Wood and Stone

by John Cowper Powys

  Mr. Goring expressed his satisfaction at his friend’s intelligence by giving him a push that nearly threw him backwards.

  “And I’ll tell you this, my boy,” he remarked confidentially, surveying the long line of well-filled hutches, “we’ve never yet bought such a rabbit, as this foreign one will turn out, or you and I be damned fools.”

  “The young lady’ll get mighty fond of these ’ere long-ears, looks so to me,” observed the youth. “Hope she won’t be a feeding ’em with wet cabbage, same as maids most often do.”

  The farmer grew even more confidential, drawing close to his assistant and addressing him in the tone customary with him on market-days, when feeling the ribs of fatted cattle.

  “That same young lady is coming up here this morning, Bert,” he remarked significantly. “The squire’s giving her a note to bring along.”

  “And you be going to bring matters to a head, master,” rejoined the boy. “That’s wise and thoughtful of ’ee, choosing time, like, and season, as the Book says. Maids be wonderful sly when the sun’s down, while of mornings they be meek as guinea-fowls.”

  The appearance of the Priory servant—no very demure figure—put a sudden stop to these touching confidences.

  “Miss Lacrima, with a note, in the front parlour!” the damsel shouted.

  “You needn’t call so loud, girl,” grumbled the farmer. “And how often must I tell you to say ‘Miss Traffio,’ not ‘Miss Lacrima’?”

  The girl tossed her head and pouted her lips.

  “A person isn’t used to waiting on foreigners,” she muttered.

  Mr. Goring’s only reply to this remark was to pinch her arm unmercifully. He then pushed her aside, and entering the kitchen, walked rapidly through to the front of the house. The front parlour in the Priory was nothing more nor less than the old entrance-gate of the Cistercian Monastery, preserved through four centuries, with hardly a change.

  The roof was high and vaulted. In the centre of the vault a great many-petalled rose, carved in Leonian stone, seemed to gather all the curves and lines of the masonry together, and hold them in religious concentration.

  The fire-place—a thing of more recent, but still sufficiently ancient date—displayed the delicate and gracious fantasy of some local Jacobean artist, who had lavished upon its ornate mouldings a more personal feeling than one is usually aware of in these things. In place of a fire the wide grate was, at this moment, full of new-grown bracken fronds, evidently recently picked, for they were still fresh and green.

  In front of the fire-place stood Lacrima with the letter in her hand. Had Mr. Goring been a little less persuaded of the “meekness” of this young person, he would have recognized something not altogether friendly to himself and his plans in the strained white face she raised to him and the stiff gloved hand she extended.

  He begged her to be seated. She waved aside the chair he offered, and handed him the letter. He tore this open and glanced carelessly at its contents.

  The letter was indeed brief enough, containing nothing but the following gnomic words: “Refusal or no refusal,” signed with an imperial flourish.

  He flung it down on the table, and came to business at once.

  “You mustn’t let that little mistake of Auber Great Meadow mean anything, missie,” he said. “You were too hasty with a fellow that time—too hasty and coy-like. Those be queer maids’ tricks, that crying and running! But, bless my heart! I don’t bear you any grudge for it. You needn’t think it.”

  He advanced a step—while she retreated, very pale and very calm, her little fingers clasped nervously together. She managed to keep the table between them, so that, barring a grotesque and obvious pursuit of her, she was well out of his reach.

  “I have a plain and simple offer to make to you, my dear,” he continued, “and it is one that can do you no hurt or shame. I am not one of those who waste words in courting a girl, least of all a young lady of education like yourself. The fact is, I am a lonely man—without wife or child—and as far as I know no relations on earth, except brother Mortimer. And I have a pretty tidy sum laid up in Yeoborough Bank, and the farm is a good farm. I do not say that the house is all that could be wished; but ’tis a pretty house, too, and one that could stand improvement. In plain words, dearie, what I want you to say now is ‘yes,’ and no nonsense,—for what I am doing,” his voice became quite husky at this point, as if her propinquity really did cause him some emotion,” is asking you, point-blank, and no beating about the bush, whether you will marry me!”

