CHAPTER IX—THE BATTLE OP THE UMBRELLA; WITH THE LADIES
I.
ISABEL told Mrs. Comber on that same afternoon at tea-time; but that good lady, owing to the interruption of the other good ladies and her own Mr. Comber, was unable to say anything really about it until just before going to bed. Mrs. Comber would not have been able to say very much about it in any case quite at first, because her breath was so entirely taken away by surprise, and then afterwards by delight and excitement. For herself this term had, so far, been rather a difficult affair: money had been hard, and Freddie had been even harder—and hard, as she complained, in such strange, tricky comers—never when you would expect him to be and always when you wouldn't. This Mrs. Comber considered terribly unfair, because if one knew what he was going to mind, one would look out for it and be especially careful; but when he let irritating things pass without a word and then “flew out” when there was nothing for anyone to be distressed about, life became a hideous series of nightmares with the enemy behind every hedge.
Mrs. Comber knew that this term had been worse than usual, because she had arrived already, although it was only just past halfterm, at the condition of saying nothing to Freddie when he spoke to her—she called it submission, but she never arrived at it until she was nearly at the limits of her endurance. And now this news of Isabel suddenly made the world bright again; she loved Isabel better than anyone in the world except Freddie and the children; and her love was of the purely unselfish kind, so that joy at Isabel's happiness far outweighed her own discomforts. She was really most tremendously glad, glad with all her size and volubility and color.
Isabel talked to her in her bedroom—it was of course also Freddie's, but he had left no impression on it whatever, whereas she, by a series of touches—the light green wall-paper and the hard black of the shining looking-glass, the silver things, and the china things (not very many, but all made the most of),—had made it her own unmistakably, so that everything shouted Mrs. Comber with a war of welcome. It was indeed, in spite of the light green paper, a noisy impression, and one had always the feeling that things—the china, the silver, and the chairs—jumped when one wasn't in, charged, as it were, with the electricity of Mrs. Comber's temperament and the color of her dresses.
But of course Isabel knew it all well enough, and she didn't in the least mind the stridency of it—in fact it all rather suited the sense of battle that there was in the air, so that the things seemed to say that they knew that there was a row on, and that they jolly well liked it. Freddie had been cross at dinner, and so, in so far as it was at all his room, the impression would not have been pleasant; but he just, one felt, slipped into bed and out of it, and there was an end of his being there.
Mrs. Comber, taking a few things off, putting a bright new dressing-gown on, and smiling from ear to ear, watched Isabel with burning eyes.
“Oh! my dear!... No, just come and sit on the bed beside me and have these things off, and I've been much too busy to write about that skirt of mine that I told you I would, and there it is hanging up to shame me! Well! I'm just too glad, you dear!” Here she hugged and kissed and patted her hand. “And he is such a nice young man, although Freddie doesn't like him, you know, over the football or something, although I'm sure I never know what men's reasons are for disliking one another, and Freddie's especially; but I liked him ever since he dined here that night, although I didn't really see much of him because, you know, he played Bridge at the other table and I was much too worried!” She drew a breath, and then added quite simply, like a child, and in that way of hers that was so perfectly fascinating: “My dear, I love you, and I want you to be happy, and I think you will—and I want you to love me.”
Isabel could only, for answer, fling her arms about her and hold her very tight indeed, and she felt in that little confession that there was more pathos than any one human being could realize and that life was terribly hard for some people.
“Of course, it is wonderful,” she said at last, looking with her clear, beautiful eyes straight in front of her. “One never knew how wonderful until it actually came. Love is more than the finest writer has ever said and not, I suspect, quite so much as the humblest lover has ever thought it—and that's pessimistic of me, I suppose,” she added laughing; “but it only means that I'm up to all the surprises and ready for them.”
“You 'll find it exactly whatever you make it,” Mrs. Comber said slowly. “I don't think the other party has really very much to do with it. You never lose what you give, my dear; but, as a matter of fact he's the very nicest and trustiest young man, and no one could ever be a brute to you, whatever kind of brutes they were to anyone else—and I wish I'd remembered about that skirt.”
The silence of the room and house, the peace of the night outside, came about Isabel like a comfortable cloak, so that she believed that everything was most splendidly right.
“And now, my dear,” said Mrs. Comber, “tell me what this is that I hear about your young man and Mr. Perrin, because I only heard the veriest words from Freddie, and I was just talking to Jane at the time about not breathing when she's handing round the things, because she's always doing it, and she 'll have to go if she doesn't learn.”
Isabel looked grave.
“It seems the silliest affair,” she said; “and yet it's a great pity, because it may make a lot of trouble, I'm afraid. But that's why we announced our engagement to-day, because it 'll be, it appears, a case of taking sides.”
“It always is here,” said Mrs. Comber, “when there's the slightest opportunity of it.”
“Well, it looks as though there was going to be plenty of opportunity this time,” Isabel said sighing. “It really is too silly. Apparently Archie took Mr. Perrin's umbrella to preparation in Upper School this morning without asking. They hadn't been getting on very well before, and when Mr. Perrin asked for his umbrella and Archie said that he'd taken it, there was a regular fight. The worst of it is that there were lots of people there; and now, of course, it is all over the school, and it will never be left alone as it ought to be.”
“My dear,” said Mrs. Comber, solemnly, “it will be the opportunity for all sorts of things. We 're all just ripe for it. How perfectly absurd of Mr. Perrin! But then he's an ass, and I always said so, and now it only proves it, and I wish he'd never come here. Of course you know that I'm with you, my dear; but I'm afraid that Freddie won't be, because he doesn't like your Archie, and there's no getting over it—and on whose side all the others will be there's no knowing whatever—and indeed I don't like to think of it all.”
