ELLEN had gone with the three men over to the mainland to explore. She steered them to a place where a little stream ran down a narrow glen, its course marked by thickets of birch and mountain ash. It was the sort of stream which the wanderer is bound to track up to its source, simply for the sake of its many adventures, its hidden pools, waterfalls and mossy boulders, and the smaller streams which tinkle down the hill to join it.
Once on land they all separated. Barny, with the light of the explorer in his eye set off up the glen at a great rate, followed more slowly by Gordon, who kept stopping and poking about in search of rare ferns. Ellen walked slowest of all, for the path was steep and slippery. She picked bog myrtle, and rubbed it between her fingers, and sniffed at it with a sigh of pleasure. When she got up about a hundred feet she sat down in a patch of heather to rest. High up above her she could see Barny, leaping like a wild goat over the mountain side. Gordon had disappeared round the turn of the glen, and Kerran, down below, was wandering along a rough cart track which ran beside the lake. He was anxious to see what lay hidden round the next little point.
They had separated because each wished to enjoy the peace and leisure of the summer morning in his own way, and at his own pace. They were all half conscious of a sense of release and freedom. They had got away from the narrow confines of the island, and the even narrower constriction of the boat. They had got away from Louise. They were in a place where they could stretch their legs and think their own thoughts.
Ellen thought:
“This is nicer than the island. I like it better. I shall bring the children. We will have a lot of picnics here.”
Barny had got right up on to the skyline. He could look down over the whole of the lake and he could see the blue ocean horizon beyond the sandhills and the rocky crags to the west of the Ardfillan mountains. His thoughts turned to rock-climbing, which he had long ago given up, because it made Maude anxious. He had been a very good climber once. He played with the idea of an expedition with Dick. They might go and climb those crags. And he saw himself climbing as an onlooker might see it, enjoying the ripple of muscles and limbs and the secret rhythm of balance, that was like music. Dick was a good climber too, intrepid, sensible and agile, but he had none of Barny’s instinctive poise. And at the top there would be pipes to smoke, and the knowledge of achievement, a moment complete in itself away from Maude. He would like very much to go. “Perhaps Maude will let me go,” he thought hopefully. But if the proposition upset her he would give it up, for he was always very careful not to flout her wishes when they were staying with Louise.
Gordon had found a rare variety of sundew, which he wanted to take home, only he could not think where to put it. If he used his hat the sun would blister the bald crown of his head. He could not put a lump of wet moss in his pocket. Eventually he carried it in his handkerchief and started cautiously down the steep path again. It was rather tiresome, having to carry the sundew so carefully, and after a few stumbles, he wondered if it were worth while. But he wished very much to show it to someone and explain its carnivorous properties. He would take it, anyhow, as far as Ellen, who would certainly be interested.
From time to time he stopped, in order to take in the view. It was remarkably fine. Very fine indeed, he thought. But not equal to the Lake District. The colouring did not please him so well. It was all too illusory, and there was something enervating in its softness. These were not Wordsworth’s “lonely hills,” and that lake could never have found a place in the prelude. There was something wanting, some element of grandeur. No noble thoughts occurred to Gordon.
Kerran had got round the next little point and found there another glen and a stream exactly like the last. He looked about him aimlessly, for a little while, and then retraced his steps. For when he was quite alone he could think of nothing but his unhappy love, the sorrow which had become so constant a companion to him that he had grown quite used to it. Solitude could do nothing for him. It was a mistake to come to the mainland and walk about alone; he would have done better to remain at Inishbar, absorbed in the close little dramas of the castle.
He quickened his pace and got back round the point again to Ellen, where she sat in the sun upon her boulder. She knew all about his affairs and he could say just a word or two now and then, to her, without feeling that he had been betrayed into a confidential scene. He could not trust himself to speak of his trouble save in the most commonplace way, and Ellen was comfortably incurious.
He began now:
“When you’re writing to mother next, you might just let her know that it’s all off, absolutely off, between Nathalie and me.”
“Yes,” said Ellen, “I will.”
“I saw her, a week before I came away, and she’s quite firm, so there’s nothing to be done.”
“She won’t marry a Protestant?”
“And I can’t become a Catholic. So it does seem quite hopeless. We’ve decided not to see one another again.”
He picked a stalk of heath and began pulling off its pink bells and pouring them from one hand to the other.
“She’s going abroad. I rather think … I’m pretty sure … that she’ll end by becoming a nun. I believe it’s that, more than my being a Protestant. But as mother knows of my … my … attachment … you’d better let her know it’s all over.”
“I’ll tell her,” said Ellen again.
She knew that Mrs. Annesley had probably been told already, for poor Kerran’s plight was fairly common property. Nathalie Power’s sister had confided in a friend who had passed it all on to Louise. Nothing of the last interview had been kept a secret. But Louise had fortunately made up her mind that the affair was unimportant, a mere sentimental aberration on Kerran’s part. She had never liked Nathalie, and she discouraged comment or discussion. Ellen’s baby and Kerran’s romance were forbidden topics at Inishbar.
