§ 12
It was Gervase, not Peter, who lay awake that night, thinking of Stella Mount. He had been glad when he was told to take her in to dinner, and the meal which had been so unspeakably trying to his brother had passed delightfully for him. On his other side sat Doris, deep in conversation with Charles Hurst, so he did not have to bother about her—he could talk to Stella, who was so easy to talk to....
Afterwards in the drawing-room he had not felt so easy. He knew that he must not monopolise Stella, for she was Peter’s. So when he heard the men crossing the hall, he made some excuse and left her, to see Rose sit down by her side directly Peter came in. He was glad when poor old Peter had managed to get near her at last ... though he hadn’t seemed to make much of his opportunities. He had sat beside her, stupid and silent, scarcely speaking a word all the evening through.
Upstairs in bed, in his little misshapen room under the north gable, where he had slept ever since the night-nursery was given up, Gervase shut his eyes and thought of Stella. She came before the darkness of his closed eyes in her shining blue dress—a dress like midnight.... She was the first woman he had really noticed since in far-back childish days he had had an infatuation for his rather dull daily governess—his “beautiful Miss Turner” as he had called her and thought of her still.... But Stella was different—she was less of a cloud and a goddess, more of a breathing person. He wondered—was he falling in love? It was silly to fall in love with Stella, who was six years older than he ... though people said that when boys fell in love it was generally with women older than themselves. But he mustn’t do it. Stella was Peter’s.... Was she?... Or was it merely true that he wanted to take her and she wanted to be taken?
He did not think there was any engagement, any promise. Circumstances might finally keep them apart. Rose, Doris, Jenny, his father and mother—the whole family—did not want Peter to marry Stella Mount whose face was her fortune. It was the same everlasting need of money that was making the same people, except Jenny of course, shrug at poor Jim Parish, whose people in their turn shrugged at portionless Jenny. Money—money ... that was what the Squires wanted—what they must have if their names were to remain in the old places.
Gervase felt rather angry with Peter. He was angry to think that he who had the power was divided as to the will. How was it possible that he could stumble at such a choice? What was money, position, land or inheritance compared to simple, solid happiness?... He buried his face in the pillow, and a kind of horror seized him at the cruel ways of things. It was as if a bogey was in the room—the kind that used to be there when he was a child, but no longer visible in the heeling shadows round the nightlight, rather an invisible sickness, the fetish of the Alards dancing in triumph over Stella and Peter.
It was strange that he should be so hurt by what was after all not his tragedy—he was not really in love with Stella, only felt that, given freedom for her and a few more years for him, he could have been and would have been. And he was not so much hurt as frightened. He was afraid because life seemed to him at once so trivial and so gross. The things over which people agonised were, after all, small shoddy things—earth and halfpence; to see them have such power to crush hopes and deform lives was like seeing a noble tree eaten up by insects. In time he too would be eaten up ... No, no! He must save himself, somehow. He must find happiness somewhere. But how?
When he tried to think, he was afraid. He remembered what he used to do in the old days when he was so dreadfully afraid in this room. He used to draw up his knees to his chin and pray—pray frantically in his fear. That was before he had heard about the Ninety-nine Just Sheep being left for the one that was lost; directly he had heard that story he had given up saying his prayers, for fear he should be a Just Sheep, when he would so much rather be the lost one, because the shepherd loved it and had carried it in his arms.... He must have been a queer sort of kid. Now all that was gone—religion ... the school chapel, confirmation classes, manly Christians, the Bishop’s sleeves ... he could scarcely realise those dim delicate raptures he had had as a child—his passionate interest in that dear Friend and God walking the earth ... all the wonderful things he had pondered in his heart. Religion was so different after you were grown up. It became an affair of earth and halfpence like everything else.
Stella’s religion still seemed to have some colour left in it, some life, some youth. It was more like his childhood’s faith than anything he had met so far. She had told him tonight that there were two Christmas trees in church, one each side of the Altar, all bright with the glass balls and birds that had made his childhood’s Christmas trees seem almost supernatural.... Yggdrasils decked for the eternal Yule ... he was falling asleep.... He was sorry for Stella. She had told him too about the Christmas Crib, the little straw house she had built in the church for Mary and Joseph and the Baby, for the ox and the ass and the shepherds and their dogs and the lambs they could not leave behind.... She had told him that she never thought of Christ as being born in Bethlehem, but in the barn at the back of the Plough Inn at Udimore.... He saw the long road running into the sunrise, wet and shining, red with an angry morning. Someone was coming along it carrying a lamb ... was it the lost sheep—or just one of the lambs the shepherds could not leave behind? ... all along the road the trees were hung with glass balls and many-coloured birds. He could feel Stella beside him, though he could not see her. She was trying to make him come with her to the inn. She was saying “Come, Peter—oh, do come, Peter,” and he seemed to be Peter going with her. Then suddenly he knew he was not Peter, and the earth roared and the trees flew up into the sky, which shook and flamed.... He must be falling asleep.