CHAPTER I
THE FLYING YEARS
But little can even the most complete biography furnish of a man's days. It is argued that essentials are all that matter, and that since one year is often like another, and life merely a matter of occasional mountain peaks in flat country, the outstanding events alone need be chronicled with any excuse. But who knows the essential, since biographists must perforce omit the spade work of life on character, the gradual attrition or upbuilding of principles under experience, and the strain and stress, that, sooner or later, bear fruit in action? Even autobiography, as all other history, needs must be incomplete, since no man himself exactly appreciated the vital experiences that made him what he is, or turns him from what he was; while even if the secret belongs to the protagonist, and intellect and understanding have enabled him to grasp the reality of his progress, or retrogression, he will be jealous to guard such truths and, for pride, or modesty, conceal the real fountains of inspiration that were responsible for progress, or the temptations to error that found his weakest spots, blocked his advance, and rendered futile his highest hopes. The man who knows his inner defeats will not declare them honestly, even if egotism induces an autobiography; while the biographist, being ignorant of his hero's real, psychological existence, secret life, and those thousand hidden influences that have touched him and caused him to react, cannot, with all the will in the world to be true, relate more than superficial truths concerning him.
Ten years may only be recorded as lengthening the lives of Raymond Ironsyde, Sabina Dinnett and their son, together with those interested in them. Time, the supreme solvent, flows over existence, submerging here, lifting there, altering the relative attitudes of husband and wife, parent and child, friend and enemy. For no human relation is static. The ebb and flow forget not the closest or remotest connection between members of the human family; not a friendship or interest stands still, and not a love or a hate. Time operates upon every human emotion as it operates upon physical life; and ten years left no single situation at Bridetown or Bridport unchallenged. Death cut few knots; since accident willed that one alone fell among those with whom we are concerned. For the rest, years brought their palliatives and corrosives, soothed here, fretted there; here buried old griefs and healed old sores; here calloused troubles, so that they only throbbed intermittently; here built up new enthusiasms, awakened new loves, barbed new enmities.
Things that looked impossible on the day that Ironsyde heard Sabina scorn him, happened. Threats evaporated, danger signals disappeared; but, in other cases, while the jagged edges and peaks of bitterness and contempt were worn away by a decade of years, the solid rocks from which they sprang persisted and the massive reasons for emotion were not moved, albeit their sharpest expressions vanished. Some loves faded into likings, and their raptures to a placid contentment, built as much on the convenience of habit as the memories of a passionate past; other affections, less fortunate, perished and left nothing but remains unlovely. Hates also, with their sharpest bristles rubbed down, were modified to bluntness, and left a mere lumpish aversion of mind. Some dislikes altogether perished and gave place to indifference; some persisted as the shadow of their former selves; some were kept alive by absurd pride in those who pretended, for their credit's sake, a steadfastness they were not really built to feel.
Sabina, for example, was constitutionally unequal to any supreme and all-controlling passion unless it had been love; yet still she preserved that inimical attitude to Raymond Ironsyde she had promised to entertain; though in reality the fire was gone and the ashes cold. She knew it, but was willing to rekindle the flame if material offered, as now it threatened to do.
Ernest Churchouse had published his book upon 'The Bells of Dorset' and, feeling that it represented his life work, declared himself content. He had grown still less active, but found abundant interests in literature and friendship. He undertook the instruction of Sabina's son and, from time to time, reported upon the child. His first friend was now Estelle Waldron, who, at this stage of her development, found the old and childlike man chime with her hopes and aspirations.
Estelle was passing through the phase not uncommon to one of her nature. For a time her early womanhood found food in poetry, and her mind, apparently fashioned to advance the world's welfare and add to human happiness, reposed as it seemed on an interlude of reading and the pursuit of beauty. She developed fast to a point—the point whereat she had established a library and common room for the Mill hands; the point at which the girls called her 'Our Lady,' and very honestly loved her for herself as well as for the good she brought them. Now, however, her activities were turned inward and she sought to atone for an education incomplete. She had never gone to school, and her governesses, while able and sufficient, could not do for her what only school life can do. This experience, though held needless and doubtful in many opinions, Estelle felt to miss and her conscience prompted her to go to London and mix with other people, while her inclination tempted her to stop with her father. She went to London for two years and worked upon a woman's newspaper. Then she fell ill and came home and spent her time with Arthur Waldron, with Raymond Ironsyde, and with Ernest Churchouse. A girl friend or two from London also came to visit her.
She recovered perfect health, and having contracted a great new worship for poetry in her convalescence, retained it afterwards. Ernest was her ally, for he loved poetry—an understanding denied to her other friends. So Estelle passed through a period of dreaming, while her intellect grew larger and her human sympathy no less. She had developed into a handsome woman with regular features, a large and almost stately presence and a direct, undraped manner not shadowed as yet by any ray of sex instinct. Nature, with her many endowments, chose to withhold the feminine challenge. She was as stark and pure as the moon. Young men, drawn by her smile, fled from her self. Her father's friends regarded her much as he did: with a sort of uneasy admiration. The people were fond of her, and older women declared that she would never marry.
Of such was Miss Jenny Ironsyde. "Estelle's children will be good works," she told Raymond. For she and her nephew were friends again. The steady tides of time had washed away her prophecy of eternal enmity, and increasing infirmity made her seek companionship where she could find it. Moreover, she remembered a word that she had spoken to Raymond in the past, when she told him how a grudge entertained by one human being against another poisons character and ruins the steadfast outlook upon life. She escaped that danger.