“I’m glad I didn’t have to change my religion to marry Dick,” said Ellen. “I don’t think I ever could have believed in the Virgin Mary.”
“Believed in …” Kerran sat up with a jerk. “My dear girl, what do you mean? Do you doubt that such a person ever existed? Or don’t you accept the Virgin Birth? Or are you talking about the Immaculate Conception?”
“Oh, don’t flurry me,” said Ellen. “You’re as bad as Dick. Isn’t the Immaculate Conception the same as the Virgin Birth?”
“Indeed it’s not,” said Kerran.
He began to explain at some length, for he had a purely academic interest in theology and was an authority upon the career of Pius IX. Ellen saw that she was in for a history lecture, and very soon she left off listening.
“All this has nothing to do with religion,” she thought. “Religion is about God.”
But even as she thought it she was aware of an oppression, a menace hovering somewhere in her thoughts. For she was a religious woman, a communicant, and she believed in four Gods, or rather, four Persons who bore the same name. She believed in the God of the Old Testament, and had a very distinct idea of His character. He was definitely anthropomorphic, grossly unfair, a materialist in the matter of rewards and punishments, callous of suffering, but noble, uncompromising and full of majesty. He had nothing to do with the Presence lurking in the background of the Gospel story, an impersonal and unsatisfying divinity, who was said to be loving and merciful but who had sat safely up in Heaven while His Son died on the Cross. Ellen did not know it, but she had never liked that second God. “He gave his only Son …” There was a kind of sentimental unfairness about the idea of which the God of Israel would never have been capable. Nor could she identify either of Them with Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, a pitiful, defeated figure of goodness and pain—a victim. And fourthly, there was the Holy Ghost, a mere name, without personality or shape at all.
She had been taught that all these four people were really one and it was only lately, since she had come to be so much worried about Dick, that she had found this difficult to believe. In her trouble she had prayed more fervently and more intimately than ever before, and she could not escape from the feeling that her prayers were being heard by a committee, by four people who would, so she had been assured, take a kindly interest in herself and her affairs. But did they? Or rather, since she must remember that there was only One, did He? Somewhere at the back of her mind she had a feeling that she would think more of Him if He did not, and that He would think more of her if she held her tongue. Only that was not what she had been taught, and what she had placidly accepted through the tranquil years of her girlhood and her marriage. She could pray to four Gods in whom she did not really believe, or she could believe in one to whom she could not pray. It was all very wrong, in a religious woman, and a communicant. It was doubt. She had heard of people losing their faith, but she had never thought that such a thing would happen to herself and it frightened her.
Kerran had got to Lourdes and the vision of Bernadette and she began to listen again, until it was time to make them all go home to lunch. The little expedition had just filled in the morning, which was satisfactory. In these days, while she was waiting for Dick, she needed some kind of definite routine.
“You must row quickly,” she said, when she had collected her three men, “or we shall be late.”
“Give us twenty,” said Barny earnestly.
Smiling, she counted twenty, while Barny, Kerran and Gordon tugged at their oars. The boat flew across the water and the island bore down on them. A tolling bell from the castle told them that lunch was ready just as they shipped oars smartly beside the landing stage.
Louise was running down the grass slope, all ready to tell them the news. For there was continual drama on the island; under her sway that was inevitable. If people went away for a morning, they would be sure to miss something.
Louise was transported with excitement. And she had taken off her shoes and stockings. Her white ankles twinkled under her linen skirt as she came bounding over the grass. They all stared first at her feet and then at her glowing face. Ellen rose up in the boat, crying:
“Dick? Has Dick come?”
“No, no! Not Dick. No. It’s Elissa Koebel. I’ve asked her to lunch.”
The three men had begun to smile at the prospect of Dick arriving, but at this announcement they left off smiling abruptly. Ellen, who had heard nothing about Elissa Koebel, looked bewildered.
“I’ve never seen anyone like her,” cried Louise, as she hurried them out of the boat. “Like somebody out of a fairy tale. She came suddenly out of the woods when we were bathing. Really like somebody out of a fairy tale. Ow!”
There were little thistles in the short grass and Louise sometimes walked on these, but after the first betraying exclamation she managed to ignore the pain they gave her.
“I felt as if I’d known her all my life. I can’t tell you … there we were, bathing on a little beach, and all at once this absolutely beautiful person just … occurred. There’s no other word for it. She was suddenly with us. And she sang! She sang to us (Ow!) just sitting on the beach. I thought she would vanish at any moment. But she didn’t. She’s in the dining-hall at this minute. Isn’t it fun?”
Ellen was so deeply disappointed that she said nothing at all for a moment, and then she asked what had happened to Louise’s shoes and stockings.
“I threw them into the lake,” said Louise, laughing.
“Oh, did you? Why?”
Louise was hobbling painfully over the gravel path in front of the north gate and did not reply. Once on the grateful smoothness of the flagstones, she recovered poise and asked “Why not?”