She was so serious about it that Isabel at once became serious too. Her worst suspicions about it all were suddenly confirmed, so that the room, instead of its quiet and peace, was filled with a thousand sharp terrors and crawling fears. She was afraid of Mr. Perrin, she was afraid of the crowd of people, she was afraid of all the ill-feeling that promised soon to overwhelm her. She clutched Mrs. Comber's arm.
“Oh!” she cried, “will they hate us?”
“They 'll do their best, my dear,” said that lady solemnly, “to hate somebody.”
II.
And they came, comparatively in their multitudes, to tea on the next afternoon.
Tuesday was, as it happened, Mrs. Comber's day, and the hour's relief that followed its ending scarcely outweighed the six days' terror at its horrible approach. Its disagreeable qualities were, of course, in the first place those of any “at home” whatever—the stilted and sterile fact of being there sacrificially for anyone to trample on in the presence of a delighted audience and a glittering tea-table. But in Mrs. Comber's case there was the additional trouble of “town” and “school” never in the least suiting, although “town” was only a question of local houses like the squire and the clergyman, and they ought to have combined, one would have thought, easily enough.
The society of small provincial towns has been made again and again the jest and mockery of satiric fiction, having, it is considered, in the quality of its conversation a certain tinkling and malicious chatter that is unequaled elsewhere. Far be it from me to describe the conversation of the ladies of Moffatt's in this way—it was a thing of far deeper and graver import.
The impossibility of escape until the term's triumphant conclusion made what might, in a wider and finer hemisphere, have been simply malicious conversation that sprang up and disappeared without result, a perpetual battle of death and disaster. No slightest word but had its weightiest result, because everyone was so close upon everyone else that things said rebounded like peas flung against a board.
Mrs. Comber, at her tea-parties, had long ago ceased to consider the safety or danger of anything that she might say. It seemed to her that whatever she said always went wrong, and did the greatest damage that it was possible for any one thing to do; and now she counted her Tuesdays as days of certain disaster, allowing a dozen blunders to a Tuesday and hoping that she would “get off,” so to speak, on that. But on occasions like the present, when there was really something to talk about, she shuddered at the possible horrors; her line, of course, was strong enough, because it was Isabel first and Isabel last; and if that brought her into conflict with all the other ladies of the establishment, then she couldn't help it. Had it been merely a question of the Umbrella Riot, as some wit had already phrased it, she knew clearly enough where they were all likely to be; but now that there was Isabel's engagement as well, she felt that their anger would be stirred by that bright, young lady having made a step forward and having been, in some odd, obscure, feminine way, impertinently pushing.
She wished passionately, as she sat in glorious purple before her silver, tea-things, her little pink cakes, and her vanishingly thin pieces of bread-and-butter, that the “town” would, on this occasion at any rate, put in an appearance, because that would prevent anyone really “getting at” things; but, of course, as it happened, the “town” for once wasn't there at all, and the battle raged quite splendidly.
The combatants were the two Misses Madder, Mrs. Dormer, and Mrs. Moy-Thompson, and it might seem that these ladies were not numerically enough to do any lastingly serious damage; but it was the bodies that they represented rather than the individuals that they actually were; and poor Mrs. Comber, as she smiled at them and talked at them and wished that the little pink cakes might poison them all, knew exactly the reason of their separate appearances and the danger that they were, severally and individually.
The Misses Madder represented the matrons, and they represented them as securely and confidently as though they had sat in conclave already and drawn up a list of questions to be asked and answers to be given. Mrs. Dormer represented the wives and also, separately, Mrs. Dormer, in so far as her own especial dislike of Mrs. Comber went for everything; Mrs. Moy-Thompson, above all, faded, black, thin, and miserable, represented her lord and master, and was regarded by the other ladies as a spy whose accurate report of the afternoon's proceedings would send threads spinning from that dark little study for the rest of the term.
The eldest Miss Madder, stout, good-natured, comfortable, had not of herself any malice at all; but her thin, bony sister, exact in her chair, and with eyes looking straight down her nose, influenced her stouter sister to a wonderful extent.
The thin Miss Madder's remark on receiving her tea, “Well, so Miss Desart's engaged to Mr. Traill!” showed immediately which of the two pieces of news was considered the most important.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Comber, “and I'm sure it's delightful. Do have one of those little pink cakes, Mrs. Thompson; they 're quite fresh; and I want you especially to notice that little water-color over there by the screen, because I bought it in Truro last week for simply nothing at Pinner's, and I believe it's quite a good one—I'm sure we 're all delighted.”
Mrs. Dormer wasn't so certain. “They 're a little young,” she said in so chilly a voice that she might have been suddenly transferred, against her will, in the dead of night in the thinnest attire, into the heart of Siberia. “And what's this I hear from my husband about Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill tumbling about on the floor together this morning—something about an umbrella?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Thompson, moving her chair a little closer, “I heard something this morning about it.”
Mrs. Comber had never before disliked this thin, faded lady so intensely as she did on this afternoon—she seemed to chill the room with her presence; and the consciousness of the trouble that she would bring to various innocent persons in that place by the report of the things that they had said, made of her something inhuman and detached. Mrs. Comber's only way of easing the situation, “Do have another little pink cake, Mrs. Thompson,” failed altogether on this occasion, and she could only stare at her in a fascinated kind of horror until she realized with a start that she was intended as hostess to give an account of the morning's proceedings. But she turned to Miss Madder. “You were down there, Miss Madder; tell us all about it.”
Miss Madder was only too ready, having been in the hall at the time and having heard what she called “the first struggle,” and having yielded eventually, rather against her better instincts, to her feminine curiosity—having in fact looked past the shoulders of Mr. Comber and Mr. Birkland and seen the gentlemen struggling on the floor.
“Actually on the floor!” said Mrs. Dormer, still in Siberia.
“Yes, actually on the floor—also all the breakfast things and coffee all over the tablecloth.”
