The Tragic Bride

by Francis Brett Young

Meanwhile Arthur, in the best of spirits, had arrived at Overton. Mrs. Payne awaited him in a state of tremulous emotion. Now, for the first time, she was to see her son made whole. Her elation was not without misgiving, for the news of the miracle was almost too good to be true; she couldn't help feeling that the Considines had judged him with a scrutiny more superficial than her own, and though it was not for her to dispute the intellectual blossoming that had raised such hopes in his master, she couldn't be sure about the deeper, moral change until she had seen for herself. Certainly his appearance on the station platform gave her a sudden thrill of pleasure. Her boy had become a man; his body had gained in solidity and balance, and his upper lip was fledged with a fair down. He took her in his arms and kissed her with a serious manliness that was new to her, and made her heart leap with pride. His voice, too, had deepened. It was soft and low and uncannily like his father's. Time after time she was struck by little tricks of gesture and expression that were familiar to her, but had never appeared in him before. He was indeed a stranger, yet a hundred times more lovable than the son she had known.

A couple of days convinced her that the change was not merely something added, but vital and elemental. He showed it in a multitude of small things—in his consideration for the servants, in his attentions to herself, in the serious interest that he showed in matters that had not touched him before, in affairs, in books, in newspaper politics. Even so she had been flattered too often by transient improvements to be convinced. Deliberately and fearfully she tested him, but never found him wanting. Then her joy and thankfulness were too deep for words.

And yet the position was not without its awkwardness. She knew that Arthur was kinder, more human, and—if that were possible to her—more lovable, but, in spite of these things, she could not help feeling that there was something in this new and delightful nature that was foreign to herself … foreign, and even, subtly, hostile. It seemed to her that in some peculiar way he was on the defensive. Up to a certain point she could enter freely into his confidence, but after that point she knew in her heart that there was something that he denied her. Now, more than ever in her life, she wanted to feel that he was wholly hers; and now, if she were to confess the truth, he seemed less hers than he had ever been before. At times, indeed, when their intimacy should have been at its best, she felt that she had lost him altogether, and that his mind was hundreds of miles away from her, as indeed it was. She consoled herself by supposing that his life was now so crowded with new interests and dreams of future adventure that he could be forgiven if their wonder enthralled and overwhelmed him. It was indeed a wonderful thing if this son of hers, at the age of seventeen, should see life with the eyes of a child new-born into the world. She envied him this ecstasy, even though its real explanation was far simpler than that which she imagined. When he walked in silence with her through the fields, or sat dreaming under the cedar on the lawn when evening came, it is possible that Arthur had sight of the new heaven and new earth that she imagined, for his eyes were lover's eyes. But this she never guessed.

XVI

In the last week of the holidays, if only Mrs. Payne had been more acute, she might have surprised his secret. Walking the lowest of their meadows on the side of Bredon Hill, they came suddenly upon a southern slope already powdered with the flowers of cowslips. This cloth of gold was the chief glory of their spring, blooming mile on mile of meadowland, and drenching the air with a faint perfume. Mrs. Payne stooped to pick some, for the scent provoked so many memories, and to her it was one of the sensations that returned year by year with amazing freshness—that and the spice of pinks in early summer or the green odour of phlox. "Smell them, they smell like wine," she said, giving her bunch to Arthur.

"Mrs. Considine told me that there are no cowslips in their part of Devon," he said. And then, after a moment of hesitation, he went down on his knees and began to pick the flowers. The hue of their smooth stalks was pale as the first apple-leaves, springing straight and slender each above its leafy mat.

"Why are you picking so many? They're more beautiful as they are."

"If they haven't any I'd like to send her some?"

He went on picking cowslips till the light faded from the fields. Next morning he packed them carefully, and posted them, with a letter, to Lapton. She thought it very charming and thoughtful of him to send Mrs. Considine the flowers. It merely struck her as typical of his new nature, and she thought it rather shabby of Gabrielle, when, after three days of waiting, she had not acknowledged the gift. Altogether she felt that Mrs. Considine had been rather a broken reed as far as Arthur was concerned. In the beginning she had taken to her, and expected quite a lot of her. Arthur, too, seemed disturbed that she did not reply. Day after day he waited for a letter from Lapton with eagerness. There was no reason why he shouldn't have been anxious to know that his present had not gone astray. She had not seen the note that Arthur posted with his flowers.

With no more than the vaguest mistrust—for she still felt that in some way she had fallen short of full possession, Mrs. Payne saw him return to Lapton for the summer term. During the early weeks Arthur scarcely ever wrote to her, and when she protested mildly, his reply seemed to her evasive. It was a dutiful reply, and though she couldn't help admitting that in Arthur the recognition of any duty was a new thing, the suspicion that for some obscure reason she was losing him, persisted. She was not in the ordinary way a woman of acute intuitions, but her whole mind had been so wrapped up in that son of hers that she was sensitive to the smallest changes of tone, and she knew that while he was writing her letters his head had been full of other things. At the same time she had sense enough to see that with his recovery Arthur's life had become crowded with so many new interests that she couldn't reasonably expect the old degree of absorption in herself. This was the price of his recovery, and she determined to pay it without grudging.