“Er …” said Gordon. “Er … er … er …”
In private he had agreed with Barny and Kerran that such a person as Madame Koebel could not possibly be received in the castle. When he heard what they had to tell of her, he had assured them that there was no danger. Louise would be the last woman to make such a friendship. So now he could only flush and gobble.
“Er … er … er …”
He had never seen the woman, or heard her sing. He knew nothing about her save what Kerran and Barny had told him. But he pictured he knew not what of disreputability installed in his dining-room. His acquaintance with the half world had been slight. He associated easy virtue with paint, powder, strong perfume and Gals Gossip, which friends of his youth had all thought very funny but which was full of jokes which he could never understand. He rather expected that Elissa would wear a very large hat and a veil with black dots on it, like a dreadful person in the Bal Boulier, to which he had been taken while in Paris, who came up and pinched his behind. To find that Louise had accepted all this, Louise, to whom any sort of vulgarity was torture, left him without powers of speech. He could only clutch his sundew and make helpless little noises, as he followed her across the courtyard.
Kerran and Barny were already looking self-conscious, like cows turned into a field with a bull. All their sex had come to the surface, so that they had left off wanting to laugh, and were quite grave, as they clattered into the hall after Louise.
Elissa and Maude were sitting in silence at the long table that stood on the dais. Maude’s silence was that of a charged thunder-cloud. At any moment it might have dissolved into a peal of laughter or a series of shrieks. She did not speak because her feelings were too much for her. But Elissa was silent because she had nothing to say. It was evident that she had forgotten the existence of Maude. Leaning her bare white elbows on the table, she had fallen into a profound reverie, while the food on her plate grew cold.
Nor did she immediately look up at the little party advancing across the hall. She remained as unaware of them as though footlights had lain between. Her attitude was that of Sieglinde, sitting at Hunding’s board and listening to Siegmund’s story. Her loose draperies flowed about her limbs and fell carelessly into folds that were classic, traditional. Her hair, of that miraculous gold which is seldom seen outside legend, hung down on either side of her head in two thick braids. The face between was pale, severe almost to harshness. She had taken on the stern beauty of the great bare hall, so that she seemed to belong to it, as it had belonged once to the barbarous chieftains who had made their home in the castle. She sat at the table, as if by right, and Maude, beside her, was such an anachronism as to be scarcely there at all.
“My husband …” Louise was saying. “My brothers … my sister, Mrs. Napier.”
Slowly the stern pose was changed for one of grave recognition and attention. Elissa came out of her trance and acknowledged these introductions, looking from one to another as if she would ask what they wanted of her. It was difficult to remember that this was their house and that she was the stranger. She said nothing until she caught sight of the handkerchief which Gordon still clutched. Then there was a definite movement of interest. A faint smile quivered on her lovely mouth as she asked:
“What haf you got there? Show me.”
Her voice was deep and beautiful. It was the loveliest speaking voice that any of them had ever heard, and its foreign accent lent it an unexpected charm. It obliged them all to feel that she was a great woman, a rare and gifted creature, condescending to their hospitality.
“S—s—s—sundew,” stammered Gordon, putting his handkerchief on the table and revealing its contents. “A rare specimen …”
“It is not beautiful,” observed Elissa, looking at the handful of crushed moss.
“No. But it eats flies.”
“Ach, so! Tell me, please?”
He stammered a confused explanation, to which she listened attentively.
“But this is wonderful!” she exclaimed. “I also love flowers, but of sundew I have never heard. It is macabre, this! Could we not catch a fly for it?”
“Try it with a crumb,” ventured Kerran.
She looked at him for a second, and he blushed. He had never seen such eyes, so wild and strange and unabashed, in any woman’s head before. They gave him a sensation as if one of his vertebræ, low down near the base of the spine, was missing. And they made him feel queerly ashamed of himself. He was aware that in all his thoughts, all his conversation, about this woman, he had been guilty of gross vulgarity. She might be abominable, but the scandal which he and Barny had been talking was too small for her. He looked over at Barny, who had taken his place by Maude. And he saw that Barny was very cross.
Gordon’s soup got cold while he tried to catch a fly for the sundew, and explained just exactly how rare this species was. Never before had he had such a success with his botanical discoveries. Their guest displayed the most flattering attention. She plied him with questions for twenty minutes. And then, half-way through the pudding course, she rose abruptly.
“Forgive me,” she said. “I am going back into the sunshine. I have eaten sufficient, and I find it a little cold in here.”
Without further apology she left them, walking slowly down the hall as though she was making a stage exit. They all stared after her until she had vanished into the sunshine of the courtyard.
Maude spoke first. She said:
“How very rude!”
To which Louise replied:
“Do you think so?”
“But who is she? Who is she?” asked Ellen.
“What is going to happen next?” asked Kerran.
Barny and Gordon said nothing. Barny was too angry to speak. He considered that Maude had been insulted.
As for Gordon, he was head over ears in love.