Miss Madder was checked in her enthusiasm by her consciousness of the cold eye of Mrs. Thompson, and the possibility of being dismissed from her position at the end of the term if she said anything she oughtn't to—also the possibility of an unpleasant conversation with her clever sister afterwards. However, she considered it safe enough to offer it as her opinion that both gentlemen had forgotten themselves, and that Mr. Traill was very much younger than Mr. Perrin, although Mr. Perrin was the harder one to live with—and that it had been a clean tablecloth that morning.
“I call it disgraceful,” was the only light that the younger Miss Madder would throw upon the question.
For a moment there was silence, and then Mrs. Dormer said, “And really about an umbrella?”
“I understand,” said Miss Madder, who was warming to her work and beginning to forget Mrs. Thompson's eye, “that Mr. Traill borrowed Mr. Perrin's umbrella without asking permission, and that there was a dispute.”
But it was at once obvious that what interested the ladies was the question of Miss Desart's engagement to Mr. Traill, and the effect that that had upon the disturbance in question.
“I never quite liked Mr. Traill,” said Mrs. Dormer decisively; “and I cannot say that I altogether congratulate Miss Desart—and I must say that the quarrel of this morning looks a little as though Mr. Traill's temper was uncertain.”
“Very uncertain indeed, I should think,” said the younger Miss Madder with a sniff.
Mrs. Comber felt their eyes upon her; she knew that they wished to know what she had to say about it all, but she was wise enough to hold her peace.
The other ladies then devoted all their energies upon getting an opinion from Mrs. Comber. During the next quarter of an hour, every lady understanding every other lady, a combined attack was made.
Semi-Chorus a—The question of the umbrella was, of course, a question of order, and, as Mrs. Dormer put it, when a younger master attacks an older one and flings him to the ground, and rubs his hair in the dust and that before a large audience, the whole system of education is in danger; there 's no knowing when things will begin or end, and other masters will be doing dreadful things, and then the prefects, and then other boys, and finally a dreadful picture of the First and Second boys showing what they can do with knives and pistols.
Miss Madder entirely agreed with this, and then enlarged further on the question of property.
Semi-Chorus b—One had one's things—here she was sure Mrs. Comber would agree—and if one didn't keep a tight hold of them in these days, one simply did n 't know where one would be. Of course one umbrella was a small thing; but, after all, it was aggravating on a wet morning not to find it and then to have no excuse whatever offered to one—anyone would be cross about it. And, after all, with some people if you gave them an inch they took an ell, as the saying was, and if one didn't show firmness over a small thing like this, it would only lead to people taking other things without asking until one really did n't know where one was. Of course, it was a pity that Mr. Perrin should have lost his self-control as completely as he appeared to have done, but nevertheless one could quite understand how aggravating it was.
Semi-Chorus a—Mrs. Dormer, continued, keeping order was no light matter, and if those masters who had been in a school for twenty years were to be openly derided before boys and masters, if umbrellas were to be indiscriminately stolen, and if in fact anything was to be done by anybody at any time whatever without by your leave or for your leave, then one might just as well pack up one's boxes and go home; and then what would happen, one would like to know, to our schools, our boys, and finally, with an emphatic rattle of cup and saucer, to our country?
Semi-Chorus b—Enlarged the original issue. It was really rather difficult when a young man had been behaving in this way to congratulate the young lady to whom he had just engaged himself. She was of course perfectly charming, but it was a pity that she should, whilst still so young, be forced to countenance disorder and tumult, because with that kind of beginning there was no telling what married life mightn't develop into.
Semi-Chorus a—Enlarged yet again on this subject and, without mentioning names or being in any way specific, drew a dreadful picture of married lives that had been ruined simply through this question of discipline, and that if the husband were the kind of man who believed in blows and riot and general disturbance, then the wife was in for an exceedingly poor time.
Mrs. Comber had listened to this discussion in perfect silence. It was not her habit to listen to anything in perfect silence, but on the present occasion she continued to enforce in her mind that dark, ominous figure of Mrs. Thompson. Anything that she said would be used against her, and there in the corner, with her thin, white hands folded in her lap, with the black silk of her dress shining in little white lines where the light caught it, was the person who might undo her Freddie entirely. Whatever happened, she must keep silence—she told herself this again and again; but as Mrs. Dormer and Miss Madder continued, she found her anger rising. She fixed her eyes on the sharp, black feathers in Miss Madder's hat and tried to discuss with herself the general expense of the hat and why Miss Madder always wore things that didn't suit her, and whether Miss Madder wouldn't he ever so much better in a nice green grave with daisies and church bells in the distance, but these abstract questions refused to allow themselves to be discussed. She knew as she listened that Isabel, her dear, beloved Isabel, to whom she owed more than anyone in the whole world, was being attacked—cruelly, wickedly attacked.
Every word that came from their lips increased her rage: they hated Isabel—Isabel who had never done them any harm or hurt. As their voices, even and cold, went on, she forgot that dark, silent figure in the corner, and her hands began to twitch the silk of her purple gown. Suddenly in an instant Freddie was forgotten, everything was forgotten save Isabel, and she burst out, her eyes burning, her cheeks flaming: “Really, Mrs. Dormer, you are a little inaccurate. I'm sure we must all agree that it's a pity if anyone is so silly as to knock someone else down because someone else has stolen one's umbrella, and I'm sure I should never want to; and indeed I remember quite well Miss Tweedy, who was matron here two years ago, taking a gray parasol of mine to chapel with her and putting it up before everybody, and nobody thought anything of it, and I remember Miss Tweedy being quite angry because I asked for it back again. I think it's very stupid of Mr. Perrin to make such a fuss about nothing, and I never did like him, and I don't care who knows it; but at any rate I don't see what this has all got to do with dear Isabel's engagement, and I think young Traill's a delightful fellow, and I hope they 'll both be enormously happy, and I think it's very unkind of you to wish them not to be!” Mrs. Comber took a deep breath.
“Really, my dear Mrs. Comber,” said Mrs. Dormer very slowly, “I'm sure we none of us wish them anything but happiness. Please don't have the impression that we are not eager for their good.”
