Sally on the Rocks, page 24
“Don’t marry a woman just because you are wildly in love with her. You’ll have to spend your life with her when you are no longer in love.”
Mr. Bingley was resentfully conscious of the fact that he was ‘wildly’ in love. Where was that merely decent attraction as of a rabbit for parsley? He had never expected the thing to happen to him, did not indeed approve of it, but it was there, deep, deep in him, and his very pulses bounded at the sound of Sally’s name. Quite an ordinary name, not even refined, but the sweetest sound in the world! Cold, calm reason pointed out the folly, the risk—and he went on being in love just the same!
Instead of walking in, keeping his feet and his head, he had tumbled into this delectable place called Love, head first, anyhow. Now he could not tumble out. He was just stuck, for life, he suspected, or at least till he was married. Sometimes it even came to this: he did not care a damn whether Sally was suitable or not. He wanted her; he meant to marry her. That was all that mattered. He was shocked at his thought, but a little thrilled. There was something magnificent, exultant, in such a state of mind.
In spite of his artistic temperament, within limits, he had little imagination or sense of imagery. He did not see himself as a ship, rudderless, driven before the wind, at the mercy of the storm, the gulls screaming in her wake, shaken in every nerve, plunging on and on. Delirium, destruction—and yet life!
He would merely have described his state to himself as being ‘rather in a fuss.’ He was horrified at being dominated by such a turbulent passion. It hardly seemed proper. A wife was a commodity to be chosen carefully, thought of calmly, and he knew in his heart of hearts that choice had been taken from him. The tempest was behind him driving him on. It was indeed difficult to please the new Mr. Bingley and the old—and his mother!
He gave the late Mrs. Bingley another chance, almost imploring her aloud to be kind to it, to give the thing he sought to do her warm approval. And how did she meet it? Oh, the ingratitude of mothers!
“Don’t marry a woman who has lived God knows how or where,” she commanded, “for only God knows what your living may be.”
Mr. Bingley flushed darkly, then suddenly he rebelled. The new love drove out the old, and he flung The Book aside, a revolting son!
“After all, what could mother really know?” he asked himself. “She wasn’t a man.”
Mr. Bingley had suddenly made the discovery of his life, and a very startling discovery it was. His mother had only been a woman, after all! He was shocked at this irreverent thought, but it persisted.
He had made up his mind. He would wait no longer. He would propose to Sally, sensibly, neatly, and get the matter settled. He could not endure to wait any longer. She would forgive him the impetuosity of a lover. He had heard that a woman liked being taken by surprise, swept off her feet. With her happy eyes looking shyly into his he would not care a—a button what anybody said, Miss Maggie included. Let them say! He would have Sally.
This time the dream should prove more satisfactory. He would not wake an instant too soon. He would hold that long, slim form in his arms, kiss the mouth that haunted him, in spite of its wideness.
He drew a deep breath and his hands shook. How happy he would be, how happy they would both be! His to have and to hold for always. He would teach her to adore him even more, as he was ready to adore her, unseemly as it might be for a man to adore his wife. She should not be boxed up in Little Crampton; he would take her about, show her off, spoil her. She should have wonderful clothes, and a car too, yes, even a car, though it was awful the way they simply ate up money. She should refurnish too, if she liked; only he would ask her to keep his mother’s antimacassars; they preserved the backs of the chairs. If she coaxed him very nicely to put The Book on the top shelf he would put it there. The young wife should have no rival, till that happy, sacred day came when a small king should reign in his stead.
Mr. Bingley felt his eyes moist, but it was a happy moisture.
He leaned back, a little complacent, perhaps, even ridiculous, but none the less kindly; a man with possibilities.
The very next evening, Wednesday, he would seek Sally on the top of The Mountain and ask her to be his wife. Surely such a place as the scene of her great happiness would please her, and it would suit his glorified mood. It would make him pant a little to get to the top, but the coming down would be easy. They would descend hand in hand—if people saw them, well, let them!—the happiest, luckiest couple in the world, made for each other by God Himself!
