The Triumph of Manhood

Chapter I. Mrs

PEMBERTON. " Life treads on life and heart on heart, We press too close in church and mart To keep a dream or grave apart." Mrs. Pemberton sat at an open window, looking out. Beyond tbe garden wall and the road a broad stretch of woodland country fronted her eyes. The landscapes had for heart an irregular cluster of white houses, for veins a triad of narrow streams that gleamed in the sunlight as they wound their diverse ways. Here and there gentle swellings in the ground, too modest to claim the dignity of hills, served as thrones for proud elm groups that gained thereby a loftier inipor / VOL. I. B tance. Over all, like molten gold, streamed the living glow of the afternoon sun. It bathed the dark head of the woman who sat at the library window of the large grey stone house. It lingered about her shadows ul face; it looked into the gloom of her eyes ; it softened a little the strong out line of her features.

But it revealed with pitiless clearness the little contraction be tween her eyebrows, the lines of thought in the forehead, the tiny wrinkles at the side of her face, and the sallowness of the skin. Caroline Pemberton had never been hand some. Her chin was too square, her mouth too wide, her straight brows a little too strongly marked. But her eyes atoned for all and dominated all. They were heavy with the weight of all the soul's expression. They satisfied the seeker after beauty. A striking, an intellectual, a fascinating face ; not attractive at first sight, yet ren dered irresistible by the animation of speech or feeling. Passing moods changed it, gladness, meditation, irritability, each lent it a different aspect as sunshine and shadow change the surface of water. Nine-and thirty years had given it lines of knowledge.

Just such a face must have been in the mind of the French philosopher who wrote that "it is the ugly women who inspire the great passions." It was stormy now. She was battling with a lie. Not an actual lie ; only the negative one which exists in the omission of a truth. It was not a very serious matter as the world judges troubles. But she was a sensitive, excitable woman, with peculiar ideas of right and wrong. Where she loved, there all right, all honour were due; where she hated, no evil was too bad to be justifiable in her sight. At all other times she could forget this haunting trouble, could choke it down and hide it away under the wealth of her present happiness ; but to-day it woke, it stirred, it rose, it thrust itself boldly before her. It would not be hushed again b2 This day was the third anniversary of her wedding ; it completed a third period of deep, restful joy, of sunlit calm, of perfect love.

Perhaps her heart's flush of thanks giving had been too radiant, too full ; noon always sinks into evening, gloom ever follows intense light. When the waters of the soul are clearest some inexorable law stirs the mud at the bottom and foul shapes arise. Perhaps the fulness of her husband's love, more tenderly shown to-day, had roused the sleeping fear, reminding her of her own un worthiness to receive and return it, warning her that perfect trust should be repaid with perfect confidence. She asked herself if she had given perfect confidence. Her conscience answered yes — with reservations. Those three years could not bring to her memory one thought, one hope, one idea, that her husband had not shared. They two had been one in mind. She had only been silent concerning the past. There was no guilt in that, surely.

Dead years are dead eternally. Why should their shadows be projected across the living now ? So she reasoned with herself. But she was afraid of many things. A nervous appre hension lurked in her eyes. That look would come there sometimes in the midst of her happiest hours. It was born of the intensity of her joy. She was a woman to whom a sense of the inevitableness of reactions was always present. This gave her courage in times of trial, but it also lay, a coiled terror, at the heart of every pleasure. The little figure of a two-year old child was passing in and out among the trees at the end of the lawn. She watched it with fond eyes. It was for him that she had fears. These little offshoots of humanity make cowards of the best of women. The door of the room was opened suddenly and a fair-bearded man came in.

" Ah, there you are, Caroline ! " He came close beside her and stood looking down at her. The cloud had not yet quite cleared from her face ; it had settled there too despotically to be driven back in an instant. But he was not observant of small things. Thoroughly good people rarely are. " Dreaming ? " he said lightly. Her mind revolved to its normal calm. She looked up at him, smiling. " I was watching Lass little bare legs. What a big boy he is getting ! He grows every hour." " It is to be hoped that he does," said her husband amusedly. " I thought you might have been regretting your determination to have no company at dinner but Jess's and mine." She shook her head. "No. At a time like this I want only my own about me, no one else. I could not endure to have strangers in the house to-day.