“I can't help feeling, Mrs. Comber,” said Miss Madder, “that you have rather misunderstood our position in the matter.”
“Well, I'm sure I'm very sorry if I have,” broke in Mrs. Comber hurriedly, beginning already to be sorry that she had spoken so quickly.
“You see,” went on Miss Madder, “that I don't think we can any of us have two feelings about the question of discipline. I'm sure you agree with us there, Mrs. Comber.”
“Oh, of course,” said Mrs. Comber.
But she saw at once that war had been declared. They hated Isabel, and they hated her; they would make it so unpleasant that Isabel would not be able to come and stay again—they were of one mind.
Above all, after they had gone, there remained the impression of that silent, black lady who had said not a word. What would she tell Moy-Thompson? What harm would come to Freddie?
Last, and worst of all, as Mrs. Comber most wretchedly reflected, Freddie had still to be faced.
His feelings, she knew, would be strongly expressed, and were certainly not in a line with her own.
Oh! the umbrella had a great deal to answer for!
III.
And Freddie was, as a matter of fact, faced that very evening, and a crisis arrived in the affairs of the Combers which must be chronicled, because it had ultimately a good deal to do with Isabel and Archie Traill, and indeed with everyone in the present story.
But whilst waiting for him downstairs, “dressed and shining,” as she used to like to say—with the dinner getting cold (for which disaster she was certain to be scolded)—she wondered in her muddled kind of way why it was that they should all have wanted to be so disagreeable, why, as a development of that, everyone always preferred to be disagreeable rather than pleasant. And she suddenly, facing the ormolu clock and the peacock screen with her eyes upon them as though they might, with their color and decoration help her, had a revelation—dim, misty, vague, and lost almost as soon as it was seen—that it wasn't really anyone's fault at all—that it was the system, the place, the tightness and closeness and helplessness that did for everybody; that nobody could escape from it, and that the finest saint, the most noble character, would be crushed and broken in that remorseless mill—“the mills of the gods”?—no, the mills of a rotten, impoverished, antiquated system.... She saw, staring at the clock and the screen and clinging to them, these men and these women, crushed, beaten, defeated: Mrs. Thompson, Mrs. Dormer, Miss Madder, her own Freddie, Mr. Perrin, Mr. Birkland, Mr. White—even already young Traill—all of them decent, hopeful, brave... once. The coals clicked in the glowing fire, and the soft autumn wind passed down the darkening paths. She felt suddenly as though she must give it all up—she must leave Freddie and the children and go away... anywhere... she could not endure it any longer. And then Freddie came in, irritable, peevish, scarcely noticing her. Moy-Thompson had changed one of his hours, and that annoyed him; the soup of course was stone cold, the fish very little better. He scowled across the table at her, and she tried to be pleasant and amusing. Then suddenly he had launched into the umbrella affair.
“Young Traill wants kicking,” he said. “What are we all coming to, I should like to know? Why, the man's only been here a month or two, and he goes and takes a senior master's things without asking leave, and then knocks him down because he objects. I never heard anything like it. The fellow wants kicking out altogether.”
Mrs. Comber said nothing.
“Well, why don't you say something? You've got some opinion about it, I suppose; and there's more in it than that—he's gone and got himself engaged to Isabel, I hear. What's the girl thinking of? They 're both much too young anyhow. It's absurd. I 'll tell her what I think of it.”
“Oh, no, Freddie—don't say anything to her. She's so happy about it, and I'm sure the dear girl has been so good to both of us that she deserves some happiness, and I do want them to be successful. After all, if Mr. Traill was a little hasty, he's very young, and Mr. Perrin 's a very difficult man to get on with. You know, dear, you've always said—”
“Well, whatever I 've said,” he broke in furiously, “I 've never advocated stealing nor hitting your elders and betters in the face, and if you think I have, you 're mightily mistaken.”
After that there was silence during the rest of the meal. Miss Desart was dining at the Squire's in the village, and, for once, Mrs. Comber was glad that the girl was not with them.
She was very near to tears. The day had been a most terrible one—and her food choked her. The meal seemed to stretch into infinity, the dreary dining-room, the monotonous tick of the clock, and always her husband's scowling face.
At last it was over, and he went to his study, and she to her little drawing-room. In front of her fire, her sewing slipped from her lap and she slept, with her purple dress shining in the firelight, and the rest of the room in shadow about her. And she dreamt wonderful dreams—of places where there was freedom and light, of hard, white roads and forests and cathedrals, and of a wonderful life where there was no travail nor ill-temper; and her face became happy again, and she saw Freddie as he had once been, before the shadow of this place had fallen about him, and in her dreams she was in a place where everyone loved her and she could make no mistakes.
Then she woke up and saw Freddie Comber standing near her, and she smiled at him and then gave a little exclamation because the fire was nearly out.
“Yes,” he said, following her glance, “it's a nice, cheerful room for a man to come into, isn't it, after he's tired and cold with work? I have got a nice, pleasant little wife. I'm a lucky man, I am.”
Then, as she began to busy herself with the fire, and tried to brighten it, he said, “Oh! leave it now, can't you? What's the use of making a noise and fuss with it now?”
Then he went on as she got up from her knees again and faced him, “Look here, we've got to come to an understanding about this business.”
“What business?” she said faintly, all the color leaving her cheeks.
“Why, young Traill,” he went on, standing over her. “I'm not going to have my wife encouraging him in this affair. I tell you I object to him—he's a conceited, impertinent prig, and he wants putting in his place, and I 'll let him know it if he comes near here. I won't have him in the house, and it's just as well he should know it. So don't you go asking him here.”
She was now white to the lips. “But,” she said, “I have told Isabel that I am glad, and I am glad. I like Mr. Traill, and I don't think it was his fault in this business; and, Freddie dear, you know you are not quite fair to him because of his football, or something silly, and I'm sure you don't mind him, really—you don't like Mr. Perrin, you know.”
