but no fervour warmed his creed. ”

“ Nino departed with the tea-things to kiss his stepmother or the gridiron or anything he chose. That was the true spirit in which to live here; you never bothered your head as to what you were proposing to do; you just did exactly as you liked whenever an amusing opportunity suggested itself. And yet it was a wonderful place in which to make plans, thought Colin. You lay on the beach after your bathe, and without effort your brain seethed with ideas. ”

“ Behold a youth, tall, heavily built, powerful, his head leaning a little forward from the shoulders, his brown, healthy face adorned with the expression of good will toward mankind that, after all, is the one unfading charm of the human countenance. It was because of his trust in things that Colin never felt abashed, greeting the great and the lowly alike with honest good-fellowship. ”

“ When are you Colin?”
Colin continued to be the dreadful parson.
“Dear friends,” he said, “let us ask ourselves in all humility of heart how often we are our own true selves. I would fain we were our true selves oftener. What is it that the Swan of Avon says, ‘To thine own self be true, and then you will be true to everybody else.’ Truth and lies! How wholly unlike they are, the one to the other. Let us sing the hymn ‘The sun is sinking fast’.... Golly, so it is, Pamela and the antiquarian lecture I meant to give you hasn’t been begun yet. Let’s go home. ”

“ Colin turned from Violet to her.
“Granny dear, the spirit of prophecy is upon you, but you really mustn’t prophesy at dinner. Everyone finds it so disconcerting, darling. Now there are some friends of mine coming to-morrow, and you must promise me not to prophesy at dinner. Otherwise you shall have dinner upstairs and no whist at all.”
For once she paid no attention to him.
“I watched them building twelve years ago,” she said. “They made a chapel for the prosperity of Stanier. Aha! That makes the legend thrive——”
Colin saw Dennis’s wide-eyed gaze, fascinated and puzzled. ”

“ Colin did not ignore the possibility of her going to London, but he honestly strove to extinguish the hope of meeting her there. Had she not told him frankly that she did not love him, and what was his worldly state that he should dare to dream of any girl as his own? As an honourable man he must go his own way and endeavour to forget those sweet stolen hours in the woods around Dunford. ”

“ Colin had to continue propitiating this dreadful little man till he had got what he wanted.
“Excellent!” he said. “What a knack you have of hitting a person off, Mr. Cecil. I remember her perfectly. Aberdeen granite! Awfully good!... But I’ve got to go to Naples soon. Would it bore you too much if I came across with you on Monday?”
“By all means do that, and I’ll shew you the missal. But it’s queer to me that you are so anxious to see it. What was my phrase for it just now? A mere farrago of blasphemy. That’s all it is.”
“Somehow, you’ve interested me in it,” said Colin. ”

“ Colin dropped his reading. There was yet time to go upstairs and bid Dennis dress and come with him. But still the excuse held that the boy’s soul was not ready for the sacrament of evil: he had to learn the sweetness of evil for evil’s sake before he could take part in its worship. He would understand nothing: the rite would be meaningless, or, worse than that, would perhaps disgust and horrify him, and it was not in disgust and horror that he must be drawn, but must spring with a leap of the spirit towards a congenial mystery. ”

“ The great sapphire slipped from Colin’s hand and rolled on the floor. He let it lie there, unheeding or unknowing, and came close to Dennis, putting his arm round his neck. “Dennis, my dear,” he said, “what’s the matter? What ails you? Why, you’re having the nightmare again while you’re awake! ”

“ Cecil, you’re the most wonderful person,” he said. “You know everything. Take some whisky: what’s that damned boy of mine done with it? Ah, there it is.”
Colin got up to fetch the bottle. As he rose the catch of the shutters gave way under the press of the wind; they swung wide, and with a triumphant whoop the scirocco burst into the room, like some vivid invisible presence. Colin laughed aloud with exultation, and ran to the window, where he wrestled with the shutters. ”

“ Colin wondered what sort of a fellow he was....
A dozen guests or so came down next afternoon to spend a week, and before that week was over their numbers were redoubled; they settled on Stanier like a flock of gay and chattering birds. They were at liberty all day to amuse themselves as they liked, tennis and fishing and golf were diversions enough for them all: Violet, admirable hostess as she was, saw that they were occupied, and devoted herself to the dowagery element among them, which liked motoring to points of interest or going to see friends in country-houses in the neighbourhood. ”

“ And bang went his ponderous fist on Colin's organs of Secretiveness and Acquisitiveness, until his head sung again throughout, like a seething caldron.
“That's right!” cried Miss Sowersoft; “make him feel; drag him up; my face burns with shame at him; I'm as hot as a scarlet-fever, I am—a young scoundrel!”
And Colin was pulled up on to the level of the garden, more like a half-killed rat than a half-grown human being.
“We'll know how this is, meesis,” said Mr. Palethorpe, when he had fairly landed his cargo. ”

“ Lady Yardley grasped her stick and had half-risen from her place, when there came a step along the gallery floor, and the door opened.
“It is Colin,” said she.
Colin entered: it was as if the sunlight came in with him. The room seemed to leap into brightness.
“Ah, what a dreadful time to arrive!” he said. “Don’t get up anybody, or I shall go away again. Violet, darling! How blessed to see you! Granny, my dear Granny! Aunt Hester ... everybody. Just push me a chair in, and let me sit down with you. Where shall it be put? I don’t know. I want to sit next everybody.” ”