John Powys - Ducdame

The woman had been more on his mind than he had acknowledged to himself; and his recondite revenge upon Rook, by refusing her address, had been a severer strain upon his nerves than he had calculated upon. Well! He was clear of it. He would have the whip hand of them all now. He would henceforth be in a position to assert himself as the formidable spiritual director of all these people!

He sat down at his table and drew out his manuscript. The sight of these closely written impassioned pages changed the current of his thoughts once more. What did it matter whether these people treated him properly or not? What did it matter whether he was an effective parish priest or not? What did it matter whether his gentle Nell kissed his hand or not? Long, long years after he was dust in dust, after there was no longer any living creature who remembered him, his work would still be exercising its effect upon the universe; the wonder of the disillusioned, the terror of the illusioned!

For the rest of that day Hastings worked silently, passionately, upon his book. When he came down to lunch he was like a different man. Nell had never known him in such high spirits. He gossiped about the village people. He told her stories about his early struggles, his desperate youthful attempts to get an adequate education, his experiences at various theological colleges.

The girl thought to herself, “If he’d been like this a year ago, I would never have gone out so much with Lexie.” Had Nell been more superstitious than she was she would have felt uneasy in the presence of this unnatural exuberance. An occult-minded person would have watched William Hastings very closely at that juncture and would perhaps have endeavoured to calm and allay this stream of excited talk. But Nell’s own spirits were so exalted just then at the despatching of the telegram and the idea of Netta’s arrival that she responded to his mood with a mood of like kind. Never had Toll-Pike Cottage heard such voices and such laughter. It would have taught the evasive Rook something he did not know as to the nature of women could he have seen the apparently complete and radiant accord that existed between these two. All through the afternoon, until tea-time, Hastings worked on; writing with scarcely a glance out of the window or away from the page; as if it were necessary to finish the book that very day.

After one of the happiest teas they had ever had since they were married, Nell announced that she intended to make Mr. Twiney drive her down to Bishop’s Forley station; so that, in case Netta had been at home when the telegram reached her and had started at once by the first train, she might not be left stranded.

Hastings shook his head. “You’re assuming too much, young lady,” he remarked. “The chances are all against her being in the house when your message arrives. And why should she start in such a hurry? The natural thing would be to give herself at least a night to think over it.”

Nell looked at him significantly. “ That shows how little you know about women,” she said. “There’s probably not been a day since she left when she hasn’t imagined herself rushing off back again just like this! What I said in the telegram was that we both thought that she ought to come, that it was important she should come. That would bring me without waiting overnight, if I were in her place!”

Hastings smiled grimly. “You and Netta are different people, Nell. And there’s another thing, too. You seem to assume that she’s got the money to come. I must say I think that’s a rather big assumption.”

Nell’s face crinkled itself into a fit of giggling at this.

“How funny you are, William,” she gasped. “Didn’t you see me go to my chest of drawers just now? I gave the postman five pounds to telegraph with the message!”

Hastings stared at her. “Five pounds? Where did you get that from, Nell?”

She laughed still more at this.

“Where — do — you — suppose I get — money — from?” she murmured. “Do you think someone gives it to me?”

“I give it up completely,” he cried. “You’re too much for me to-day, young woman.”

She made the shadow of a childish grimace at him, more in the manner of a daughter than a wife; a look that if Rook had caught he would have felt a malicious suspicion that all the romantic glamour he had come to associate with her was in some sort of way a trick that had been played upon him.

It is doubtful whether there is any man in the world who, if he saw all the flickers of expression in the face he is enamoured of, would not be shocked to the foundations of his being; and both Rook and Hastings were such megalomaniacal subjectivists, that as far as they were concerned there really were two quite distinct Nells who doubtless inhabited the same slender frame! It was doubtless Lexie who came nearer than either of them to see the girl as she actually was.

“It’s your own money!” she cried radiantly. “Well! We’ll see whether you’re right or I’m right about her coming to-day. But I’m going to meet this train, anyhow!”

She was going out of the room when he stopped her with a new tone in his voice.

“Have you given a single thought to the future?” he began. “I mean have you considered what’s going to become of Netta after we have got her here?”

Nell made an impatient little gesture with her slender fingers.

“That’s just like a man!” she cried. “Always calculating and weighing. How do we know anything about the future? We may none of us live beyond this autumn!”

The priest lifted his eyebrows and let it go. After all, whatever the upshot of all this was to be, it was a matter for Rook and Netta to settle between themselves. And it did seem to him clear that any issue would be better than the present uncertainty and misunderstanding.

He withdrew to his room and launching out once more upon the dark tide of his impassioned logic, forgot Nell, Netta, Rook, and all terrestrial happenings in that unique absorption in the pure pleasure of laying thought upon thought, speculation upon speculation, which can give, to those who abandon themselves to its fascination, a delight that surpasses every sensual happiness.

It was nearly ten o’clock that night when he heard through his open window the wheels of Twiney’s conveyance stopping at the garden gate.

He listened. Two women’s voices! So Nell had been right in her premonition, and Netta had come! He pushed his papers aside and ran down the stairs to welcome them at the door.

He had no time at the moment to do more than shake hands with the newcomer; for he had to help Mr. Twiney carry up her trunk to the attic room; but a few minutes later, when they were all three together in the parlour, he received his first intimation of how little they either of them knew of what was going on in their visitor’s mind.

“I’m so glad you came, Netta,” he said in a kindly, almost paternal tone. “What Nell thought was that something had to be done! She was afraid that Mr. Ashover was working himself into such agitation about you that it was cruel to keep you hidden away any more. Though I did obey you, didn’t I, in holding your secret tight?”

“I knew you,” broke in Nell, “better than William. He thought you’d wait till to-morrow. But I was sure you’d come to-day.”

They both surveyed their silent visitor with friendly curiosity. Netta was quietly and unassumingly dressed. In general appearance, when she pushed up her veil, she looked quite unchanged. But there was something about her manner that made it hard to talk as naturally and openly as they expected to do as soon as Mr. Twiney’s back was turned.

“Mr. Ashover is not ill, I hope?” she asked in a low voice.