It would not seem right." " You have never been fond of visitors, Caroline. How is that ? " " They interrupt my ideas." She spoke a little impatiently. " They break in upon the restfulness of my life. I have no sympathy with them. And you know they distract you from your work, too." " I believe they do," he acknowledged, smiling. " It is a little annoying to have to reply to some commonplace speech when one's mind is drawing plans for a new church or a fireproof theatre. And people never forgive you for a random remark." He was playing with her hair as he spoke, twisting the dark threads round his fingers. She was silent for a little while. Then she put up her hands and clasped his arm. " We have been very happy these three years, Gilbert." t: Yes." He still stroked her hair. " And you have been happy, too— happier than you would have been without me?"

Her tone was playful, with an undercurrent of nervous eagerness. " Why, what are you thinking of, Caro line?" She laughed and leaned her head back against his hand. " What could it have been in me that made you care for me ? " she said. " I am not pretty, and I am very fretful and irri table sometimes. And I was poor." She looked up at him questioningly. " You have always been pretty to me, Caroline. And I am not romantic enough to want a goddess for a wife. I chose a woman — the tenderest, most womanly woman that ever lived." Her eyes brimmed with grateful love. She laughed softly. " You have made us very happy — Jess and me. Jess is fond of you, too, you know. She thinks there is not another man in the world like you." " She has not seen many men to form an opinion by," he said. " Perhaps she will enlarge her experience over in Bazinghen."

" Oh, I hope not ! " cried the mother, half anxiously. " Lena will look after her." " My dearest, I think Mrs. Moorcroft requires looking after herself. And Jess is a handsome girl." " Yes," meditated Mrs. Pemberton. " She has grown handsomer lately, since her life has been happier." She looked up at him lovingly. " So you see, really, she owes her beauty to you, Gilbert." " You strange woman ! What next will you imagine you owe to me ? " " There is no need to imagine I am not flattering you. We both of us owe you a great deal. How proud you ought to be ! " She drew his hand against her cheek and held it there, pressing it closely. " How proud you ought to be of doing so much good ! " " I used to think life was a bitter thing," she added, after a pause. "But it is very sweet now."

Chapter II. Jess

She was a girl. There is nothing sweeter on earth ; nothing purer, nothing holier, nothing that in its essence is so nearly divine. She was not like her mother, except when she smiled ; then there was the same sudden brightness, the same illumination of the whole face. Her features were regular, but not coldly so ; her wide eyes were warm, deep brown, dog-like in their truthful clear ness. Her hair was light, gold brown. There was not a trace of colour in her cheeks, yet their paleness did not seem un natural or unhealthy. The expression of her eyes was peculiarly childlike and win- JESS. 11 ning, but the mould of the chin and the curved lines of the mouth denoted firmness and strength of will. This suggestion of latent power was repeated in every uncon scious pose of her figure. Every movement of her limbs was an assertion of individuality.

The divineness of girlhood has nothing of primness in it ; often its breadth of good encloses many dark spots, many thoughts that all unconsciously branch out towards evil. Jess was not faultless ; she had faults born of her strength. She was a little too reserved, too self-contained. Her imagina tion worked in secret ; and thoughts that dwell deep down and are never clarified by utterance are apt to grow bold with much cherishing. She had many dreams. Day-dreams are attributes of the feminine soul. Jess's dreams had always attended her. In her childhood they had worn a religious aspect. For weeks and months her six-year old mind had been intensely preoccupied with the reality of hell and the necessity of salvation. The poor little dim soul had not known what to do for itself ; it was so dim, it could only understand that much needed to be done.

Many and many an hour the little fair head had been bent over the Bible, till the little heart felt itself to be big with sin. Then the troubled eyes would fill with repentant tears ; down upon the floor would go the little knees ; two elbows rested on the cbair, two tiny hands were pressed hard to gether, and a little voice quivered out again and again pleadingly : "A broken and contrite heart, 0 God, Thou wilt not despise." The small being found much satisfaction in these outbursts of grief. When they were over she would go about with her lips tightly shut, as though they kept in a whole world of wisdom. She thought that perhaps the spirit of God was in her. Then she would sit and dream of heaven. So vivid was her fancy that she almost heard the singing of the angels. JESS. 13 At eleven years old her imaginings took a more earthly turn.

It was ihe time of the marriage of the King of Spain to Mercedes. She imagined herself to be the new Queen ; and night after night she lay awake, men tally revelling in her fancied honours. Scene after scene passed through her mind, all wonderfully complete. The heat, the strong light, the sallow or sunbrowned faces, the gay dresses, the banners waving, the entry into Madrid, the welcoming shouts, the smile on Mercedes' face, the gratified pride in her heart, her subsequent scene with Alfonso in the palace ; then the bull-fight, the opera, and everywhere the triumph of the young queen's beauty ; the child Jess, lying in her simple bed, saw, heard, and felt it all. She made it all her own. And her wide open eyes would shine brighter with delight as they looked out into the darkness. But as she grew older the fancies changed.