  Lacrima’s face during this long harangue would have formed a strange picture for any old Cistercian monk shadowing that ancient room. At first she had kept unmoved her strained and tensely-strung impassivity. But by degrees, as the astounding character of the man’s communication began to dawn upon her, her look changed into one of sheer blind terror. When the final fatal word crossed the farmer’s lips, she put her hand to her throat as though to suppress an actual cry. She had never looked for this;—not in her wildest dreams of what destiny, in this curst place, could inflict upon her. This surpassed the worst of possible imagination! It was a deep below the deep. She found herself at first completely unable to utter a word. She could only make a vague helpless gesture with her hand as though dumbly waving the whole world away.

  Then at last with a terrible effort she broke the silence.

  “What you say is utterly—utterly impossible! It is—it is too—”

  She could not go on. But she had said enough to carry, even to a brain composed of pure clay, the conviction that the acquiescence he demanded was not a thing to be easily won. He thought of his brother-in-law’s enigmatic note. Possibly the owner of Leo’s Hill had ways of persuading recalcitrant foreign girls that were quite hidden from him. The psychological irony of the thing lay in the fact that in proportion as her terror increased, his desire for her increased proportionally. Had she been willing,—had she been even passive and indifferent,—the curious temperament of Mr. Goring would have been scarcely stirred. He might have gone on pursuing her, out of spite or out of obstinacy; but the pursuit would have been no more than an interlude, a distraction, among his other affairs.

  But that look of absolute terror on her face—the look of a hunted animal under the hot breath of the hounds—appealed to something profoundly deep in his nature. Oddly enough—such are the eccentricities of the human mind—the very craving to possess her which her terror excited, was accompanied by a rush of extraordinary pity for himself as the object of her distaste.

  He let her pass—making no movement to interrupt her escape. He let her hurry out of the garden and into the road—without a word; but as soon as she was gone, he sat down on the wooden seat under the front of the house and resting his head upon his chin began blubbering like a great baby. Big salt tears fell from his small pig’s eyes, rolled down his tanned cheeks, and falling upon the dust caked it into little curious globules.

  Two wandering ants of a yellowish species, dragging prisoner after them one of a black kind, encountered these minute globes of sand and sorrow, and explored them with interrogatory feelers.

  Mingled with this feeling of pity for himself under the girl’s disdain was a remarkable wave of immense tenderness and consideration for her. Short of letting her escape him, how delicately he would cherish, how tenderly he would pet and fondle her, how assiduously he would care for her! The consciousness of this emotion of soft tenderness towards the girl increased his pity for himself under the weight of the girl’s contempt. How ungrateful she was! And yet that very look of terror, that stifled cry of the hunted hare, which made him so resolved to win her, produced in him an exquisite feeling of melting regard for her youth, her softness, her fragility. When she did belong to him, oh how tenderly he would treat her! How he would humour her and give her everything she could want!

  The shadowy Cistercian monks would no doubt, from their clairvoyant catholic knowledge of the subtleties of the human soul, have quite understood t
he cause of those absurd tears caking the dust under that wooden seat. But the yellowish ants continued to be very perplexed and confused by their presence. Thunder-drops tasting of salt were no doubt as strange to them as hail-stones tasting of wine would have been to Mr. Goring. But the ants were not the only creatures amazed at this new development in the psychology of the man of clay. From one corner of the house peeped the servant-girl, full of tremulous curiosity, and from another the idiot Bert shuffled and spied, full of most anxious and perturbed concern.

  Meanwhile the innocent cause of this little drama was making her way with drooping head and dragging steps down the south drive. When she reached the house she was immediately informed by one of the servants that Mr. Romer wished to see her in the study.

  She was so dazed and broken, so forlorn and indifferent, that she made her way straight to this room without pause or question.

