A few days afterwards Ella was lying on a sofa in her aunt's drawing-room in Pont Street. It was a hot afternoon, the windows were open, and the sun blinds tempered the light. Between their edges and the tops of the flowers in the window-boxes she could see a great band of golden sunshine. Having been to a late dance the evening before and to a stuffy but advanced picture exhibition in the morning, she was feeling physically languid, and glad to be excused from attendance on Lady Milmo, who was indefatigably attending a charitable committee. In her hand she held a letter that had come by the early afternoon post. It was from Matthew Lanyon, bright and gossipy on the surface, but her quick perception divined an undercurrent of sadness. He was looking forward to her promised visit in August. If only he could persuade Syl to come down too, it would be quite like old times. But perhaps it would be better for Syl to get right away among the Swiss mountains, as he proposed. There was nothing like a complete change for a jaded Londoner. He had come down for a week-end lately and was looking fagged and overworked. The garden had never been lovelier. The rhododendrons were out and all a mass of bumble-bees; he had never seen so many in his life. He was writing late at night, on his knees in the library. Dorothy had made a complicated web of Berlin wool all over his writing-chair, by way of fitting it up as a carriage for her doll, which was throned in the midst, and of course he had not dared to disturb it. “I think I make an average grandfather,” he wrote, “but I do wish some one had given me a few lessons as to how to become a mother.” The fragrance of the country garden stole elusively upon the hot London room, and awakened a longing to get away from the glare and chatter into the cool quietude of Woodlands; to exchange the heavy dinnerparty where she was due in a few hours' time, with its heavy hot-house flowers and its artificial talk, for the peaceful summer evening in the summer-house under the trees, in the company of the dear old man, so sane, so sincere, and of Miss Lanyon, whose gentle mind seemed to have lain in lavender. She was tired; her heart was tired. The beautiful world lay hidden behind a mountain, up which she was climbing wearily, vainly. Her feet were tangled in an inextricable maze and her steps were devious. Where could she find a guide? She conjured up the picture of the old man's kind, grave smile, and longed, as only a girl can who is enmeshing her life, to throw herself down by his knees and open all her heart. Had he appeared at that moment at the door, she would have arisen and with a cry, half sob, half welcome, have thrown her arms about his neck and burst into tears. “If only he could come!” she said, and she sank vaguely into the imagined solace. But what could she say to him? The formulated query crystallised her thoughts into chill dismay. How could she make known, even to him, the humiliation of that last interview with Sylvester, expose to him the nakedness of her outraged pride? She shrank from the thought. And the history of the year's follies? No. Never. She crumpled the letter fiercely in her hand. Then, suddenly repenting of her violence, she smoothed the sheet tenderly and kissed it and slipped it into the bosom of her dress. The year's follies. In this hour of lassitude and depression—rare to Ella, but common to all her sex, coming to woman with rhythmic iteration as inevitable as the tides—they rose up one by one before her, and her cheeks burned with shame. First it was Lionel Kavanagh, the poet and aesthetic critic. She had been reckless, craving excitement, forgetfulness of her burning humiliation. All through the season a year ago, she had flirted with him, openly, outrageously. He was one of Lady Milmo's menagerie, and used to sprawl on the hearth-rug and alternate rhapsody with mordant wit. And alone in her company he would sail perilously near the wind with sensuous allusiveness, until one day he grew bold and brought her a sonnet frankly sensual. She tore the manuscript into tiny pieces during an ominous silence, and ordered him out of the house. The next was Bertie Hetherington, who made violent love to her at Aix-les-Bains, whither she had been led by Lady Milmo's wandering fancy and rheumatic tendencies. He was a fresh, wholesome young Briton in a Hussar regiment. The vehemence of his devotion was sweet to Ella, and she kept him hoping longer than she knew was right. Perhaps if he had possessed more brains she might have married him. But when he wrote her an impassioned letter in which he affirmed that his heart beet only for her, the spelling caught the humorous side of Ella's fancy and she laughed herself out of her entanglement. Yet she had wronged him, just as Sylvester had wronged her, and she had wronged herself. The fresh bloom of her