XV
There are few episodes in a man’s life that plunge him into that dim forest world of romance where the woodways are full of whisperings and elfin music, and the gleam of moonlight upon the smooth trunks of mighty trees. In youth romance is a habit; in maturity, a mere digression. The boy is naturally an imaginative creature; he dreams dreams of beauty and strangeness, and of women whose lips suck the blood from the heart. The marriage service sobers him. He ceases his excursions into hypothetical raptures, and becomes the steady, workaday busybody, proud of his house, his table, or his garden, paternally patient with poetical youth. Affection takes the place of that inconvenient thing called passion. To romance he is inert, fuddled—unless one illegitimate fire plays havoc with his respectable tranquillity.
And yet those moments of passion when the heart was all flame, incense, and music, and the world a young world gorgeous with dawns and sunsets, those moments of wistful youth come back dearly with a rush of regret that makes gray reality transiently bright with a faint afterglow. What though it be a cheat and an illusion, it is the finest dream that will ever steal through the gates of day. The man may remember it when he figures at his ledger, and may yearn secretly for that rich, sensuous youth which the cumulative common-sense of years has crushed into a faded, foolish fancy.
There are few lives without one red gleam from the west, one moment of desire when the wind comes with the cry of a lover through midnight forest ways. To feel again that strange stir of mystery many a man has leaped into what the world calls “sin.” It is but Nature’s living voice: the potion of sweet herbs that she presses upon her children, that they may drink and see the sky waving with red banners, and smell the far fragrance of pine woods or wild thyme. For life must beget life, and Nature weaves her mystery about the hearts of mortal men, only snatching the magic veil aside when her witchery has worked its will.
Now my Lord Gore had passed through many such phases, and was as wise as most men who have studied others and themselves. To remain interested in life the man of the world must be piqued continually by some new plot. A dish that can be had for the asking has less spice in it than one that boasts delicacies from strange lands. And my lord was amused by his son’s possible lunacy, even as a man who has been under the table many a night is amused by watching some grave person make a first experiment in the art of self-intoxication.
My Lord Gore and his dear Goddess enjoyed the little drama together, being in such sympathy with each other that they could discuss its subtleties and smile over its innocent blindness. There was some singularity in the case in question. The woman was not what the world would call wooable. As for the man, he was no courtier, and not given to fine phrases. They imagined that much bellows-work would be needed to make such green wood flare up into flame.
My lord and Lady Anne were standing at a window in the main gallery of the house—a window that looked out upon the garden and the music-room. My lord was hiding, almost playfully, behind a curtain, and peering at the mother with inimitable slyness. Anne Purcell stood back a little, so that she could hear without being seen.
“They are not very talkative,” said my lord.
“No.”
“A couple of sphinxes making love to each other without speaking a word! I have no doubt but that Jack will prove a veritable Petruchio. It will be boot and saddle for him to-morrow, and a canter along the road to York to see how his property doth in those parts. A man must be given opportunities of saying good-bye. It is discreet and amiable of us to stand here chuckling in a draughty gallery.”
Anne Purcell held up a hand, a sharp gesture for silence.
“Hark! some one is playing the harpsichord!”
“Not Jack.”
“No one has touched the thing for months.”
“That accounts for the discords. Mistress Barbara is picking up the old fascinations that girls learn at school. Phew! Jack must be a gallant liar if he can swear that he enjoys it!”
“For Heaven’s sake, be quiet, Stephen. I want to listen.”
She bent toward the window, holding her hollowed hand to her ear. My Lord Gore pulled down his ruffles and leaned gracefully against the wainscoting. He winced hypersensitively as the harpsichord notes jangled out of tune.
“Well, madam, if you can make anything out of it—”
“Be still.”
“For five minutes I will have no tongue.”
There was an expression of bleak intentness upon Anne Purcell’s face. More than once her lips moved. My lord watched her with an air of cynical tolerance.
Suddenly she straightened at the hips and swung the lattice to with a clash of impatience.
“Tut—tut!” quoth the gentleman, soothingly.
“Did you hear what the girl is thumbing out?”
“No, on my honor.”
“That song of Sutcliffe’s which the Westminster choir-master set to music! Such things must run in the girl’s brain.”
A frown gathered upon my lord’s debonair and buxom face.
“You are always looking for the snake under the stone, Nan. Why should we worry over such a flick of the memory?”
“Why? Why, indeed! Except that some shadow seems always to strike across my face. You—you should understand.”
He drew a deep breath, and expelled it slowly with a hissing sound between his closed teeth.
“If you believe in omens, Nan, we must transfer the sinister side of it to Captain Jack. Pah! what do either of the young fools know? They will help each other to forget every one and everything on earth save their two sweet selves. That is one of the advantages of the disease. What are parents when a lover appears? He has already roused the girl to some show of spirits, and for that, Nan, you should be thankful.”
There was, however, something false and forced in the energy of his cynicism, and in the flippant way he tossed the past aside. Yet even when they returned to the salon on the other side of the house, the faint, husky voice of the harpsichord followed them like a voice from another world.