  She found Mr. Romer in a most lively and affable mood. He made her sit down opposite him, and handed her chocolates out of a decorative Parisian box which lay on the table.

  “Well, young lady,” he said, “I know, without your telling me, that an important event has occurred! Indeed, to confess the truth, I have, for a long time, foreseen its occurrence. And what did you answer to my worthy brother’s flattering proposal? It isn’t every girl, in your peculiar position, who is as lucky as this. Come—don’t be shy! There is no need for shyness with me. What did you say to him?”

  Lacrima looked straight in front of her out of the window. She saw the waving branches of a great dark yew-tree and above it the white clouds. She felt like one whose guardian-angel has deserted her, leaving her the prey of blind elemental forces. She thought vaguely in her mind that she would make a desperate appeal to Vennie Seldom. Something in Vennie gave her a consciousness of strength. To this strength, at the worst, she would cling for help. She was thus in a measure fortified in advance against any outburst in which her employer might indulge. But Mr. Romer indulged in no outburst.

  “I suppose,” he said calmly, “that I may take for granted that you have refused my good brother’s offer?”

  Lacrima nodded, without speaking.

  “That is quite what I expected. You would not be yourself if you had not done so. And since you have done so it is of course quite impossible for me to put any pressure upon you.”

  He paused and carefully selecting the special kind of chocolate that appealed to him put it deliberately in his mouth.

  Lacrima was so amazed at the mild tone he used and at the drift of his words, that she turned full upon him her large liquid eyes with an expression in them of something almost like gratitude. The corners of her mouth twitched. The reaction was too great. She felt she could not keep back her tears.

  Mr. Romer quietly continued.

  “In all these things, my dear young lady, the world presents itself as a series of bargains and compromises. My brother has made you his offer—a flattering and suitable one. In the girlish excitement of the first shock you have totally refused to listen to him. But the world moves round. Such natural moods do not last forever. They often do not last beyond the next day! In order to help you—to make it easier for you—to bring such a mood to an end, I also, in my turn, have a little proposal to make.”

  Lacrima’s expression changed with terrible rapidity; she stared at him panic-stricken.

  “My proposal is this,” said Mr. Romer, quietly handing her the box of chocolates, and smiling as she waved it away. “As I said just now, the world is a place of bargains and compromises. Nothing ever occurs between human beings which is not the result of some unuttered transaction of occult diplomacy. Led by your instincts you reject my brother’s offer. Led by my instincts I offer you the following persuasion to overcome your refusal.”

  He placed another chocolate in his mouth.

  “I know well,” he went on, “your regard and fondness—I might use even stronger words—for our friend Maurice Quincunx. Now what I propose is this. I will settle upon Maurice,—you shall see the draft itself and my signature upon it,—an income sufficient to enable him to live comfortably and happily, wherever he pleases, without doing a stroke of work, and without the least anxiety. I will arrange it so that he cannot touch the capital of the sum I make over to him, and has nothing to do but to sign receipts for each quarter’s dividend, as the bank makes them over to him.

  “The sum I will give him will be so considerable, that the income from it will amount to not less than three hundred pounds a year. With this at his disposal he will be able to live wherever he likes, either here or elsewhere. And what is more,”—here Mr. Romer looked intently and significantly at the trembling girl—“what is more, he will be in a position to marry whenever he may desire to do so. I believe”—he could not refrain from a tone of sardonic irony as he added this—“that you have found him not particularly well able to look after himself. I shall sign this document, rendering your friend free from financial anxiety for the rest of his life, on the day when you are married to Mr. Goring.”

  When he had finished speaking Lacrima continued to stare at him with a wide horror-struck gaze.

  Mechanically she noticed the peculiar way in which his eyebrows met one another across a scar on his forehead. This scar and the little grey bristles that crossed it remained in her mind long afterwards, indelibly associated with the thoughts that then passed through her brain. Chief among these thoughts was a deep-lurking, heart-clutching dread of her own conscience, and a terrible shapeless fear that this subterranean conscience might debar her from the right to make her appeal to Vennie. From Mr. Romer’s persecution she could appeal; but how could she appeal against his benevolence to her friend, even though the path of that benevolence lay over her own body?

