Sedge

“ In justice to Gunning it ought to be said that men like Adam Sedgewick, the great geologist, regarded him with affection, and during his long illness the lady who attended him as nurse was devoted to him; and her record of the patience with which the old man bore his sufferings referred to above, deserves to be read by those who would form a fair estimate of his character. ”

“ Ralph and Hortensia said little, but gazed on the scene before them, with the stars twinkling faintly above, and the wide expanse of Sedgemoor nearly vailed in mist, looking like a dim, uncertain sea.
"Ay, we none of us can rest to-night," said the old woman; and then, after a pause and two or three more stitches, she continued. "That's because we all feel as if something were going to happen ”

“ 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. ”

“ And in France husbands are seldom lovers. So, if one is a mountain-torrent, one leaps over the precipice. Do you see? That is my history.”
“It's different with us,” Giles murmured. “We have different hopes for marriage. You didn't give yourself time. If you turn your back on a thing, you can't find out its reality.”
“The mountain-torrent, at twenty-three,” said madame Vervier, “is not a philosopher. No; I did not see what I was leaping to, but I saw plainly what I left. And I do not say that I regret. All that I do say is that I wish no leaps for Alix. Let us now speak of Alix. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Sir Basil, his hat tilted over his eyes, grew very red and looked down at the moss for some moments without replying.
"Of course I know that, in some sense, you did care," said Imogen, a faint tremble in her voice, a tremble that, in its sweet acquiescence to something that was hurting her, touched him infinitely. "I know, too, that there are loves and loves. I know that anything you may have felt for mama is as different from what you feel for me as lamplight is from daylight. I won't speak of it, ever, again, dear Basil ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ From her knowledge of the younger, more ardent, civilization, her long training in its noblest school, she could help the old in many ways. England, in these respects, was like her Basil, before she had wakened him. Imogen felt that England, too, needed her. And there was undoubtedly a satisfaction in flashing that new world of hers, so large, so in need of her,—in flashing it, like a bright, and, it was to be hoped, a somewhat dazzling object, before the vexatiously imperturbable eyes of Mrs. Wake. Mrs. Wake's dry smile of congratulation had been almost as unpleasant as Rose's silence. ”

“ 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?” ”

“ Sedit’s sons scattered north, south, east, and west. They were at every ridge and point, in every valley and meadow, at every spring and river.
[Pg 263] Kele’s sons stayed at their great mountain sweat-house, doing the same things, living in the same way. The two sisters never married, and all Kele’s people are in that mountain now. When they go out they look like wolves; but when inside, when at home in the mountain, they are people. ”

“ Looking out of the door in the courtyard, one might see the cheerful matelassière sitting in the shade of the enormous horse-chestnut-tree on the wayside grass. The heaped wool seemed to curdle and foam about her like a turbulent yet cosy sea. She combed it out on her loom and smiled and nodded at Alix. “Bonjour, la jolie petite demoiselle,” she would say. Mélanie grumbled at the matelassière and said she was a thief ”

“ 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. ”

“ Even when the lady, still mysteriously aggrieved in her furthest corner, murmured resentfully on about les anglais qui viennent nous déranger, Alix glanced meditatively at her for a moment and then resumed her survey of the landscape, indifferent to the misapprehension; and since Giles could not repress a smile, the lady, who still held up her scarf in retrospective protest, kept indignant eyes upon him.
“Now, you know, you are a worse-tempered people than we are. She's still nursing her wrongs,” Giles murmured, and Alix, glancing at the lady of the névralgie, answered, “She is negligible.” ”

“ Her umbrella, lowered against the wind, hid him from her.
“Well, Hilda,” he said amicably, when she was almost beside him—the umbrella tilted back over her shoulder, and the rain fell on her startled face—“Here I am.”
Her stare of utmost amazement was very amusing, but she looked white and tired.
“I must get a fiacre, I haven’t your taste for plodding through rain and mud, and you’ll be kind enough to forgo the enjoyment for one day, won’t you?” Her stupefaction at last resolved itself into one word: “Well!” she exclaimed with emphasis, and then she laughed outright. ”

“ Gentlemen"—his rigidity was all gone now and so was his pallor—"I am unwilling to submit myself to what, in my eyes, is an act of unnecessary humiliation. Our word should be enough. I have not the coin——" Stopped by the absolute silence, he cast a distressed look into the faces about him, till it reached that of Mr. Sedgwick, where it lingered, in an appeal to which that gentleman, out of his great heart, instantly responded.
"One should take the word of the gentleman he invites to his house. ”

“ The lectures on the Affections, the Passions and Desires, and on Study, we would have everybody to read and enjoy.
Sedgwick is a different, and, as a whole, an inferior man; but a man every inch of him, and an Englishman too, in his thoughts, and in his fine mother wit and tongue. He has, in the midst of all his confusion and passionateness, the true instinct of philosophy—the true venatic sense of objective truth. ”

“ 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?” ”

“ I know I had it this morning.” “You have not kept it long for my sake,” said his grandfather: “I dare say William and Nancy can both shew theirs.”—Miss Sedley pulled hers from her pocket. Her brother was going to do the same, but his conscience would not let him draw forth his hand. He held the medal between his finger and thumb, but did not dare to bring it out to view.—“Do not cry, Bob” said Mr. Graves, “you are a little boy, and are not used to be entrusted with money: I will get you another, and your brother shall take care of it. ”

“ He had seen her as the Parisienne; the creature of elegance and artifice; but he found her almost primitive, set here in the sea-breezes, and so much more robust than he had remembered; if anything so delicate could so be called. Freshness and force breathed from her, and the classic analogies she brought to his mind were emphasized by her straightly falling dress—a tennis-dress, perhaps, for her arms were bare—tying at the breast with tassels and at the waist with a loosely knotted sash. ”

“ But, during the rest of the afternoon, while they made tea, spread viands, sat about on the moss and rocks laughing, talking, eating, the sense of risk did not leave her. Nothing was lost, yet, but it was just possible that what she had, in her folly, expected to happen the other night to her and Jack, might really happen to Sir Basil and her mother; in the extremity of alienation they might find the depths of need. ”

“ It bubbled at the bottom of the glass like froth after a long satisfying draught, for he knew that he had done well in his exams and now only his viva lay before him;—so that the wreathed, dancing heads of young girls, and the sun-browned heads of youths on the river, glided past on a queer background of metaphysics. ”

“ What do any of you care for the agonies and tortures of a poor forsaken woman? (I wonder whether he could really have been going to the troops, this great lazy gourmand?) Oh! dear Mr. Sedley, I have come to you for comfort—for consolation. I have been on my knees all the morning. I tremble at the frightful danger into which our husbands, our friends, our brave troops and allies, are rushing. ”

“ Lady Mary had finished her morning tasks when Alix returned and was sitting near the fire with a little table before her on which she was laying out tiny patience cards. Alix again thought of a lady in a hennin as she saw her there in her long, grey, fur-bordered robe; a hennin would have been so becoming to her.
“Curl up in the big chair,” she said. “You must be tired, and you'll find yourself very stiff by to-morrow. Do you smoke? Not yet? Good. I'm glad not. Joan and Patience both do already, and I'm sure it's bad for them. That's all their life it seems to me; smoking and dancing. ”

“ 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. ”