They would be married the moment the unlucky month for weddings was out. The whole of Little Crampton would admire gallant groom, radiant bride. Never would there be such a wedding! He would give the school-children a treat. They should scatter roses for his bride, white roses. The fame of it would spread far and wide. Boliver, whom she had turned down, and rightly, would have to give them a handsome present—serve the fat fool right! Paton, that pernicious ass, could not do less than his usual silver salver accompanied with his cynical good wishes. Mr. Paton, who had been married twice, and would most certainly be married a third time if Fate permitted, did not believe in marriage, and had no hesitation in saying so. Bridegrooms always hated him.
Mr. Bingley decided to make a speech at the reception that would ring in the ears of all for days. Then he and Sally would fare forth on a honeymoon that would be all pure bliss. If people guessed them to be honeymooners, well, let them do that too. He did not care. He would have no reason to be ashamed of his choice. His wife would be absolutely suitable, a Mrs. Bingley with race and distinction in every line of her.
How the hours dragged till Wednesday evening arrived! He ate his dinner as usual, habit being second nature; besides, he needed fortifying against that steep climb, but it was still light when he got up from it. It would be light on the mountain-top for a long time, at least light enough. He smiled tenderly.
How different to that other time! How lovely she had looked by the fire. How lovely she would look to-night with a woman’s greatest happiness shining in her eyes, when she saw him coming, her knight. He had a vision as of one setting forth clad in shining armour.
He settled a lily-of-the-valley in his buttonhole and looked at the sky. It looked clear, but one never knew. He took his rain-coat off the peg, throwing it lightly over his arm. It would not do to sit on a damp boulder; besides, it might be chilly, even damp, coming back.
He did not anticipate exactly hurrying home, though, of course, he would take care they returned in conventional time for newly-engaged lovers. Surely newly-engaged lovers were allowed a little latitude. He liked to think of himself and Sally seated on the mountain-top, looking down at the sea, knowing that they belonged together for always now, that she was absolutely his, had been created for him. He went forward exultantly … he would feel her hair against his lips.
Then he suddenly thought of his goloshes and turned back and fetched them. He wrapped them neatly in brown paper and slipped them in the rain-coat pocket. It might easily be damp coming home. The Mountain had little damp hollows, and then one never knew about these dews.
He always wrapped his goloshes in brown paper before putting them in his pocket, first, so that they should not mark the silk lining of his coat—all his things were lined with the best silk—and, secondly, because there was something a little lacking in refinement about goloshes naked and unashamed.
He quite agreed that May, with its blaze of blossoms had a bridal air, he was conscious of it in all his being. For Sally orange-blossom, a foolish and extravagant habit, some might say, but after all, one only married once—at least that was his intention. He had it in him to be absolutely faithful to the memory of the one woman. If he left her a widow—almost as painful a thought—and she survived her crushing loss and grief, she also would never wish to marry again. For her own protection, and to make sure, and because well-endowed widows were got round by fortune-hunters, he would leave her penniless in case she tried to replace the priceless. Women must be protected from their folly for their own sakes. To think of another man spending his money, marrying his widow! It made Mr. Bingley’s blood boil.
He folded the rain-coat more carefully, pushed the goloshes deeper into the pocket. Then, in complete readiness for the great event of his life, the carefully-considered proposal ready to his tongue, this modern Don Quixote set forth.
chapter xxvi
“I am lower than the beasts that perish”
Sally awaited Robert Kantyre on the mountain-top. She had an instinct that he would come. There was something in the air that spoke of comings, of events.
It had been very hot all day, summer heat, and she had unearthed an old cotton frock and an old knitted coat. She glanced down at it discontentedly. How old-fashioned it was, and how shabby! How outré the fashions of 1914 were in 1915! Had there ever been such a volte face? Her conscience refused to let her ask Mr. Lovelady for another penny. She knew he would give her anything she asked for, and go without himself. His rule of life was very simple. When there was not enough for two, one must go without. He had always been that one; he accounted it a privilege.