  She rose from her seat, too troubled and confused even to hate the man who thus played the part of an ironic Providence.

  “Let me go,” she said, waving aside once more the bright-coloured box of chocolates which he had the diabolical effrontery to offer her again. “Let me go. I want to be alone. I want to think.”

  He opened the door for her, and she passed out. Once out of his presence she rushed madly upstairs to her own room, flung herself on the bed, and remained, for what seemed to her like centuries of horror, without movement and without tears, staring up at the ceiling.

  The luncheon bell sounded, but she did not heed it. From the open window floated in the smell of the white cluster-roses, scented like old wine, which encircled the terrace pillars. Blending with this fragrance came the interminable voice of the wood-pigeons, and every now and then a sharp wild cry, from the peacocks on the east lawn. Two—three hours passed thus, and still she did not move. A certain queer-shaped crack above the door occupied her superficial attention, very much in the same way as the scar on Mr. Romer’s forehead. Any very precise formulation of her thoughts during this long period would be difficult to state.

  Her mind had fallen into that confused and feverish bewilderment that comes to us in hours between sleeping and waking. The clearest image that shaped itself to her consciousness during these hours was the image of herself as dead, and, by means of her death, of Maurice Quincunx being freed from his hated office-work, and enabled to live according to his pleasure. She saw him walking to and fro among rows of evening primroses—his favourite flowers—and in place of a cabbage-leaf—so fantastic were her dreams—she saw his heavy head ornamented with a broad, new Panama-hat, purchased with the price of her death.

  Her mind gave no definite shape or form to this image of herself dying. The thought of it followed so naturally from the idea of a union with the Priory-tenant, that there seemed no need to separate the two things. To marry Mr. John Goring was just a simple sentence of death. The only thing to make sure of, was that before she actually died, this precious document, liberating her friend forever, should be signed and sealed. Oddly enough she never for a moment doubted Mr. Romer’s intention of carrying out his part of the contract if she carried out hers. As
he had said, the world was designed and arranged for bargains between men and women; and if her great bargain meant the putting of life itself into the scale—well! she was ready.

  Strangely enough, the final issue of her feverish self-communings was a sense of deep and indescribable peace. It was more of a relief to her than anyone not acquainted with the peculiar texture of a Pariah’s mind could realize, to be spared that desperate appeal to Vennie Seldom. In a dumb inarticulate way she felt that, without making such an appeal, the spirit of the Nevilton nun was supporting and strengthening her. Did Vennie know of her dilemma, she would be compelled to resort to some drastic step to stop the sacrifice, just as one would be compelled to hold out a hand of rescue to some determined suicide. But she felt in the depths of her heart that if Vennie were in her position she would make the same choice.

  The long afternoon was still only half over, when—comforted and at peace with herself, as a devoted patriot might be at peace, when the throw of the dice has appointed him as his country’s liberator—she rose from her recumbent position, and sitting on the edge of her bed turned over the pages of her tiny edition of St. Thomas a Kempis.

  It had been long since she had opened this volume. Indeed, isolated from contact with any Catholic influence except that of the. philosophical Mr. Taxater, Lacrima had been recently drifting rather far away from the church of her fathers. This complete upheaval of her whole life threw her back upon her old faith.

  Like so many other women of suppressed romantic emotions, when the moment came for some heroic sacrifice for the sake of her friend, she at once threw into the troubled waters the consecrated oil that had anointed the half-forgotten piety of her childhood.

  One curious and interesting psychological fact in connection with this new trend of feeling in her, was the fact that the actual realistic horror of being, in a literal and material sense, at the mercy of Mr. John Goring never presented itself to her mind at all. Its very dreadfulness, being a thing that amounted to sheer death, blurred and softened its tangible and palpable image.