August drew to its sunny close, and Manning and Tressor departed, leaving Paul to superintend the reroofing of old Morley's Mill cottage, the building of an extra poultry house, the laying-out of a new flower bed, the cutting down of a few trees and the letting of an empty cottage. They also left him to write poetry; and whereas, without assistance, he would have cut a poor figure at any of the practical jobs, he felt that he was doing even worse as a poet. September found him, then, alone and perturbed; but October came, heralded with the gleam of crimson and gold banners among the beeches of Chanctonbury, and found him alone and desperate.
He was the more overwhelmed by it all as he was totally unprepared. Hitherto his days had been more full than he could manage, for, besides talk and friends and all the incidents of life at Cambridge, he had had his degree for which to work. Hitherto verse had been a refuge, a joy which he had allowed himself with a kind of grim deliberation. He would want to write, feeling that strange, deep, indefinite hunger within him that all who have in any degree the gift of a creative art know so well, and he would permit himself to leave his books and sit by the fire or in the window-seat with a pencil for an hour, a measured hour only. Or hitherto there had been other difficulties in the way, from Donaldson's tramp on the stairs to the disturbing furniture at Claxted—little things, things over which one ought to be able to triumph, but things which ordinarily triumph over us all.
There, then, lay the sting of it. He had now time and to spare. He had now both loneliness, and, on the other hand, the company of beauty both within and without doors. He had, in the well-trained servants of the house and estate, the very best of human help towards that respect and leisure and comfort that our rather pitiable souls do need. He had Prideaux at the Vicarage, the best of fellows, for a companionable pipe and chat, and he had Mrs. Manning and Miss Netterly, her sister, only too ready to give him tea in their drawing-room and be kind. The disturbing element was wholly withdrawn. Ursula had gone to London on a whim of her own in August, and on an ill-defined visit thereafter, and had at last returned so absorbed in a picture perhaps, so possibly deliberately remote, that, if he saw her, it was only to pass the time of day, or watch her face immobile as he rested in the evening in her mother's drawing-room.
In despair, he had abandoned the attempt to write for one to read. The possibility of reading had been one of the attractions of Fordham. At Claxted he had done but little more than learn the names of classical English authors, at Cambridge but snatched odd moments for them. He was peculiarly unfamiliar with the work of the great poets and he had soaked himself in none of the moderns. He had longed so eagerly for the chance really to read Swinburne, Francis Thompson and the like, and now that it had come he could not. The malignancy of his own particular devil followed him even in this. He would walk to Storrington and tramp back over the Downs to curl himself up in the lounge with the Hound of Heaven in his hands, only to find his eyes wandering from the page and his feet stirring restlessly towards the gardens where old Timothy would be pottering about. Not, of course, that old Timothy helped at all, and he would perhaps take a hand with a spade or listen to a discourse on manners for half an hour or so, and then turn unsatisfied to the towering strength of the animophilous lime-trees in the avenue and the quiet assurance of the sleeping water in the lake. Old Timothy would look after him and shake his head. He had small opinion of strapping young men who could not dig for a morning and be thankful.
(2)
Half-way through October Paul came near to the climax. A morning unusually wretched had led to an afternoon's honest endeavour with the foresters in the park, and he had returned to bath and change with a more comfortable feeling in his heart and pleasurably tired muscles. But even as he dressed, the shadows crept in again. He came down the wide stairs to the hall slowly, a haunted man. Its very quiet and peace and air of waiting kindly readiness to help, exasperated him. A friendly touch, where one looks for love, is worse than indifference to a lover. And brooding there, he had determined to write to Tressor and tell him that the experiment was a failure and that he must leave.
After dinner, the company of his thoughts intolerable, he told Rider that he was going out and walked across the park to the cottage below the Downs. Mrs. Manning was always glad to see him, and he knew he would like to sit in an arm-chair and listen to her placid chat. She understood just nothing at all, that was the best of her. Prideaux would understand sufficient to irritate but not enough to help; the Manor had an air of understanding but of keeping its own placid secret. Mrs. Manning would talk about her fowls and ask him if he did not think Mr. Lloyd George too terrible. And in the morning he would write to Tressor.
Ursula was there. It appeared that her picture was nearing completion, and that she was, as it were, standing aside for a day or two to be quite sure of the necessary final touches. She sat idly, watching her mother at work. He studied her profile as she sat, deliberately telling himself that this and that might have been improved, deliberately conscious that he would not have altered a line. Sure strength lingered on her face in some subtle way. She was oddly remote, splendidly active, he felt,—the other side of a veil. Of that veil she was in supreme command. Not that it mattered; he did not want her to lift it. He was too preoccupied, too much on the rack to care.
When he had gone, the girl sat on silent for a little. Then, without moving, she asked a question or two of her mother.
"Mother, did you see much of Mr. Kestern while I was away?"