maidenhood had gone. Her sensitive pride magnified the taint. In London once more, the need of an occupation, an aim, a purpose, tormented her. She had tried the ignoble and found it bitter. She craved the higher plane of devotion to a cause, something elevated, impersonal. The ordinary pursuits that call forth a woman's self-sacrifice did not appeal to the unrest of her imagination. Besides, her young blood rebelled against self-suppression. In the stress and storm she caught at the first thing to her hand: Roderick Usher's Utopian scheme for the regeneration of art and the consequent purification of society. She was carried away like a straw on the crest of his vehement pro-pagandism. From an occasional attendant at her aunt's receptions, he became a regular visitor. Together they elaborated the scheme, discussed the details. She worked with him in obtaining supporters and canvassing for subscriptions. At first the correspondence, the interviewing, the plotting and intriguing, kept her enthusiastically occupied. She made converts among the young artists and poets who came to the house, inveighing against the tame formalism on the one hand and the morbid exaggeration on the other that were the curses of modern art. She attended meetings in fashionable drawing-rooms and expounded her theories. Notoriety followed her doings. A weekly paper published an illustrated interview with the priestess of the new gospel. She believed in the scheme. It was audacious, but practical. It was impossible for convincing art to flourish in the midst of the social insincerity and commercialism of the day. The teachers of men must lead a higher life than the taught; to have authority, must dwell aloof from the world; to have inspiration, must draw it from the pure wells of nature and their own hearts. These postulates being allowed, the logical consequence was the conception of a colony of earnest and devoted artists in some sequestered spot where the world's Babel came but as an echo. Such a spot was readily obtainable in California. A large ranch, in one of the loveliest valleys of the Sierra Nevada, was for sale. Extensions could be built indefinitely at a comparatively trifling cost. Thither the band of youths and maidens, uncorrupted as yet by the deadening influences around them, would proceed, and settling down would allow to flow unchecked the genuine founts of their genius. They would be in Arcadian ignorance of the arch destroyer of art, the public taste, and thus be beyond the reach of the temptation to pander to it. They would reveal the truth as it came crystallised in song or poem or picture from their own souls. The lack of pence would not disturb their serenity. Those who could afford it would pay a modest monthly contribution to the general fund. The penniless children of genius would obtain free food, shelter, and all the privileges of the Colony. The subscriptions of the supporters of the movement in England would defray their expenses. A commission would be levied on the profits of any work produced in the Colony. This, in the course of years, when public taste was revolutionised and the Waldenites' productions obtained great prices, would place the Colony beyond the need of subscriptions or of contributions by members. It would become, in Roderick's words, “The world's great Palace of Art.” Roderick himself was ready to sacrifice his future in London so as to take up the post of director of the Colony at a handsome salary. She believed in the scheme still; success, in fact, justified her faith. But in this hour of self-abasement she distrusted the sincerity of her enthusiasm. How much had she done genuinely for the cause? How much, unconsciously, for the man? The question racked her. He had woven his influence around her life. Her name was publicly associated with his. She dreaded meeting him, yet felt the heart taken out of the day on which she was not working under his direction. Whither was she tending? She could not answer. Not where happiness would lie. To have brought herself into this morass was the last and greatest of the year's follies. In her helpless anger she hated the scheme and all that she had done to further it. A sickening surmise as to its futility overspread her retrospect. She clasped her hands over her hot eyes and again longed for Woodlands. Suddenly she sprang to her feet, and smoothed her dress and hair hurriedly, as if ashamed of her nervelessness. She would write to Matthew Lanyon then and there, yield herself wholly to her need of expansion, and let what would flow from her pen. She sat down resolutely at the ornamental escritoire and drew out writing materials. She had never given him any definite account of the scheme. She had alluded to it vaguely, somewhat flippantly, partly anxious to amuse and partly fearful of criticism. The mention of Roderick Usher's