They were no longer purely ideal ; they became partly practical. Ambition touched them, and they resolved themselves into wants and intentions. She did not now imagine herself to be transformed. She did not deceive herself as she had done when a child. She looked at the want boldly in all its nakedness and said, "I will be this," or, "I will do that." Sometimes she thought that, ambition being evil, God would not help ambitious people. The devil, then, must be the only helper for men and women who had a worldly purpose. She pondered over this long and seriously. As yet she knew nothing of life. The little she had seen of it had not brought her experience, because she never looked at out ward things as they were. She flung over them the glamour of her own richness of spirit and saw them as she would like them to be.

This habit of idealising the world is dangerous ; when applied to persons it breeds despair. She thought rarely of love. When she did think of it, it was reverently, fearfully, JESS. 15 as a grand mysterious something that would enter her life one day and make it real. Love, she thought, was the invisible passing of God among men. Every day He walks the earth ; some must always be in His path way, and of these a few favoured ones are brushed by His unseen robes as He goes by. And then they love. That was her ideal love. Even in the silent depths of her own soul she approached it with awe.

Chapter III. Bazinghen

Gilbert Pemberton was an architect. In the course of following his profession he had been brought into contact with Stanley Moorcroft, a gentleman whose financial cir cumstances had since compelled him to live abroad. Mr. Moorcroft liked the wealthy architect, and invited him to stay a few weeks at his house in Cumberland ; and there Mr. Pemberton had seen and wooed Mrs. Moorcroft's cousin, Caroline de Senlis. He knew nothing about her except that she was the widow of a Frenchman, and that her husband had been dead fourteen years ; but he saw she was lonely and seemed poor, and he asked her to be his wife. She had BAZINGHEN. 17 not consented at once ; if there had been only herself to consider she would never have consented. It was for her daughter's sake that, in the end, she accepted his offer.

It would be better for Jess to have a father and a home. This decision was, no doubt, hastened a little by the inner consciousness that she was growing to love her ardent suitor. They were married. A new life opened for the sad woman and the fifteen-year old girl. Caroline Pemberton's heart was at rest. At intervals still a tremor would shake it ; but those short and rare convul sions of memory only made the sense of present security sweeter. They taught her the value of the loving care that surrounded her, as the howling of the wind outside increases the comfort of a firelit room. She was safe in the shelter of a husband's pro tecting love. The storms of life could never beat on her again. The world's brutalities could never reach her, could never hurt her. She had time now to think, to enjoy the VOL. I C mere fact of living, to understand herself and her child.

And when, a year later, her baby son was born, she felt that heaven had nothing more to give her. The years could never bring her a richer gladness. After this event came another of equal importance. A wealthy and childless cousin died, and it was found that, entirely ignoring Mrs. Moorcroft and her family, he had left his fortune to Jess de Senlis. Notwithstanding her disappointment, Mrs. Moorcroft was generous enough to forgive this partiality on the part of her late kinsman ; it made no difference in the favour with which she regarded Jess. Her liking for her young cousin was extreme, chiefly beeause of the oppositeness of their natures ; and a year or two later she asked that the girl might come over and finish her education at a pensionnat in Bazinghen. After much discussion this had been ar ranged.

The time was now come for its fulfilment. BAZINGHEN. 19 In the second week of May, four days after the anniversary of her mother's wedding, Jess and Mrs. Pemberton went to Bazinghen. It was growing dusk when they arrived there. The station is built on a hill, and the town lies below. They looked down. A maze of red-tiled roofs burned in the glowing light ; in the western distance the stunted and de formed whitethorns on the Calais road stood out in intense relief against the fiery horizon like the black bars of a furnace. Except for these whitethorns, there were very few trees to be seen. The prospect on three sides was monotonously bare. On the fourth side, about a mile to the north-west of the town, a succession of wooded slopes arose, each distinct above the other, forming a great wall of shadow crowned with masses of new-born foliage that shimmered like liquid bronze in the streaming radiance from the west.

From the east the dusk came creep ing onward, slowly overpowering the light. A desolate feeling shivered through Jess as she looked. All strange towns seem c2 desolate, because for us they are pulseless. I3ut when we have mingled a little with their life, we begin to judge streets, houses, and sounds by their associations. Then the very stones have a voice and a dearness. Familiarity smooths away their ruggedness. They assume a new aspect in our sight, and bind us to them with a silent sympathy, until we wonder how it was that we ever found them strange. Mrs. Moorcroft's pony-carriage was waiting, but Mrs. Moorcroft herself was not there. She had sent by the groom a hurriedly-scrawled note pleading an engage ment to dine at a house five miles off. She would not be able, she said, to see her dear cousin that night, unless Caroline would like to sit up until her return at midnight.

