He smiled. "And I, too, have dwelt in Arcadia," said his Grace of Ormskirk. "Yes, I once heard April's message, Marian, for all my crow's-feet. But that was a long while ago, and perhaps I have forgotten it. I cannot tell, my dear. It is only from April in her own person that one hears this immemorial message. And as for me? Eh, I go into the April woods, and I find trees there of various sizes that pay no attention to me, and shrill, dingy little birds that deafen me, and it may be a gaudy flower or two, and, in any event, I find a vast quantity of sodden, decaying leaves to warn me the place is no fitting haunt for a gentleman afflicted with rheumatism. So I come away, my dear."
Marian looked him over for a moment. "You are not really old," she said, with rather conscious politeness. "And you are wonderfully well-preserved. Why, Jack, do you mind—not being foolish?" she demanded, on a sudden.
He debated the matter. Then, "Yes," the Duke of Ormskirk conceded, "I suppose I do, at the bottom of my heart, regret that lost folly. A part of me died, you understand, when it vanished, and it is not exhilarating to think of one's self as even partially dead. Once—I hardly know"—he sought the phrase,—"once this was a spacious and inexplicable world, with a mystery up every lane and an adventure around each street-corner; a world inhabited by most marvelous men and women,—some amiable, and some detestable, but every one of them very interesting. And now I miss the wonder of it all. You will presently discover, my dear, that youth is only an ingenious prologue to whet one's appetite for a rather dull play. Eh, I am no pessimist,—one may still find satisfaction in the exercise of mind and body, in the pleasures of thought and taste and in other titillations of one's faculties. Dinner is good and sleep, too, is excellent. But we men and women tend, upon too close inspection, to appear rather paltry flies that buzz and bustle aimlessly about, and breed perhaps, and eventually die, and rot, and are swept away from this fragile window-pane of time that opens on eternity."
"If you are, indeed, the sort of person you describe," said Marian, reflectively, "I do not at all blame April for having no communication with anyone possessed of such extremely unpleasant opinions. But for my own part, I shall never cease to wonder what it is that the woods whisper about."
Appraising her, he hazarded a cryptic question, "Vase of delights, and have you never—cared?"
"Why, yes, I think so," she answered, readily enough. "At least, I used to be very fond of Humphrey Degge,—that is the Marquis of Venour's place yonder, you know, just past the spur of the forest,—but he was only a younger son, so of course Father wouldn't hear of it. That was rather fortunate, as Humphrey by and by went mad about Dorothy's blue eyes and fine shape,—I think her money had a deal to do with it, too, and in any event, she will be fat as a pig at thirty,—and so we quarrelled. And I minded it—at first. And now—well, I scarcely know." Marian hesitated. "He was a handsome man, but that ridiculous cavalry moustache of his was so bristly—"
"I beg your pardon?" said the Duke.
"—that it disfigured him dreadfully," said she, with firmness. She had colored.
His Grace of Ormskirk was moved to mirth. "Child, child, you are so deliciously young it appears a monstrous crime to marry you to an old fellow like me!" He took her firm, soft hand in his. "Are you quite sure you can endure me, Marian?"
"Why, but of course I want to marry you," she said, naively surprised. "How else could I be Duchess of Ormskirk?"
Again he chuckled. "You are a worldly little wretch," he stated; "but if you want my title for a new toy, it is at your service. And now be off with you,—you and your foolish woods, indeed!"
Marian went a slight distance and then turned about, troubled. "I am really very fond of you, Jack," she said, conscientiously.
"Be off with you!" the Duke scolded. "You should be ashamed of yourself to practice such flatteries and blandishments on a defenceless old gentleman. You had best hurry, too, for if you don't I shall probably kiss you," he threatened. "I, also," he added, with point.
She blew him a kiss from her finger-tips and went away singing.
Sang Marian:
"Blackbird and thrush, in every bush,
Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow,
You pretty elves, amongst yourselves,
Sing my fair love good-morrow.
To give my love good-morrow,
Sing birds, in every furrow."
