Grey Wethers: A Romantic Novel

by V. Sackville-West

Yet, what haunted her? What wild grief lay beneath her gaiety?

But there was Mr. Warrener to reckon with, eager and garrulous to-night, and oblivious to the fact that Calladine wanted to stray out into the garden through the French windows with Clare. Calladine was enraged with impatience against the old gentleman, in whose trained and scholarly mind he usually delighted. Having wondered whether Mr. Warrener realised that he came to the Manor House as a suitor for his daughter’s hand, to-night he crossly decided that the idea had never once entered Mr. Warrener’s head. Otherwise it was impossible that he should be so obtuse ... scrupulously courteous as he always was, and considerate the moment he recognised the need for any consideration. Calladine nearly laughed for his irritation, as Mr. Warrener, who was at work upon a new theme, brought out diagram after diagram, specimen after specimen, in his zeal to prove his point, dropping dates and facts into place like the cubes of a patterned mosaic. But to-night the facts and figures seemed to Calladine only brittle and dry, when life was waiting for him in the shadowed corner of the room. Clare sat there, in her rose-red dress, and now that she believed the eye of neither of the two men to be upon her, Calladine could furtively observe that she had relaxed the strain of her attention, and sat limp with her gaze fixed upon the dark garden through the window. The tight bodice moulded the extreme youth of her form; her hands lay idly clasped in her lap. His egoism vanished before the pathos of her attitude. She became a child in his eyes: a child broken by some unexplained sorrow,—yet what sorrow, what sorrow could have come upon her in her free yet sheltered life? And because, however genuine his sentiment, he must always attitudinise to himself, he saw himself a sage and tender protector, the guardian of this too-emotional child against the fancied ills,—for how should they be otherwise than fancied?—that beset her. He realised then that he had lost count, as much as Clare herself, of what Mr. Warrener was saying, and saw to his relief, as he tried to make a flurried return to archæology, that Mr. Warrener was no longer addressing him, but had drifted into a soliloquy, according to his wont, with the little flints and shards ranged upon his desk.

“May Clare and I go out, sir?” said Calladine softly.

They wandered into the garden, Calladine tall and grave, Clare with the rustle of her silks and the little crunch of her heels, racing beside him up and down the garden path. She had been afraid, for a moment, that he was about to ask her to play or sing: music, with him leaning towards her over the piano.... Reprieved from music, it was indifferent to her what she did. They paced the path; an owl whooped softly from the cedar; was answered, from afar off, out on the Downs.

Through the lighted windows they saw Mr. Warrener, his lips still mumbling, bent meticulously over his shards.

Clare, with the rustle of her silks and the tap of her heels, and the private knowledge of her mind, looked away from Calladine.

He examined the words that she flippantly threw out, looking for bitterness, but no bitterness escaped her, looking for cynicism, but her lips were innocent of it. And nothing came to him but matter-of-fact questions, “Where had you been, Miss Clare?” and the like, which she answered civilly, though he knew that where her body had been was of no import, the only thing of import was the adventure of her spirit, and that he could never seize or follow. She was a stranger to him, irrevocably, and he savoured all the full pain of that phrase. “Where had you been, Miss Clare?”—oh, empty enquiry! what could she tell him, that would bring him nearer to her? but at the same time in a sudden frustrated rage he thought that were she ever to be his he would not let her out of his sight for a moment. Revengeful, he was; petulant; snatching,—and she so detached, cool, tantalising.

He called himself back; Clare made him lose his sense; he could put out his hand now and touch her bare arm, touch her flesh; such contact would be reassuring, would chase from his mind all ideas of her elusiveness; he could handle her roughly, if he would; drag her up into his arms, mutter angrily against her lips,—but even so, would he hold her?—and the old despair came back upon him. She made him angry; there was no happiness for him, even in winning her, yet win her he must, and was determined upon it, for he was an obstinate man, with room in his head only for one idea once it had taken hold of him.

But he must be gentle with her, or else she would blow away from him like thistledown.