Perhaps this might be convenient, especially as she intended leaving Bazinghen at six o'clock next morning, at which hour Mrs. Moorcroft would certainly be asleeji, or even if she were awake not clearheaded enough to know what she was talking about. BAZINGHEN. 21 Mrs. Pemberton read this letter with a smile. Then she handed it to her daughter. They drove away from the station, down the hilly street. The town was half in light, half in shadow ; the lamps were not yet lighted. They drove on, passing the iron foundry, the water-works — once a nobleman's chateau— the marble works, and the " Tir a l'arc," or shooting-ground. The hoofs of the ponies kicked up clouds of fine white dust from the chalky road. Presently they came to the paved streets and turned a corner by the church. The peculiar neutral light lent a grander majesty to the great building ; its square fierce tower grimly challenged the opaline sky.

" How sombre it looks ! " said Jess. Her mother's lower-toned reply was drowned in the clatter and rattle of hoofs and wheels over the rough stones. After some turning in and out of narrow streets, they emerged into the great square of the market place. There were numbers of people about, who ■2-2 stared at them curiously as they passed. Here, in the heart of the town, the scene was more animated. Women in picturesque summer dresses stood talking in groups ; an undefinable air of vivacity pervaded the place. In the soft, slumbrous quietness of evening, voices fell on the ear with un expected and even startling distinctness, and now and again a little silvery peal of laughter would ripple out, tremble, and die away. Jess looked about her with keen interest. She felt charmed, and yet vaguely sad dened.

Crossing the market place, they drove through a narrow street of shops, turned a corner by an hotel, entered the Hue Crecy, and finally stopped before a large building of white stone, across whose bare front these words were carved : " PENSIONNAT DE JEUNES DEMOISELLES." A feeling of nervous apprehension tightened at the girl's heart as she alighted. Her BAZINGHEN. 23 mother lingered to tell the groom to call for her in an hour. The heavy gates of the pensionnat were framed in the house-front like the doors of a coach-house, and in one of the large doors was set for convenience a small one, to be used on ordinary occasions. Through this Mrs. Pemberton passed with Jess. They found themselves in a long paved archway, the sides and roof of which were covered with crowding ivy trails. This archway was connected on one side with the house itself, and on the other with the high garden wall.

It opened into the large square court, around which in foreign fashion the house was built. This opening was so narrowed by hanging masses of ivy, that any one looking up from the gate could only see a small corner of the yard and a single win dow of the opjwsite wing of the building. Only such as were familiar with the jilace passed through the courtyard. Unaccus tomed visitors rang the bell at a little red painted door in the wall, about half-way between the gates and the end of the arch way. The bell was not easy to find, but after some fumbling Jess discovered the small iron handle and pulled it. A woman in a white frilled cap opened the door. She ushered them along a carpeted passage and through another door — this time of red baize, and turning on noiseless hinges — into the salon. It was a small room, wainscoted with oak nearly half-way up the walls.

It had two tall windows heavily curtained with white ; the thick white muslin, made thicker by folds, hung right across them, to exclude all glances from passers-by. A square green drugget was spread in the centre of the highly-polished floor. In lieu of fireplace there ivas an ornamental stove with open work doors. A suite upholstered in green plusl" formed the furniture, varied by an antique carved cabinet and a table covered with books and albums. There were no pictures in the room. The fading light filtered in wanly. BAZINGHEN. 25 Presently a door opened ; not the one by which they had entered, but an opposite one communicating with another room. The directress came in. She was a widow of about thirty-five years of age, Madame Mars by name. She was tall, with a pleasant face and kind grey eyes.

After welcoming Jess, she sat down with easy freedom and began to talk of their journey. "You had to wait ? Ah, it is very often so. The trains are nearly always late leav ing Boulogne. But you must be very tired, madame. I will have some tea brought in for you." There was no bell, so she left the room to give the order. Mrs. Pemberton rose and put one arm tenderly round her daughter's neck. " I think I can be content to leave you with her, dear. She seems a nice woman." " I like her," said Jess simply. Already she felt strongly attracted towards the kind looking Flora Mars. " And Lena will come round and see you very often, I dare say," said Mrs. Pember ton. She resumed her seat as the directress re-entered. "Are you really French?" she asked presently, remarking the purity of madame's English accent.