II
Left to his own resources, the Duke of Ormskirk sat down beside the table and fell to making irrelevant marks upon a bit of paper. He hummed the air of Marian's song. There was a vague contention in his face. Once he put out his hand toward the open despatch-box, but immediately he sighed and pushed, it farther from him. Presently he propped his chin upon both hands and stayed in the attitude for a long while, staring past the balustrade at the clear, pale sky of April.
Thus Marian's father, the Earl of Brudenel, found Ormskirk. The Earl was lean and gray, though only three years older than his prospective son-in-law, and had been Ormskirk's intimate since boyhood. Ormskirk had for Lord Brudenel's society the liking that a successful person usually preserves for posturing in the gaze of his outrivalled school-fellows: Brudenel was an embodied and flattering commentary as to what a less able man might make of chances far more auspicious than Ormskirk ever enjoyed. All failure the Earl's life had been; in London they had long ago forgotten handsome Harry Heleigh and the composure with which he nightly shoved his dwindling patrimony across the gaming-table; about Halvergate men called him "the muddled Earl," and said of him that his heart died, with his young wife some eighteen years back. Now he vegetated in the home of his fathers, contentedly, a veteran of life, retaining still a mild pride in his past vagaries; [Footnote: It was then well said of him by Claridge, "It is Lord Henry Heleigh's vanity to show that he is a man of pleasure as well as of business; and thus, in settlement, the expedition he displays toward a fellow-gambler is equitably balanced by his tardiness toward a too-credulous shoemaker."] and kindly time had armed him with the benumbing, impenetrable indifference of the confessed failure. He was abstractedly courteous to servants, and he would not, you felt, have given even to an emperor his undivided attention. For the rest, the former wastrel had turned miser, and went noticeably shabby as a rule, but this morning he was trimly clothed, for he was returning homeward from the quarter-sessions at Winstead.
"Dreamer!" said the Earl. "I do not wonder that you grow fat."
The Duke smiled up at him. "Confound you, Harry!" said he, "I had just overreached myself into believing I had made what the world calls a mess of my career and was supremely happy. There are disturbing influences abroad to-day." He waved his hand toward the green-and-white gardens. "Old friend, you permit disreputable trespassers about Halvergate. 'See you not Goldy-locks there, in her yellow gown and green sleeves? the profane pipes, the tinkling timbrels?' Spring is at her wiles yonder,—Spring, the liar, the queen-cheat, Spring that tricks all men into happiness."
"'Fore Gad," the Earl capped his quotation, "if the heathen man could stop his ears with wax against the singing woman of the sea, then do you the like with your fingers against the trollop of the forest."
"Faith, time seals them firmlier than wax. You and I may sit snug now with never a quicker heart-beat for all her lures. Yet I seem to remember,—once a long while ago when we old fellows were somewhat sprier,—I, too, seem to remember this Spring-magic."
"Indeed," observed the Earl, seating himself ponderously, "if you refer to a certain inclination at that period of the year toward the likeliest wench in the neighborhood, so do I. 'Tis an obvious provision of nature, I take it, to secure the perpetuation of the species. Spring comes, and she sets us all a-mating—humanity, partridges, poultry, pigs, every blessed one of us she sets a-mating. Propagation, Jack—propagation is necessary, d'ye see; because," the Earl conclusively demanded, "what on earth would become of us if we didn't propagate?"
"The argument is unanswerable," the Duke conceded. "Yet I miss it,—this Spring magic that no longer sets
the blood of us staid fellows a-fret."
"And I," said Lord Brudenel, "do not. It got me into the deuce of a scrape more than once."
"Yours is the sensible view, no doubt….Yet I miss it. Ah, it is not only the wenches and the red lips of old years,—it is not only that at this season lasses' hearts grow tender. There are some verses—" The Duke quoted, with a half-guilty air:
"Now I loiter, and dream to the branches swaying
In furtive conference,—high overhead—
Atingle with rumors that Winter is sped
And over his ruins a world goes Maying.
"Somewhere—impressively,—people are saying
Intelligent things (which their grandmothers said),
While I loiter, and dream to the branches swaying
In furtive conference, high overhead."
"Verses!" The Earl snorted. "At your age!"