This was quite the most unfortunate speech that poor Mrs. Comber could possibly have made; the mention of the football at once reminded Freddie Comber of all that he had suffered on that head, and his neck began to swell with rage, and his cheeks were flushed.
“Look here, my lady,” he said, “you just leave things alone that don't belong to you. Never you mind what reasons I 've got for disliking young Traill—it's enough if I say that he's not to come here—and Miss Isabel shall hear that from my own lips.”
In all her long experience of him she had never known him so angry as he was now, and she had never before been so afraid of him; but at the mention of Isabel, she called all her courage to her aid and drew herself up.
“You must not do that,” she said. “You cannot insult Isabel here, when she has been such a friend of ours, and been so good—so good. I love her, and the man she is going to marry is my friend.”
“Oh!” he said, speaking very low and coming very close to her. “This is defiance, is it? You will do this and that, will you? I tell you that he shall not come here.”
“And I say that he shall,” she answered in a whisper.
Then, with the accumulated irritation of the day upon him, he suddenly came to her and, muttering between his teeth, “We 'll see about the master here,” struck her so that he cut his hand on her brooch, and she fell back against the wall, and stayed there with her hands spread out against it, staring at him....
There was a long silence, with no sound save the clock and the distant wind. He had never, in their long married life, struck her before. They both knew, as they stood there staring at one another, that a period had suddenly been placed, like an iron wall, in their lives. Their relations could never be the same again. They might be better, they might be worse—they could never be the same.
But with him there was a great overwhelming horror of what he had done. Her white face, her large, shining eyes, the way that her hands lay against the wall, and the way that her dress fell about her feet, because her knees were bending under her—drove this home to him. He was appalled; suddenly that man in him that had been dead for twenty years was brought to life by that blow.
“My dear—my dear—don't look at me like that—I did not mean anything—I am not angry—I am terribly ashamed.... Please—”
His voice was a trembling whisper. He put out his hand towards her. She took his hand, and came away from the wall, still looking at him fixedly.
“You never struck me before, Freddie,” she said. “At least, you have never done that. I am so sorry, my dear.”
Then, very quietly, she put her arms about his neck and kissed him; then she went slowly out of the room.
He stood where she had left him motionless. Then he said, still in a whisper and looking at the curtains that hid the night and the dark buildings. “Curse the place! It is that—it has done for me....” And then, as he very slowly sat down and faced the fire, he whispered to the shadowy room, “I am no good—I am no good at all!”
CHAPTER X—THE BATTLE OF THE UMBRELLA; “WHOM THE GODS WISH TO DESTROY....”
I.
DURING the month that followed, the battle raged furiously, and within a week of that original incident there was no one in the establishment who had not his or her especial grievance against someone else. In the Senior common room, at the middle morning hour, the whole staff might be seen, silent, grave, bending with sheer resolution over the daily papers, eloquent backs turned to their enemies, every now and again abstract sarcasm designed for some very concrete resting-place.
That original umbrella had, long ago, been forgotten, or, rather the original borrowing of it. It had now become a flag, a banner—something that stood for any kind of principle that it might serve one's purpose to support. One hated one's neighbor—well, let any small detail be the provocation, the battle was the thing.
Imagine, moreover, the effect on the young generation, assembled to watch and imitate the thoughts and actions of their elders and betters; what a delightful and admirable system!—with their Greek accents and verbs in with their principal parts of savior and dire and their conclusive decisions concerning vulgar fractions and the imports and exports of Sardinia, they should learn the delicate art of cutting your neighbor, of hating your fellow-creatures, of malicious misconception—all this within so small an area of ground, so slight a period of time, at so wonderfully inconsiderable an expense.
The question at issue passed of course speedily to the very smallest boy in the school, but here there was not so intense a division—there was indeed scarcely a division at all, because there could not, on the whole, be two opinions about it. When it came to choosing between Old Pompous with his stupid manners and his uncertain temper, with all the custom of his twenty years' stay at the school so that he was simply a tiresome tradition that present fathers of grown families had once accepted as a fearful authority—between this and the novel and athletic Traill, with his splendid football and his easy fellowship... why? There was nothing more to be said. Why should n't one take Old Pompous's umbrella? Who was he to be so particular about his property? He would n't hesitate to take someone else's things if he wanted them.... Meanwhile there was an encouragement to rebellion amongst all those who came beneath his discipline—as to the way that he took this, there is more to be said later.
But the point about this month is not the question of individual quarrel and disturbance. Of that there was enough and to spare, but there was nothing extraordinary about its progress, and every successive term saw something of the kind: the two questions as to whether Traill should have taken Perrin's umbrella and whether Isabel Desart should, under the circumstances, have allowed herself to be engaged to Traill, simply took the place of other questions that had, in their time, served to rouse combat. No—the peculiar fact about this month was that at the end of it, when their quarrels and hatreds should have reached their climax, they were sunk suddenly almost to the point of disappearance—they were almost lost and forgotten—and the reason of this was that everyone in the place, in some cases unconsciously and in nearly every instance silently, was watching Perrin.... It had become during that time an issue between two men, and one of those men was passive. It was being worked out in silence—even the spectators themselves made no comment, but Mrs. Comber afterwards put it into words when she said that “Everyone was so afraid that talking about it might make it happen that no one said anything at all”—and that indeed was the remarkable fact.
Amongst all the eyes that were turned on the developing incident those most fitted for our purpose of elucidation belonged to Isabel Desart, and her experience of it all will do very well for everyone else's experience of it, because the only difference between herself and the rest was that she was more acute in her judgment and had a more discerning intuition.
