Sedgemoor

“ She was looking at them all; at monsieur de Maubert, at Alix, as he kissed her hand, and at Giles; but Giles felt, as he turned to her, that it was upon himself that the wide, abstracted gaze was dwelling. Monsieur de Maubert had appraised him; it was probable that madame Vervier had appraised him, too.
“After you have had your tea,” she said, “you will perhaps like to rest. Or would you care to come with us to Allongeville, where we are to play tennis?” ”

“ Alix had told tales. That was evident. Giles summoned an answering smile with which to own that nothing could be further from his wishes than to have tea with mesdames Dumont and Collet.
“You do not care for our ancient neighbor?”
“Not at all,” said Giles.
“Ah, in her day, la pauvre vieille, she had her qualities,” said monsieur de Maubert.
“Blanche told me that Grand'mère found you un jeune homme très sévère,” said madame Vervier, her eyes still resting on him as if with a mild amusement. “She is not accustomed to young men such as you. I do not think she has ever met such a one. ”

“ Lovely in her white, the white rose, the jasmine, madame Vervier bent her forehead to Alix's kiss and something in the daughter's eyes made Giles think of a sword in the hand of an avenging, or protecting, angel.
André bowed over his hostess's hand.
“Giles and I are to have a long walk, Maman,” said Alix, going to her place.
“You will be caught in the rain,” said André. “Have you noticed the sky? It is threatening.”
“But see the sunlight,” said madame Vervier, pouring out the coffee. “It will be a beautiful morning of great clouds and sunlight. There is nothing I love better.” ”

“ With so much intelligence one needs more. It is that one feels in her. The sheath is too thin. The blade comes through.”
“Vous êtes méchant,” said madame Vervier, and there was in her voice none of the inciting gaiety usual to the reproach; she spoke gravely, looking down at the cloth and slightly moving her spoon and fork upon it, and Giles suddenly divined that poor mademoiselle Blanche was in love with André.
“Mais non! Mais non! I think her charming,” laughed André. “But I can understand that madame Dumont is her grandmother.” ”

“ It is noble of you to understand—. Can’t we get away from all these people—if only for a moment. Let us go into the garden—it is very warm.” She would rather not have gone into the garden, but she could not refuse him, she felt that to some extent she would like to justify his faith in her, and to shake from her that snake-like imputation of baseness. She glanced at Perior as she went out; he was talking most affably with Lady Henge, and did not look at her. His lack of faith stung perhaps more than Sir Arthur’s faith. ”

“ Sedgwick is quite a heavy man, short, thick-set and muscular, with florid complexion, dark, calm, straight-looking eyes, with full, heavyish features, which, with his eyes, have plenty of animation when he is aroused. He has a magnificent profile, well cut, with the nose and forehead forming almost a straight line, curly, short, chestnut hair and full beard, cut short, with a little gray in it. He dresses carelessly, but can look magnificently when he is well dressed. Like Meade, he looks and is, honest and modest. ”

“ Taking the sheriff by the arm, Kent guided him through the creek and into the darkness beyond. Mr. Blair, walking with heavy steps and fallen head, made his way back to the house. Sedgwick heard the door close behind him. A light shone for a time in the second story. It disappeared. With infinite caution, Sedgwick made the détour, gained the rear of the house, and skirting the north wing, stepped forth in the bright moonlight, the prescience of passion throbbing wildly in his breast. ”

“ One felt that the woods had grown up around it and that it preserved a tranquil personality of its own, unmoved by the haphazard accretions of a century.
“Oh, that's the Rectory; where Toppie lives,” said Ruth. “You can see the church spire just above the trees to the right. Pleasant, do you call it? I think it's rather dismal; so bare and square. It needs lots of creepers and shrubberies to make it cheerful; but old Mr. Westmacott doesn't like them.”
“Creepers would not be in the character of that house, I feel,” said Alix; “and they would hide the pretty colour of the brick. ”

“ Giles had never found himself installed in such a lovely room.
“Yes; this is your room,” said madame Vervier, as if she replied to a question. “You will be happy here, I think.”
Giles could only murmur that he would.
“We are very primitive,” said madame Vervier. “There are no bells. If you want Albertine, you must go to the stair and call down for her. She will hear and come.”
“Ah, she will not always come,” Alix demurred; whereat madame Vervier smiled and said that in that case he must call Alix. ”