"Here the hand of April, unwashed from slaying
Earth's fallen tyrant—for Winter is dead,—
Uncloses anemones, staining them red:
And her daffodils guard me in squads,—displaying
Intrepid lances lest wisdom tread
Where I loiter and dream to the branches' swaying—
"Well, Harry, and to-day I cannot do so any longer. That is what I most miss,—the ability to lie a-sprawl in the spring grass and dream out an uncharted world,—a dream so vivid that, beside it, reality grew tenuous, and the actual world became one of childhood's shrug-provoking bugbears dimly remembered."
"I do not understand poetry," the Earl apologetically observed. "It appears to me unreasonable to advance a statement simply because it happens to rhyme with a statement you have previously made. And that is what all you poets do. Why, this is very remarkable," said Lord Brudenel, with a change of tone; "yonder is young Humphrey Degge with Marian. I had thought him in bed at Tunbridge. Did I not hear something of an affair with a house-breaker—?"
Then the Earl gave an exclamation, for in full view of them Lord Humphrey Degge was kissing Lord Brudenel's daughter.
"Oh, the devil!" said the Earl. "Oh, the insolent young ape!"
"Nay," said the Duke, restraining him; "not particularly insolent, Harry. If you will observe more closely you will see that Marian does not exactly object to his caresses—quite the contrary, I would say, I told you that you should not permit Spring about the premises."
The Earl wheeled in an extreme of astonishment. "Come, come, sir! she is your betrothed wife! Do you not intend to kill the fellow?"
"My faith, why?" said his Grace of Ormskirk, with a shrug. "As for betrothals, do you not see that she is already very happily paired?"
In answer Brudenel raised his hands toward heaven, in just the contention of despair and rage appropriate to parental affection when an excellent match is imperilled by a chit's idiocy.
Marian and Lord Humphrey Degge were mounting from the scrap of forest that juts from Pevis Hill, like a spur from a man's heel, between Agard Court and Halvergate. Their progress was not conspicuous for celerity. Now they had attained to the tiny, elm-shadowed plateau beyond the yew-hedge, and there Marian paused. Two daffodils had fallen from the great green-and-yellow cluster in her left hand. Humphrey Degge lifted them, and then raised to his mouth the slender fingers that reached toward the flowers. The man's pallor, you would have said, was not altogether due to his recent wound.
She stood looking up at him, smiling a little timidly, her teeth glinting through parted lips, her eyes star-fire, her cheeks blazoning gules in his honor; she seemed not to breathe at all. A faint twinge woke in the Duke of Ormskirk's heart. Most women smiled upon him, but they smiled beneath furtive eyes, sometimes beneath rapacious eyes, and many smiled with reddened lips which strove, uneasily, to provoke a rental; how long was it he wondered, simply, since any woman had smiled as Marian smiled now, for him?
"I think it is a dream," said Marian.
From the vantage of the yew-hedge, "I would to Heaven I could think so, too," observed her father.
III
The younger people had passed out of sight. But from the rear of the hedge came to the Duke and Lord Brudenel, staring blankly at each other across the paper-littered table, a sort of duet. First tenor, then contralto, then tenor again,—and so on, with many long intervals of silence, during which you heard the plashing of the fountain, grown doubly audible, and, it might be, the sharp, plaintive cry of a bird intensified by the stillness.
"I think it is a dream," said Marian….
"What eyes you have, Marian!"
"But you have not kissed the littlest finger of all. See, it is quite stiff with indignation."
"They are green, and brown, and yellow—O Marian, there are little gold specks in them like those in eau de Dantzig! They are quite wonderful eyes, Marian. And your hair is all streaky gold-and-brown. You should not have two colors in your hair, Marian. Marian, did any one ever tell you that you are very beautiful?"
Silence. "Pee-weet!" said a bird. "Tweet?"
And Marian replied: "I am devoted to Dorothy, of course, but I have never admired her fashion of making advances to every man she meets. Yes, she does."
"Nay, 'twas only her money that lured me, to do her justice. It appeared so very sensible to marry an heiress…. But how can any man be sensible so long as he is haunted by the memory of your eyes? For see how bright they are,—see, here in the water. Two stars have fallen into the fountain, Marian."
