CHAPTER V
THE FIRST MIRACLE
That summer was to me a trip into fairyland.
In the first place I threw up the role of uncle which Annabel has so thoughtfully cast for me, and played the part of Romeo instead: that is to say, for the first time in all my forty-two years, I fell madly and irretrievably in love.
There is no need to expatiate upon my symptoms. Those who have themselves travelled through Arcady know all about the effect of the excursion without any explanations from me, and to those who have never set foot upon the enchanted shores, a description of the trip would be both wearisome and unintelligible. Consequently I (as I think wisely) forbear.
But I not only visited the paradise of Love that happy summer; I also visited the paradise of Youth. For the first time in my life—save the time of my residence in Oxford, when my constitutional shyness marred the joy of intercourse with my contemporaries—I was thrown into the society of young people, and lived in an atmosphere of joyous adventure untainted by any breath of care or responsibility. Sometimes as I stood on the lawn of the Manor House and looked at the moss-grown old sundial, I thought to myself that for me the ancient miracle had once again been wrought, and the shadow on the dial had been moved ten degrees backward. But underneath this delightful fancy lay the hard, unyielding truth—supported by Burke and Debrett in print, and by Annabel and Ponty in practical politics—that, however juvenile and sentimental I might feel, I was still a man of forty-two, with the greater part of my life behind me, while Fay was standing on the threshold of her opening womanhood, with the kingdoms of this world still spread before her advancing feet.
The uncle-myth still held sway in Annabel's imagination; therefore it never occurred to her that any sort of chaperonage was needful as between myself and Fay. For this I was devoutly thankful. True, Frank was with us whenever he could elude Blathwayte's conscientious preparation of him for the University; but Arthur's rule, if kind, was firm, and consequently Fay and I spent long and blissful hours together with no one to intrude into our solitude à deux.
It did not take me long to discover that though the twins were so much alike outwardly—not only in appearance, but also in voice and manner, and in tricks of thought and speech—the resemblance was merely a superficial one. Their bodies and their minds were cast in the same mould; but their hearts and their souls differed fundamentally. Frank was the elf throughout: his feelings were transient and wayward. But underneath his sister's fairylike appearance and demeanour, there was hidden the loving and faithful heart of a true woman. Frank was the cold-blooded merman untouched by mortal pain and sorrow; but Fay was the little sea-maid who had found a soul.
It was the time of hay-harvest, when all the world is filled with fragrance, and every separate hayfield is a picture in itself. Fay and I were sitting under a hedge in one of the upper meadows, watching the old-world drama of haymaking being played in the valley below, in which drama Frank was assisting.
"Isn't it all perfectly ideal?" Fay exclaimed. "I never in my life knew anything so exquisite as an English summer!"