name had been rare. She had followed the secretive instinct of her sex. The old man's references hitherto had been jocular; deceived by her manner, he had merely regarded her interest as an idle young woman's harmless hobby. Even in this letter that she carried crumpled in her bosom, he had asked her how her artistic Robinson Crusoes were getting on. He should know the history of the whole movement, her own hopes and fears,—perhaps more of her difficulties. She would write whatever words came into her mind. She dipped her pen in the ink, dashed off the date and “My darling Uncle Matthew,” and was starting the text of the letter, when the door opened. “Mr. Usher, miss,” announced the parlour maid. Ella closed her blotter with a petulant snap, but rose and greeted her visitor with a smile. Roderick looked cool and point-device in a grey frock-coat suit. A slight baldness in front gave his high forehead an air of intellectuality. He had called, he informed her, just to report progress. And as he talked she sat, her chin resting on her knuckles, watching him with that wistful gaze that comes from a woman's weary uncertainties. “There, that is all,” he said in conclusion; “and I am glad there's no more.” “Why?” asked Ella. “Because you want a holiday,—a respite from the worry of affairs. Enthusiasms entail an expenditure of vital force; so there are times when the temperament is at a low ebb, and ought to be treated with gentle indulgence.” “Do you think I am at low ebb, Mr. Usher?” “You are tired,—a little mal de vivre. Isn't it so?” He said it so kindly that her first impulse of resentment died away. “How do you know I'm not simply physically out of sorts? I was dancing till four this morning and till three the morning before.” He smiled with a touch of indulgent superiority. “As a sailor who knows the sea reads all its moods on its surface, so I read yours in your eyes. Confess. You have been feeling the burthen of life and have not known whence came its heaviness; and you have been longing for relief in the fresh, cool arms of Mother Nature.” “Perhaps,” she said, looking away from him. “You are not offended?” he said, after a pause. He had a very musical voice, trained to modulation of feelings. “My heart is always near my lips and at times speaks indiscreetly.” Ella turned round with a short laugh. “No, I am not offended. Of course not. But it was scarcely fair to turn me inside out like that without warning.” Immediately she regretted her confession. His acute perception had half flattered, half frightened her. She felt now that she had yielded some of her ground. She strove to regain it. “But it's all nonsense,” she added. “And very contemptible, just because it's a close day, with a stuffy dinner-party looming ahead.” “Phases of morale are never nonsense,” he replied. “No one knows what unrest is better than I. We must find the remedy.” “What do you suggest?” “Happiness.” “What is happiness?” “The pursuit of the ideal on the wings of—” “Of what?” “Dare I say it—in all delicacy? Of love.” Ella again turned her face aside, uncertain whether to resent the implication or to make a light answer. Her hesitation was his opportunity. “I, too, have been feeling depressed of late,” he said. “All pleasure has in time to be paid for with pain. In a few months our scheme will be launched,—the scheme that you and I have built up with pieces of our hearts,—and I shall go away to end my life in carrying out its working. I shall be alone. My helper and sweet comrade will no longer be by my side. Thus I, too, sigh for happiness.” He smiled sadly, but she saw that his eyes were regarding her keenly from behind his gold pince-nez. “We won't think of that,” she said hastily. “So many things may happen between then and now.” Roderick rose, rested his hand on the back of her chair, and bent over her. “One thing might happen that would fill the months with glory, and inaugurate our project in the radiance of the rising sun. Yet not for the scheme's sake, but for our lives' sake—for the sake of the expansion and development of all that is yearning within us to find utterance—Ella—Will you come with me?” She sat, looking straight before her, her lips apart, her body slightly swaying. Words would not come. She vaguely wished that something could happen to rid her of his presence, that he could disappear, there and then, once for all, out of her life. Yet she felt it impossible to dismiss him. Some mysterious feminine chord had been struck whose echoes proclaimed his right to stand over her and speak to her thus. “What are you saying?” she murmured, with an almost piteous emphasis on the last word. “I am telling you that I love you, Ella, that my life is bound up in you, that I need you for the accomplishment of my manhood. And I am asking you to come with me to this sweet new land, to be my helper and my star. Say