Doubtless I was wrong in this—I evidently was, as subsequent events proved, and as Annabel did not hesitate to point out to me. But I did what seemed to me to be right at the time, as I always try to do; and the fact that what I think right at the time almost invariably turns out to be wrong afterwards seems to be rather more my misfortune than my fault: just part of that instinct of failure which has haunted me all my life.
A strong man—as Annabel was never tired at pointing out to me afterwards—would have made his own world and his own interest so paramount and absorbing that his wife would have been compelled, willy-nilly, to make them hers; but I was not a strong man. Morever I fully recognised the truth that if you take anything from anybody, especially anybody young, you must supply something in its place: nature abhors a vacuum, and youth abhors it still more; therefore if I had succeeded in weaning Fay from her passion for acting and all the pleasure and excitement it involved, I should have been bound in honour to give her in its place other and equally absorbing interests, and these it was not in my power to supply. What pleasure could the calm country life of Restham—which so exactly suited Annabel and me—offer to a youthful and ardent spirit such as Fay's? None at all, except of a very passive sort, and the passive tense has no charm for any one under thirty. So I had not the heart to take away from my darling anything that added to the joy of a life that I feared might prove to be a little dull for her, and for her dear sake I swallowed the Loxleys and everything else connected with amateur theatricals.
After weeks of rehearsals of the village children and a further influx of visitors (old friends of the twins), to take the part of the Duke and the other mortals, the great day dawned at last. It was glorious weather, as Fay felt sure it would be, for she assured me that she and Frank were always lucky where weather was concerned, and there were two performances—one in the afternoon, and another by moonlight assisted by Chinese lanterns. The places were all filled, and the audience was most enthusiastic; even Annabel (who with Arthur and myself had been banished from all the rehearsals) applauded heartily and beamed with approbation. The young local talent had been admirably trained, and the leading actors performed their parts with an ease that savoured more of the professional than of the amateur. (But this idea I locked up in my own breast: no expression of it would I have breathed to Annabel for worlds.) The village band, led by the organist on the drawing-room piano, which had been driven into the shrubbery for the purpose, conducted itself admirably, and discoursed music that was undeniably sweet. And the glamour of Shakspere and of Summer—the two greatest interpreters of beauty the world has ever known—was upon everything.
But to me the climax of the whole affair—the crowning gem of the performance to which all the rest was but an adequate setting—was the fairy-dance introduced by Fay and Frank, as Titania and Puck. I shall not attempt to describe it, for how can mere words convey the indescribable and elusive charm of the perfection of grace and motion? It gave me the same sensations as I had experienced nearly a year ago when the twins danced the dance of the Needlework Guild, but greatly intensified, of course, by the beauty of their dress and the effectiveness of their surroundings. It was a sight to fill the onlookers with the joy of life, and to make the old feel young again.
And as my blood throbbed in my veins at this vision of the incarnation of youth and joy and all the fulness of life, I understood why Wildacre had fallen in love with a dancer.
CHAPTER XIII
THE GARDEN OF DREAMS
After the excitement of the Pastoral Play had subsided into calm satisfaction with the handsome sum of money which it had provided for supplying the future needs of the Parish Nurse, Fay and I went off for a second little honeymoon by our two selves. I urged Annabel to come with us, as she had been baulked by my marriage of her usual trip abroad with me in the spring; but she declined, preferring to visit some old friends of hers who had a place in Scotland. In the depths of my selfish and undisciplined heart there was hidden an unholy relief and joy at the thought of having Fay to myself for a time; but I loyally strove to hide and quench this unbrotherly feeling, of which I was glad to know I was thoroughly ashamed. How could I shut out my sister from any happiness of mine, when I was confident that she would never exclude me from any joy of hers? Nay, more than this, I was convinced that Annabel was incapable of finding happiness, or even pleasure in anything that she did not share with me.
We had decided to go for two or three weeks to an hotel in a little village on the East Coast, where Annabel and I had once spent a month some few years previously, and had found the air wonderfully invigorating. It is marvellous, that East Coast air, for blowing cobwebs out of tired brains, and making the weak grow strong and the old feel young again.
"I am sorry that Annabel will not come with us," I said to Fay one glorious afternoon in early August as we were sitting in the garden at home; and my secret knowledge that I really was not as sorry as I ought to have been made me say it all the more vehemently: "she has had a tiring summer, and it would have done her good."