" My parents were French, but I was born in America. I was brought up in Boston, and I have lived a great deal in England ; but I do not tell these French people where I was born. If they ask, I say at Lille. They do not like half nation alities." This confession of diplomacy amused Mrs. Pemberton. She began to talk of her daughter. Jess was to be allowed as much freedom as would be compatible with the dignity of the establishment. It was not necessary that she should study much. All that was required of her was that, before leaving school, she should speak the language fluently and with a good accent. " There will not be much difficulty about BAZINGHEN. 27 that, as Miss de Senlis has French blood in her veins," said Madame Mars. " Her father was French." Mrs. Pem berton spoke hurriedly. " Mrs. Moorcroft has told vou, no doubt.

But Jess herself is thoroughly English. I want her always to be so." Madame did not reply. She looked admir ingly at the handsome young face, with its English blending of softness and strength. Mrs. Pemberton went away soon after wards, bidding Jess a tender good-bye. It was the final one, as she intended to leave Bazinghen at six o'clock next morning. Jess stood at the gate and watched her mother drive away. She stayed there until the noise of the wheels sank into silence in the distance. Then, as she turned back towards the house, the directress called a girl who was pacing the courtyard, reading. " Louise Read, take Miss de Senlis to the dormitory. And after that it will be supper time." The girl addressed accepted the office with mingled alacrity and reluctance. Her manner seemed to say that the dignity of cicerone would have delighted her, but that she had a strong motive for remaining where she was.

However, she was bound to obey ; there was no alternative ; so, linking her arm with girlish friendliness in that of the newcomer, she led her away. Passing several windows — large casements half -hidden in jessamine — they went in at the back door, which was wide open to admit the cool evening air. Crossing a large flagged hall, the girl led Jess up a broad staircase of rough wood — uncarpeted, unpolished, even irregular, like the gallery stairway of a theatre a hundred years ago — and across a landing, also uncarpeted, into a vast room with eight tall windows and rows of white beds that gleamed in their whiteness like couches of snow for snowdrops. Each bed had its accompany ing stool and strip of carpet ; and beside it, against the wall, a mirror hung. Little washstands stood about in convenient spaces, BAZINGHEN. 29 with jugs and basins of various shapes and patterns.

" This is your bed," said Louise Read. She pointed to the one nearest the first window. " You can put your things there now. They will be put away after wards." Jess took off her gloves and hat. As she did so she surveyed her guide for the first time. Louise was a thin girl of about seventeen, with bright eyes, awkward movements, and a mass of dark shaking curls. "What is your name?" she inquired, meeting with composure Jess's critical gaze. " Jess de Senlis." " You're not French, are you ? " " Oh, no ! " said Jess. " But my father was French," she added explanatorily, divining that the question had been prompted by her surname. " Oh! " Louise Read looked at her for a minute silently. Then she said : "You're very pretty; prettier than any of us. You're the only fair one here except Ellaline Roxburgh ; she's English, too, but she has white eyelashes, and that spoils her.

I do hate white eyelashes ; don't you ? And what a lovely dress that is ! Is it your Sunday one ? " "No," said Jess. "I never dress better on Sunday than on any other day." " Don't you ? But we have to here. Are your boxes come yet ? " "No." "Well, they won't be long. I dare say Pierre's going to bring them ; he's the man at the hotel a few doors off. Have you ever been to a foreign school before ? " "No." " No ? Well, you'll like it ; that is, if you make the best of it. You won't stay long, I suppose. How old are you?" " Nearly eighteen." "I'm a year younger. I've been here two years already. I know nearly everybody in Bazinghen — to look at, you know. One doesn't get much chance of speaking to BAZINGHEN. 31 people. But, I say, I wish you hadn't turned up just when you did." " Why ? Oh, because you were reading, and I disturbed you ?

I am sorry." " I wasn't reading. I had the book up side down. But, if I hadn't, I shouldn't have known any more about it, for it was a treatise on the Council of Trent, that I can't understand a word of, and don't want to. But I was waiting for Corny." " Who is Corny ? " " Cornelius Madou. He's the son of old Madou, the miser, who lives outside the town. The garden next door belongs to his aunt, and he has a key and comes there in the evening and looks over our wall. I wait about the court when I can, and when I see him I run up to the class-room and talk to him through the window. Nobody can see me if I stoop, and the trees hide his head. But to-night your coming spoilt it all. Such a lovely evening ! And to-day has been one of my good - looking days, too ! " She glanced at herself regretfully in the looking-glass.