that you will come with me.” “Give me time,” she breathed. “I can't say—I have been living in a whirl so long. I don't know what I am or think or feel. I will give you an answer some day—soon—not now.” “I will wait devotedly for your answer,” said Roderick, in his courtliest manner, and moved a pace or two from her chair. Ella looked up at him, almost grateful for his assurance. “We will fix no period,” she said. “To have to give such a reply by a definite date—” “I do not ask it,” said Roderick, quietly, though his heart was beating fast at the certainty of victory. “You have given me the food of hope, whereon I can live meanwhile.” “Could you not bear suspense?” she asked. “I might not answer as you would like.” “I could bear anything for your sake,” said he. Then, after a pause, “And now goodbye. I must have solitude to dream over my happiness.” She gave him her hand; he bent over it and kissed it, and she felt his lips hot against her skin. It gave her a little shudder of repugnance, and the feeling remained after he had gone. And yet his fascination was strong upon her. He dominated her will as no man had done before. She was conscious that he had the rare power to penetrate to the core of her woman's weaknesses, to understand her as a botanist understands a plant, and the rarer power to touch the fibres delicately, so that it became a pleasure to be weak. Again, her somewhat exaggerated conception of his wide spiritual and intellectual horizon moved her emotional temperament to wondering respect, and she thought gratefully of the expansion of her own under his influence. With the incomplete vision wherewith the wisest of women must of necessity regard a man, she saw him strong and masterful, clearing his way resolutely to a definite end. She felt that he brought this air of mastery into his love; and he had created a need of him within her. He held her bound by many chains. And as she stood in the drawing-room, half-consciously rubbing the spot on her hand where his lips had rested, she felt the chains grow tighter, one by one. Her maid came into the room. “When will you dress, miss?” She remembered the dinner-party and gave her directions. She wished that she had not to attend it. And then unbidden came the longing for “the sweet new land” with its freedom and freshness, and her cheeks flamed at the sudden realisation of what it all implied. Her glance fell upon the blotter in which lay the just commenced letter to Matthew Lanyon. She sat down again at the escritoire and took up her pen. But the mood had passed. She found herself writing artificially, in the jargon of her set. Angrily she tore up the paper and threw the fragments into the waste-paper basket. No; better nothing than the insincerity he despised; she loved him too dearly for that. So the letter, that was to reveal her inmost struggling self, remained unwritten. She was very silent as Lady Milmo and herself drove to the dinner-party. Her head ached and her limbs were tired. “The man who takes me down will over-eat himself dreadfully,” she remarked, as the carriage pulled up. “I don't think there is any danger,” replied her aunt, who was a woman of experience. And she was justified; for the girl's youth asserted itself, and as the meal progressed the headache was forgotten and Ella enjoyed herself thoroughly. “I rather think your partner will want some supper, poor man,” said Lady Milmo, on the homeward journey. “It's his own fault; he would talk,” said Ella, laughing. Lady Milmo patted her niece's knee affectionately. “I love to see you getting all that enjoyment out of life, my dear. You seem to take it out in great chunks, like my neighbour this evening helping himself to iced pudding.” Ella thought of her enjoyment with a whimsical feeling of shame, a touch of disappointment at not being as jaded as she had expected. But with the quiet darkness of the night her conflict of doubts returned. After all, what trivial topics she had discussed, what inanities she had laughed at, what spiteful little shafts of malice she had flung. If she had enjoyed it, so much the worse spiritually and morally for herself. Oh, the past year! It had corrupted her. She looked back wistfully upon the girl whom Sylvester had kissed at Woodlands. That fresh, shy, sweet something she had given him then was hers no longer to give to any man. What she could give to Roderick Usher, if she yielded to him, she did not know; certainly, not that. She was very young, very much unversed in the dark and crooked ways of life, in spite of her experience of men and things; intensely eager to keep herself pure and proud, to love the highest when she saw it. It is not to be set down to weakness, therefore, if she grew very sorry for the girl whom Sylvester had kissed, and cried herself miserably to sleep.
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