In the first place she had very crucially indeed to fight her own battles. It did not take her a day to discover that every lady in the place, with the single exception of Mrs. Comber, was, for the time being at any rate, up in arms against her. She ought not to have allowed herself to be engaged to Mr. Traill—there were no two opinions about it. It was not ladylike—she was allying herself, to disorder and tumult, she was encouraging the stealing of things, and the knocking down of persons in authority—above all, she was setting herself up, whatever that might mean: all this was foreshadowed on the very first day in Mrs. Comber's drawing-room.
These things did not, in the very least, surprise or dismay Isabel. She loved a battle—she had never realized before how dearly she loved it, she gave no quarter and she asked none. She went about with her head up and her eyes flashing fire—she was quiet unless she was attacked; but so soon as there were signs of the enemy, the armor would be buckled on and the trumpet sounded. In a way—and it seemed to her curious when she looked back upon it—this month of hers was stirring and even rather delightful.
But there were other and more serious sides to it. She saw at once that something had happened in the Comber family, and with all the tenderness and gentleness that was so wonderfully hers she sought to put it right. But she soon realized that it had all gone far too deep for any outside help. She did not know what had occurred on that evening when she had dined at the Squire's. Mrs. Comber told her nothing—she only begged her not to speak to Freddie about the umbrella quarrel and not to attempt to bring Archie to the house, at present at any rate.
But Mrs. Comber was now a different person—her animated volubility had disappeared altogether, she went about her house very quietly with a pale face and tired eyes, and she did not speak unless she was spoken to. But the change in Freddie Comber was still more marked. Isabel had never liked him so much before. His harsh dogmatism seemed to have disappeared. He said very little to anybody, but in his own house at any rate he was quiet, reserved, and even submissive. Isabel noticed that he was on the watch to do things for his wife, and sometimes she saw that his eyes would leave his work and stray about the room as though he were searching for something. He scarcely seemed to notice her at all, and sometimes when she spoke to him he would start and look at her curiously, almost suspiciously, as though he were wondering how much she knew. He was not kind and attentive to her, as he had been before—she felt sure that he had now a great dislike for her. All this made her miserable, and she loved to wonder sometimes what it was that held her back from speaking to Mrs. Comber about it all—but something prevented her.
The masters, she knew, were divided about her. They were, she thought, more occupied with their own quarrels and disputes than with any attitude towards herself. At first she was amused by their divided camps—it all seemed so childish and absurd, and for its very childishness it could not have a serious conclusion; but as the days went on and she saw into it all more deeply, the pathos of it caught her heart and she could have cried to think of what men they might have been, of the things that they might have done. Some of them seemed to seek her out now with a courtliness and deference that they had never shown her before. Birkland, of whom she had always been rather frightened, spoke to her now whenever there was an opportunity, and his sharp, sarcastic eyes softened, and she saw the sadness in their gray depths, and she felt in the pressure of his hands that he wanted now to be friends with her. White, too, was different now. He said very little to her, and he was so quiet that for him to speak at all was a wonderful thing, but there were a few words about his affection for Archie.
With all of this Isabel got a profound sense of its being her duty to do something; as far as her own affairs were concerned she was perfectly able to manage them, and if the matter in dispute had been simply her engagement to Archie, there would be no difficulty—it was a case of waiting, and then escaping; but things were more serious than that—something was in the air, and she knew enough of that life and that atmosphere to be afraid. But it was not until later than this that she began to be afraid definitely of Mr. Perrin.
But this feeling that she had of the necessity of doing something grew when she perceived the inertia of the others—inertia was perhaps scarcely the word: it was rather, as the matter advanced, an increasing impulse to sink their own quarrels and sit back in the chairs and wait for the result.
And, with this before her, Isabel set out on a determined campaign, having for its ultimate issue the hope of possible reconciliation—she could not put it more optimistically than that—before the end of the term came.
It was not at all a desire to do good that drove her—indeed, her flashing disputes with Mrs. Dormer, her skirmishes with the younger Miss Madder, were very far away from any evangelistic principles whatever—but rather some hint of future trouble that was hard to explain. She wished to prevent things happening, was the way that she herself would have put it; but that did not hinder her from feeling a natural anxiety that Miss Madder, Mrs. Dormer, and the rest should have some of their own shots back before the end of the term was reached.
II.
But she began her campaign with her own Archie, and found him difficult. Going down the hill by the village on one of those sharp, tightly drawn days with the horizon set like marble and nothing moving save the brittle leaves blowing like brown ghosts up and down, she tried to get him to see the difficulties as she saw them, She attacked him at first on the question of making peace with Mr. Perrin, and came up at once against a bristling host of obstinacies and traditions that her ignorance of public school and university laws had formerly hidden from her.
Perrin was a bounder, and young Traill's eyes were cold and hard as he summed it all up in this sentence. He would do anything in the world for Isabel, but she did n't probably altogether understand what a fellow felt—there were things a man couldn't do. She found that the laws of the Medes and Persians were nothing at all in comparison with the stone tables of public school custom: “The man was a bounder”—“There were things a fellow couldn't do.”
She had not expected him to go and beg for peace—she had not probably altogether wished him to; but the way that he looked at it all left her with a curious mixture of feelings: she felt that he was so immensely young, and therefore to be—most delightful of duties—looked after. Also she felt, for the first time, all the purpose and obstinacy of his nature, so that she foresaw that there would in the future between them be a great many tussles and battles.
But she was very much cleverer than he was, and dealt with him very gently, and then suddenly gave him a sharp, little moral rap, and then kissed him afterwards. She found, in fact, that this trouble with Mr. Perrin was worrying him dreadfully. He hid it as well as he could, and hid it on the whole very successfully; but Isabel dragged it all out and saw that he hated quarreling with anybody, and that he now dimly discovered that he was the center of a vulgar dispute and that people were taking sides about him—all this was horrible.