“Oh, to be done with shabbiness,” she sighed, with the petty little contrivances, the hateful stings! To be able to have this and that at last, to do this and that. To be looked up to, envied instead of half-pitied or half-despised! To be a success instead of a failure! It was time, it was time indeed, if she was ever to win out.
How she longed for home and place, to be able to meet Dinah Wilmot-Randal on equal terms, to have Jimmy realise she had done well for herself after all. Jimmy? She was startled. How long since she had given him a thought! Was that glorious, undying thing dead then? Had it not been so glorious and so undying, after all? Who, and what, had killed it? For it lay dead within her, that deadest of all things, a dead love. His happiness with another woman must have killed it, she supposed; it had not been able to look on that and live. Or was it his presence that had slain it? Was it of those things that throve in absence, but withered as under a rude touch before the face of reality?
“It was splendid while it lasted,” she thought sadly, “but it is gone, and gone for ever. Must all splendour die, all great emotion just flicker out? Oh, what a ghastly, ghastly thought!”
She would not think of it. Rather would she think how much better it is to do without emotion, to be left unstirred, able just to enjoy; what money and ease and respectability could do; of how comforting to be on firm ground after hanging dizzily suspended over the abyss.
Of … how late he was! How uncomfortable he had made her feel the other night. How absurd to push a person on to a pedestal and insist on keeping the poor unaccustomed thing there! She was of the earth, earthy; no head among the clouds for her. One merely froze in high altitudes, lost one’s breath. “God bless me, indeed!” She wriggled uncomfortably. “That’s likely, that is!”
When he heard and realised that this was what she had been playing for all along, and that she had won, what would he do and think and say? He would say and do nothing, but he would probably think rather a lot. They would not be admiring or respectful thoughts. She wriggled again. Would he still wish her happiness always, still say, “God bless you!”
“Oh, what a silly ass I am!” she reminded herself sternly. “Stop it! Stop it, do!”
She lay back on the boulder, her arms crossed beneath her head. He was late. ‘Late, so late, ye shall not enter now!’ What made her think of that? “Comes of staying in a clergyman’s house, I suppose. One of Lovey’s texts.” Did he mean never to come again? Had he realised? Better so, far, far better so, only … Well, one could not expect everything to be easy. After a while it would be pleasant enough, and he would be far away working out his salvation beneath the Northern Lights, and winning out, winning out like a man. It was easier for men, quite simple for them. For women it was entirely different; they were still tied. How lucky men were, and how little they realised it!
“The thing is to be sensible, sensible,” she reminded herself, “not to think too much or worry, just to enjoy as you go along, getting as much of the smooth as possible. That’s it, the smooth, the soft job.”
She knew what the rough road meant only too well. The feet of eighteen could travel that way lightly enough, make a jest of it; not so the feet of thirty-one. They lagged a little, had grown a trifle heavy in those long thirteen years. They needed the easy way.
She looked up into the sky, and one by one tiny little pin-points of light twinkled here and there. It seemed to her that each had its friendly little face, that the heavens understood the turmoil and the stress of those below, and did not utterly condemn, while they counselled calm. It was austerity without hardness, purity without iciness; a vastness, a promise, and a peace.
Yet the same sky was looking down on the bloodiest battlefield of history, on a world in the anguish of travail, bringing forth not the living, but the dead. Nay, not peace, but a sword!
The stars seemed to run together into the shape of one, to shine blood-red, flaring across the sky, to shriek aloud of nations locked in a death-struggle, of the inexorable price that must be paid ere the sword was sheathed, paid by thousands and tens of thousands, by nations and individuals, by those that dwelt in palaces and those whose heads lay under a humble cottage roof.