“ He raised his head. It was to face the mantelpiece, with its oval, gilt mirror and crystal lustres and gilt-and-marble clock. No, there were not doves and a nest upon it. This was a finer clock than the one with the doves, and the lustres were larger, and the flowers that stood between were mauve orchids. Gwendolen always went astray over her flowers.
"Here is tea," she said, seating herself at a little mahogany table with bowed and decorated legs. "Of course you're bound to feel tired, dear Owen, after your journey. Tea will be the very thing for you." ”

“ She had noted his delight, and Alix was smiling at him, too.
“I've seen French pictures like it,” said Giles.
“Yes; some of the early Corots give one the grey and green and white.”
“Ah—it is too stately for a Corot.” The young man in white flashed a smile round at her as he drove. “Corot would see its intimacy, its charm, rather than its gravity. That great design against the sky;—no; we must find somebody else.”
Madame Vervier smiled back, sure of her point. “He would not look at the sky, my early Corot; he would look at the little white houses nestling in the trees ”

“ We must dress Alix in the Gainsborough Blue Boy clothes one day, Jerry, to show off her long legs. We must have a little fancy-dress ball in the Easter holidays.”
“Oh, but I'm afraid I cannot be here in the Easter holidays,” said Alix. “You see, those are Giles's holidays, too. I should miss him.”
“You'll be coming here off and on, I hope;—and Giles will, too, perhaps,” smiled Lady Mary. “I can always send the car for you. Where's Marigold, Jerry? Not up yet?”
“You know, she looks rather like the Blue Boy, doesn't she?” said Jerry. “Only his eyes aren't blue, and he has a gentler face. ”

“ He who had not spoken to his brother and to Maman in the Bois? The sharp tangle of her thoughts hurt her. She leaned her elbows on the table and her forehead on her hands. “I don't understand,” she said, keeping herself from crying.
“Poor little kid! Poor little kid!” broke as if irresistibly from Giles. He was almost crying, too. He walked up and down behind her. She felt that he would have liked to kiss and comfort her as if she had been Ruth or Rosemary. But, turning away at last, he dropped into his chair before the fire and for a long time they were both silent. ”

“ She had the sensation of drowning, yet of keeping calm while she drowned, resourceful, even as she measured her calamity, and she heard her own voice speaking from far above her it seemed—while beneath Mrs. Bradley's eyes, beneath Giles's, her thoughts raced swiftly, swiftly;—“Yes; we should, of course, have seen him, but we were away; we were away in the country at that time.”
“At Cannes, I suppose,” said Mrs. Bradley. “What a pity for Owen. How lonely he must have been. He hadn't time to come home, you see; only the two days. ”

“ Because,” said Alix—and her voice, tearless now, dropped to an iron note—“that will never be.”
Poor madame Vervier and her hopes! Giles continued to play her hand as best he could. “You wouldn't be made to marry in England against your will. You might meet someone you cared for enough. How can you tell?”
“Cared for enough! To leave Maman! To leave France!” Alix held her head high and stared before her, facing this confirmation of her fears. And suddenly, her last words echoing too unbearably in her heart, he saw her lips tremble; part; and the tears, at last, helplessly ran down her cheeks. ”

“ Just that. You are a people who improvise as you go. To philosophize would have been, I should imagine, against the genius of your race.”
“Oh, we're not all of us, all the time, lurching along on mere instinct. We do, some of us,” said Giles, “stop, now and then, and reflect.”
“But lurching becomes you,” André at this put in. “You lurch, as a rule, in the right direction—for yourselves. Look at your Empire,” he smiled, taking a slice of baba, “all made up of lurches and success.”
“We planned to have India, you will remember,” Alix, at this, suddenly remarked. ”

“ She could be extravagant if the money were there; if it were not, she was careful. One felt in her the essential freedom from material bondage.
Monsieur de Maubert was still in his shady corner with the Nouvelle Revue Française on his knee. The young artist had reappeared and was sitting on the steps, his chin on his hands, looking out at the sea. Madame Vervier took her place at the tea-table, monsieur de Maubert drew his chair beside her, and Giles's friend strolled up from the cliff-path accompanied by yet another noticeable personage. ”