He also felt very strongly the injustice of it. “I never meant to knock the fellow down. I never knew I'd taken his beastly umbrella—all this fuss!”—which was, Isabel thought, so very like a man, because the thing was done and there was no more to be said about it. He thought a great deal about her in the matter and was very anxious to stand up for her; indeed, that was the only aspect of the affair that gave him any satisfaction—that they should be fighting shoulder to shoulder against the “low, bounding” world, and he declared, as he looked at her, that he loved her more and more every day.
But all of this did not touch on his relations with Perrin, and his eyes with regard to that gentleman could only look one way—he would not make advances.
The more Isabel felt his determination, the more, curiously enough, she felt Mr. Perrin's pathos. She had not yet arrived at the definite watching of him that was to come upon them all soon so curiously; but when she thought of him she thought of Archie's definition of him, and she realized, as she had not realized before, that that would be a great many other persons' definition of him also. Whatever he was—cross, irritable, violent, even wicked—he was, at any rate, lonely, and that was enough to make Isabel sorry, and more than sorry.
She could not, of course, make Archie see that. “The fellow's always wanted to be lonely—thinks himself much too good for other people's society, that's the fact, and if a man behaves like a beast, he must expect to be left alone.”
That did not worry Archie. The whole of his annoyance arose from the fact that there should be such a fuss. He had never really quarreled with anyone before—people never did quarrel with him; and now suddenly here were Comber and West and the little French worm Pons, stiff and sulky whenever they met him, and Moy-Thompson bullying him whenever he got the opportunity.
Of course he wasn't going to stay! he couldn't stay under these circumstances—but it was all unpleasant and disagreeable. Isabel herself was only too anxious to take him out of it all as soon as possible. He wasn't wearing well under it. He had been full of light and sunshine at the beginning of the term, pleasant to everyone, equable, comfortable, a splendid creature to be with. Now the boys of his class found that nothing pleased him, little things roused him to a fury, and he snapped at people when they spoke to him. With Isabel he was always gentle, but his eager eyes were tired, and once he wasn't very far away from tears.
But she did not allow any of these things to worry her. She was proud with Miss Madder, haughty with Moy-Thompson, gentle with Mrs. Comber, always amusing and cheerful with Archie. But when she had gone to bed and was at last alone, she would lie there, trying to puzzle it all out, afraid of what the future might bring, and praying that she might drag Archie out of it all before they had damaged him. He was such a boy, and all this discussion was so new to him; but she felt that she herself was ninety at least, and she would wonder sometimes that all men's difficult education seemed to leave them just where they began, which was several stages earlier than the place where women commenced. Love and death were very simple things, it seemed to her, beside the tangled daily worries of people getting along together. Her present feeling was something akin to Alice's sensation at the Croquet party when the hoops (being flamingoes) would walk away and climb up trees, and the balls (being hedge-hogs) would wander off the ground. They were all flamingoes and hedge-hogs at Moffatt's.
III.
But towards the end of this month, Isabel became suddenly conscious of Mr. Perrin in a very different way. It was now only three weeks before the end of term, and in another week examinations would begin. That something in the atmosphere that signified the coming of examinations was busy about the place. People were very quiet, and then suddenly in the most singular way would break out; there was continual quarreling in the common room, strange rumors were carried of things that people had said—it was all a question of strain.
There came, it now being the first week in December, the first day of snow, and the light, feathery flakes fell throughout the afternoon, and when the sun set there was a soft, white world with the buildings black and grim and a sky of hurrying gray cloud. Isabel and Mrs. Comber sat in Mrs. Comber's little drawing-room over a roaring fire, and there was no other light in the room.
Mrs. Comber sat, as she so often sat now, with her chin resting in her hand, silently staring at the fire.
Isabel was unhappy; the silent whiteness of the world outside, the consciousness of Miss Madder's rudeness to her that afternoon, the trouble that she had seen in Archie's eyes when she had said good night to him after Chapel, above all, a general sense of strain and nerves stretched to breaking-point—all this overwhelmed her. She had never felt so strongly before that she and Archie, if they were to keep anything at all of their vitality, must escape at once... to-night... to-morrow; it might be too late.
She knew that Archie had lost his temper with West that afternoon, that he had called him a “rotten little counter-jumper,” and that West had made an allusion to “stealing things.” Where were they all? What were they all doing to be fighting like this?
They sat in silence opposite to one another, one on each side of the fire, and the ticking of the clock, and every now and again a tumbling coal, were the only sounds. Then suddenly Isabel broke out.
“Oh! I can't stand it any longer; I feel as though I should go mad. What is the matter with everybody? Why are we all fighting like this? Oh! I do want to be pleasant to somebody again, just for a change. For the last three weeks, ever since that wretched quarrel, there has been no peace at all.”
“I know,” Mrs. Comber answered without raising her eyes from the fire; “I am very tired, too, and it's a good thing there are only three weeks more of the term, because I 'm sure that somebody would be cutting somebody's throat if it lasted any longer, and I wouldn't mind very much if somebody would cut mine.” She gave a little choke in her throat, and then suddenly her head fell forward into her hands, and she burst into passionate sobbing.
Isabel said nothing, but came over to her and knelt down by her chair and took her other hand. They stayed together in silence for a long time, and the burning fire flung great shadows on the walls, and the snow had begun to fall again and rustled very softly and gently against the window.
At last Mrs. Comber looked up and wiped her eyes, and tried to smile.
“Ah! my dear! you are so good to me. I don't know what I should have done this terrible term if you hadn't been, and now my eyes are a perfect sight, and Freddie will be coming in; but I could n't help it. Things only seem to get worse and worse and worse, and I've stood it as long as I can, and I can't stand it any longer. I think I shall go away and be a nun or a hospital nurse or something where you 're let alone.”
“Dear Mrs. Comber;” said Isabel, still holding her hand, “do tell me about these last few weeks, if it would help you. Of course, I 've seen that something 's happened between you and Mr. Comber. I can see that he is most dreadfully sorry about something, and I know that he wants to make it up. But this silence is worse than anything, and if you 'd only have it out, both of you, I'm sure it would get all right.”