"You are handsomer so. Your nose is too short, but here in the fountain you are quite handsome—"
"Marian,—"
"I wonder how many other women's fingers you have kissed—like that. Ah, don't tell me, Humphrey! Humphrey, promise me that you will always lie to me when I ask you about those other women. Lie to me, my dear, and I will know that you are lying and love you all the better for it…. You should not have told me about Dorothy. How often did you kiss all of Dorothy's finger-tips one by one, in just that foolish, dear way?"
"But who was this Dorothy you speak of, Marian? I have forgotten. Oh, yes—we quarrelled—over some woman,—and I went away. I left you for a mere heiress, Marian. You! And five days, ago while I lay abed, wounded, they told me that you, were to marry Ormskirk. I thought I would go mad…. Eh, I remember now. But what do these things matter? Is it not of far greater importance that the sunlight turns your hair to pure topaz?"
"Ah, my hair, my eyes! Is it these you care for? You would not love me, then, if I were old and ugly?"
"Eh,—I love you."
"Animal!"
There was a longer silence now. "Tweet!" said a bird, pertly.
Then Marian said, "Let us go to my father."
"To tell him—?"
"Why, that I love you, I suppose, and that I cannot marry Jack, not even to be a duchess. Oh, I did so much want to be a duchess! But when you came back to me yonder in the forest, somehow I stopped wanting anything more. Something—I hardly know—something seemed to say, as you came striding through the dead leaves, laughing and so very pale,—something seemed to say, 'You love him'—oh, quite audibly."
"Audibly! Why, the woods whispered it, the birds trilled it, screamed it, the very leaves underfoot crackled assent. Only they said, 'You love her—the girl yonder with glad, frightened eyes, Spring's daughter.' Oh, I too, heard it, Marian! 'Follow,' the birds sang, 'follow, follow, follow, for yonder is the heart's desire!"
The Duke of Ormskirk raised his head, his lips sketching a whistle. "Ah! ah!" he muttered. "Eureka! I have recaptured it—the message of April."
IV
When these two had gone the Duke flung out his hands in a comprehensive gesture of giving up the entire matter. "Well," said he, "you see how it is!"
"I do," Lord Brudenel assented. "And if you intend to sit patient under it, I, at least, wear a sword. Confound it, Jack, do you suppose I am going to have promiscuous young men dropping out of the skies and embracing my daughter?" The Earl became forceful in his language.
"Harry,�
��" the Duke began.
"The fellow hasn't a penny—not a stick or a stiver to his name! He's only a rascally, impudent younger son—and even Venour has nothing except Agard Court yonder! That—that crow's nest!" Lord Brudenel spluttered. "They mooned about together a great deal a year ago, but I thought nothing of it; then he went away, and she never spoke of him again. Never spoke of him—oh, the jade!"
The Duke of Ormskirk considered the affair, a mild amusement waking in his plump face.
"Old friend," said he, at length, "it is my opinion that we are perilously near to being a couple of fools. We planned this marriage, you and I—dear, dear, we planned it when Marian was scarcely out of her cradle! But we failed to take nature into the plot, Harry. It was sensible—Oh, granted! I obtained a suitable mistress for Ingilby and Bottreaux Towers, a magnificent ornament for my coach and my opera-box; while you—your pardon, old friend, if I word it somewhat grossly,—you, in effect, obtained a wealthy and not uninfluential husband for your daughter. Nay, I think you are fond of me, but that is beside the mark; it was not Jack Bulmer who was to marry your daughter, but the Duke of Ormskirk. The thing was as logical as a sale of bullocks,—value for value. But now nature intervenes, and"—he snapped his fingers,—"eh, well, since she wants this Humphrey Degge, of course she must have him."
Lord Brudenel mentioned several penalties which he would voluntarily incur in case of any such preposterous marriage.
"Your style," the Duke regretfully observed, "is somewhat more original than your subject. You have a handsome daughter to barter, and you want your price. The thing is far from uncommon. Yet you shall have your price, Harry. What estate do you demand of your son-in-law?"
"What the devil are you driving at?" said Lord Brudenel.
Gallantry. Dizain des Fetes Galantes Page 13