“ The look of one who has no illusions; who sees an order and accepts it; an order to live for and to make one's own. “And there will be the ideas and the atoms to watch, and the Bach choir to sing in,” she finished; “and walks in the country;—and then I shall be in France, for all the holidays, with Maman, Giles.”
She rose as she spoke, for the storm had passed. Sunlight was flooding in through the high pale windows of the clerestory. The Virgin's crown glittered against her pillar. Slowly, hand in hand, Alix and Giles walked down the nave. ”

“ The contemplation of ruins for the last five years had made these eyes steady holders of a pensive resignation; they showed no tearful repinings, no fretful restlessness. They were clear eyes, large and luminous, and in looking at them, and at the wan, lovely little face where they bloomed like melancholy flowers, Mrs. Drent's face, on the other side of the tea-table, grew yet more somber and more intent in its brooding sympathy.
"Why did you," she began—"why did you—love him?" This was a more penetrating question than to ask Mrs. Quentyn why she had married him. ”

“ Under no circumstances would any one even suspect him of appropriating anything, great or small, to which he had not a perfect right. Nor was he likely to imagine for a moment that any one would. That he could make such a proposition then, based upon any such plea, argued a definite suspicion in some other quarter, which could not pass unrecognised. In vain Mr. Sedgwick raised his voice in frank and decided protest, two of the gentlemen had already made a quick move toward Robert, who still stood, stupefied by the situation, with his hand on the cord which controlled the curtains. ”

“ Alix felt her sadness dispelled by a sweet stealing sense of excitement.
And now Lady Mary was again before her, looking older than she had remembered her—and that was perhaps because another woman, radiantly young, sat knitting by the fire—but showing the remembered bright softness, and she was drawing them both forward and saying to Giles: “Oh, but of course you must stay—oh, not only to tea; for the night. It's so far. It's so cold. It's so late. Indeed, you must.—Jerry will lend you everything.” ”

“ She ushered him into the little hall. It was panelled in light wood, and its faint woodland fragrance made him think of pagan incense in some primitive temple. There was a leaping fire in the sitting-room, and the white austerity trembled with rose and gold; branches of larch in tall bronze vases glowed like a delicate mist of light. The freshness, the fragrance, the simplicity, all spoke of Felicia. She rang for tea, and, while she filled a bowl with her white roses, could not repress that inner urgency.
“It is long since I saw any of you. How are Lady Angela—Mr. Wynne?” ”

“ The cry burst from Sedgwick’s lips.
“—in the dead of night, at a rendezvous,” concluded Blair.
“That is a lie,” said Sedgwick very low, “for which I shall kill you if you dare repeat it even to your own thoughts. It was no rendezvous. Is your mind so vicious that you can’t believe in innocence? Stop and think! ”

“ Albertine was laying breakfast on the verandah, and Giles stood leaning against a pillar listening to the song. At its end madame Vervier soberly commended the singer, yet turned a leaf, here and there, to suggest an alteration. “Qu'as-tu fait de ta jeunesse?” monsieur de Valenbois sang again, with a new poignancy; and yet again. “Bien; très bien,” said madame Vervier's quiet voice.
Then monsieur de Maubert appeared, and they came out to greet him and Giles. ”

“ He is, perhaps, not quite at ease; but he has wisdom—our French wisdom, Giles. His mother, already, is arranging a marriage for him. As soon as our rupture is definitely known, he will be able to settle himself in life;—se ranger,” said madame Vervier. “And he will be glad to be settled; he will be glad to be married to a charming young girl whom he has known since boyhood;—a young girl,” madame Vervier continued in her steady voice, “whom your madame Marigold met when she came to France last Spring.” ”

“ Sir Francis and Mrs. Travers-Cray with sons at the front and Lady Dighton's husband in the Dardanelles,—apart from that ever-present strain, everybody to-day was a little jaded, blank, and tired of one another. There reigned, as a symptom, that silence that in the moments before dinner falls sometimes upon people who know each other too well for surmise or ceremony. They stood about looking at the evening newspapers; they picked up a book; they sat side by side, knitting without speaking. Vera, sunken in a deep chair near my sofa, yawned wearily. ”

“ Seddon was a great, deep-chested, hearty sort of a man, with a jovial manner, a jolly laugh, an amazing memory for faces, and a gift for handling people, especially those of the class from which he came. He had tremendous force and driving power, and while he was in office he put through a great many laws in the interest of the working man. ”