“No, dear.” Mrs. Comber shook her head and wiped her eyes. “It's not that so much. Freddie and I will get all right again, I expect, and even be better together than we were be-for; but all this business has shown me, my dear, that I'm a failure. I 've known it really all the time, and I used to pretend that if one was nice enough to people one could n't be altogether a failure, because they wanted one to like them—and that's the truth. Nobody wants me to like them, and I'm the loneliest woman in the world. I'm not grumbling about it, because I suppose I'm careless and silly and untidy, but I don't think anyone's wanted friends quite so badly as I have, and some people have such a lot. I used to think it was all just accidents, but now I know it's really me; and now you 're going to be married there's an end of you, the only person I had.”
“Archie and I,” said Isabel softly, “will care for you to the end of your days, and you will come and stay with us, won't you? And you know that Freddie loves you. Why, I 've seen him looking at you during these last weeks as though he could die for you, and then he's been afraid to say anything. It's only this horrid place that has got in the way so dreadfully.”
Mrs. Comber caught her hand eagerly. “Do you really think so, my dear? Oh! if I could only think that, because I have fancied he's been different lately, and he's such a dear when he likes to be and is n't worried about his form; but things are always worse at examination time, and I always pray that the two weeks may be got through as quickly as possible; and something dreadful did happen the other day, and I know he was ashamed of himself, the poor dear.... Perhaps things will be all right.”
Mrs. Comber gave a great sigh and looked a little more cheerful. Then, after a pause, she began again, but a little doubtfully: “You know, Isabel dear, there's something else. I don't want to frighten you, but Mrs. Dormer noticed it as well, and I know it's silly of me, but I don't quite like it—”
“Like what?” said Isabel. “Well, Mr. Perrin; he's been looking so queer ever since that quarrel with your Archie. I daresay you haven't noticed anything, and I daresay it may be all my own imaginations, and I'm sure in a place like this one might imagine anything—”
“How does he look queer,” said Isabel quietly.
“Well, it's his eyes, I suppose, and the things the boys say about him. You know, my dear, I've wondered since whether perhaps he didn't care about you rather a great deal, and whether that isn't another reason for his disliking Archie—”
“Care about me?” said Isabel laughing; “why, no, of course not. He's only spoken to me once or twice.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Comber, “I've seen him looking at you in the strangest way in chapel. And his face has got so white and thin and drawn, I'm really quite sorry for the poor man. And his eyes are so odd, as though he was trying to see something that wasn't there. And the boys say that he's so strange in class sometimes and stops suddenly in the middle of a lesson and forgets where he is; and Mr. Clinton was telling me that he never speaks to Archie, but sometimes when Archie's there he gets very white and shakes all over and leaves the room. I only want you to warn Archie to be careful, because when a man's lonely like that and begins to think about things, he might do anything.”
“Why, what could he do?” Isabel said, with a little catch in her breath.
“Well, I don't know, dear,” Mrs. Comber said rather uncertainly. “Only when examinations come on they do seem to get into the men's heads so, and it's only that I thought that Archie might be careful and ready if Mr. Perrin seemed odd at all...”
Mrs. Comber left it all very uncertain, and as they sat silently in the room with the fire turning from a roaring blaze into a golden cavern and the shadows on the wall growing smaller and smaller as the fire fell, Isabel seemed to feel the cold black and white of the world outside gather ominously about her.
She said good night very quietly, and the two women clung to each other a moment longer than usual, as though they did not wish to leave each other.
“At any rate,” said Isabel, “whatever else this place may do, it can't alter our being together. You 've always got me, you know.”
But from this moment Isabel was afraid. Perhaps her nerves were strained, perhaps she saw a great deal more than there was to be seen; but she longed for the end of the term with a passionate eagerness, and she could not sleep at nights.
And then, curiously, on the very next morning Mr. Perrin came and spoke to her.
She always afterwards remembered him as she saw him that day. She was just turning out of the black gate to go down the hill to the village; there was a very pale blue sky; the ground was white with gray and purple shadows, and the houses were brown and sharply edged, as though cut out of paper, in the distance; the hills were a gray-white against the sky. He came towards her very slowly, and she saw that he wanted to speak to her, so she stopped and waited for him. When he came up to her—with his gown hanging loosely about him and his heavy, black mortar-board, with his thin, haggard cheeks, and staring eyes, with his straggly, unkept mustache—she had a moment of ungovernable fear. She could give no reason for it, but she knew that her impulse was to turn and run away, anywhere so that she might escape from him.
Then she controlled herself and turned and faced him, and smiled and held out her hand.
She could see him staring beyond her, over her shoulder, with eyes that didn't see her at all. She saw that his hand was shaking.
“How do you do, Mr. Perrin? I haven't seen you for quite a long time. Isn't this snow delightful? If it will only stay like this.”
Suddenly he came quite close to her, looking into her eyes; he grasped her hand and held it.
“I 've been wanting to say...” he said in an odd voice, and there he stopped and stood staring at her.
“Yes,” she said gently.
His throat was moving convulsively, and he put his hand up to his face with a helpless gesture and pulled his mustache.
“I've wanted to say—um, ah—to congratulate you...”
He cleared his throat, and suddenly she saw tears in his eyes.
“Oh! thank you!” she said impulsively, coming up to him and putting her hand on his arm. “Thank you so very much!” and then she could say no more.
He moved his arm away, and his eyes passed her again, out of the distant horizon. Then he said very rapidly, as though he were reciting a speech that he had learnt, “I wanted to congratulate you on your engagement. I hope you 'll be very happy. I'm sure you will. I'm afraid I 'm a little late in my good wishes. I'm afraid I'm a little late. Yes. Good morning!”
Then, before she could say any more, he had moved away and gone down the path.
As she watched his black gown waving a little behind him she knew that her vague fears of the night before had taken definite form.