The stars broke up, the sword dispersed. The lights ran hither and thither, playing at ships riding upon the waves. Sally watched them entranced—a great fleet with courage always at the helm. She blinked, and the stars were shattered, and there lay a mighty ship in the death-throes, sinking, sinking—death on every side of her, death beneath her feet, on her blistering decks the dying and the dead. She saw the living gallant band, their faces to the fore, meeting the end with a heroism and a sacrifice which lie beyond words.
All this—for what?
That one of the great nations shall go down into the very dust and raise her head no more till this generation shall have passed away; that here and there the map shall be painted in other colours; that the fair lands of pasture shall raise crosses instead of crops; that every village, every street of the many nations, shall know mourning and loss, and the Angel of Death be abroad in the land, his wings beating in sunlight and in shadow; that where there has been laughter there shall be weeping, and even the feet of children shall falter in their play. …
Sally hid her face in sore abasement. At such a time, in such a world, she was thinking of herself, of her own ease and her own comfort. She had put all her energies, all her thoughts into these things, and into the pursuit of Mr. Bingley.
“I am lower than the beasts that perish, infinitely lower,” she thought, appalled at having to meet herself face to face and see what manner of person she was.
She dare look no more on the sky; she looked instead at the sea, and lo! out of that mystic sea visions came surging that would not be denied, a great throng. …
Here was martyred Belgium. The mailed fist held the cup to her lips, the voice of God’s Anointed bade her drink to the dregs, and the Great Little Country, her head bloody but unbowed, drank … to the Resurrection.
Nuns, maids, wives trailed past her with veiled, bowed faces; they pointed to Sally, they seemed to say terrible things, terrible things … wondering, accusing. The little children came next, a great multitude, their eyes haunted; one small maid who had not even been left her eyes to weep with, a babe without the little hands to catch at the sunbeams; these were they whom war had crucified upon the iron cross. The homeless aged … things that could not be spoken of … on and on, a procession without a beginning, and without an end.
And one who stood apart, who had permitted these things, still sowing. Still far from his reaping, his last hour and his last cry, “Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night wherein it was said, ‘There is a man-child conceived.’”
And she was trying to marry Mr. Bingley for his money!
Her own men went by laughing, gallant and gay, an army growing week by week; sailors passed on ships, their eyes straining into the darkness for the hidden death. All these were fighting and dying, bearing the heat and the burden of the day, while she …
A shuddering sob shook her.
Then a foot struck sharply against a stone. The mist of these haunting visions cleared, and she knew someone was coming up behind her.
She turned to meet Robert Kantyre, her heart beating fast, her face a glory. Instead she found herself face to face with Mr. Bingley.
Mr. Bingley, pompous but passion-flushed, with a flower in his buttonhole, a little short of breath, but with a look of high resolve upon his face.
Then at last Sally knew that all she had schemed and hoped for, all the prosperity she ached for, everything—or almost everything—was within her grasp at last.
chapter xxvii
“Sally? Sally!”
Mr. Bingley had his proposal at the tip of his tongue, something a little poetical, but at the same time sensible and suitable.
He would start by saying what a delightful evening it was, and then—letting himself go a little—go on to say that all evenings in Sally’s company were delightful to him, come wet or fine, and from that come naturally to:
“I do not want to rush you, but if I might always have your company—as my wife? Will you do me the honour to marry me? I think we should be very happy together, and I need not say I would consider your welfare in every way.”
Surely that was the perfect mean! Sober, loverlike, Bingleyish.
What happened, however, might be loverlike; it was certainly neither sober nor Bingleyish.
At sight of Sally with that strange, almost unearthly, glory in her face, all the carefully-prepared things fled. He just caught her by the sleeve and stammered like a schoolboy. His dignity was forgotten and dead; an absurd delirium shook him. He was shaken to the very soul of him where another Mr. Bingley, of whom he suspected nothing, lurked deep down. It was the case of the genii and the bottle all over again. The cork flew out of the cramped little soul and a giant arose, something far too vast to get back into his habitation.
