The Dark Flower. Galsworthy John

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СКАЧАТЬ time Lennan managed to get out: “Yes, sir.”

      “Stormer, I fancy, is quite an expert!” and turning to the lady whom the young ‘Grundys’ addressed as ‘Madre’ he added:

      “To me the great charm of mountain-climbing was always the freedom from people – the remoteness.”

      The mother of the young ‘Grundys,’ looking at Lennan with her half-closed eyes, answered:

      “That, to me, would be the disadvantage; I always like to be mixing with my own kind.”

      The grey-bearded ‘Grundy’ murmured in a muffled voice:

      “Dangerous thing, that, to say – in an hotel!”

      And they went on talking, but of what Lennan no longer knew, lost in this sudden feeling of sick fear. In the presence of these ‘English Grundys,’ so superior to all vulgar sensations, he could not give vent to his alarm; already they viewed him as unsound for having fainted. Then he grasped that there had begun all round him a sort of luxurious speculation on what might have happened to the Stormers. The descent was very nasty; there was a particularly bad traverse. The ‘Grundy,’ whose collar was not now crumpled, said he did not believe in women climbing. It was one of the signs of the times that he most deplored. The mother of the young ‘Grundys’ countered him at once: In practice she agreed that they were out of place, but theoretically she could not see why they should not climb. An American standing near threw all into confusion by saying he guessed that it might be liable to develop their understandings. Lennan made for the front door. The moon had just come up over in the South, and exactly under it he could see their mountain. What visions he had then! He saw her lying dead, saw himself climbing down in the moonlight and raising her still-living, but half-frozen, form from some perilous ledge. Even that was almost better than this actuality of not knowing where she was, or what had happened. People passed out into the moonlight, looking curiously at his set face staring so fixedly. One or two asked him if he were anxious, and he answered: “Oh no, thanks!” Soon there would have to be a search party. How soon? He would, he must be, of it! They should not stop him this time. And suddenly he thought: Ah, it is all because I stayed up there this afternoon talking to that girl, all because I forgot HER!

      And then he heard a stir behind him. There they were, coming down the passage from a side door – she in front with her alpenstock and rucksack – smiling. Instinctively he recoiled behind some plants. They passed. Her sunburned face, with its high cheek-bones and its deep-set eyes, looked so happy; smiling, tired, triumphant. Somehow he could not bear it, and when they were gone by he stole out into the wood and threw himself down in shadow, burying his face, and choking back a horrible dry sobbing that would keep rising in his throat.

      IX

      Next day he was happy; for all the afternoon he lay out in the shade of that same wood at her feet, gazing up through larch-boughs. It was so wonderful, with nobody but Nature near. Nature so alive, and busy, and so big!

      Coming down from the hut the day before, he had seen a peak that looked exactly like the figure of a woman with a garment over her head, the biggest statue in the world; from further down it had become the figure of a bearded man, with his arm bent over his eyes. Had she seen it? Had she noticed how all the mountains in moonlight or very early morning took the shape of beasts? What he wanted most in life was to be able to make images of beasts and creatures of all sorts, that were like – that had – that gave out the spirit of – Nature; so that by just looking at them one could have all those jolly feelings one had when one was watching trees, and beasts, and rocks, and even some sorts of men – but not ‘English Grundys.’

      So he was quite determined to study Art?

      Oh yes, of course!

      He would want to leave – Oxford, then!

      No, oh no! Only some day he would have to.

      She answered: “Some never get away!”

      And he said quickly: “Of course, I shall never want to leave Oxford while you are there.”

      He heard her draw her breath in sharply.

      “Oh yes, you will! Now help me up!” And she led the way back to the hotel.

      He stayed out on the terrace when she had gone in, restless and unhappy the moment he was away from her. A voice close by said:

      “Well, friend Lennan – brown study, or blue devils, which?”

      There, in one of those high wicker chairs that insulate their occupants from the world, he saw his tutor leaning back, head a little to one side, and tips of fingers pressed together. He looked like an idol sitting there inert, and yet – yesterday he had gone up that mountain!

      “Cheer up! You will break your neck yet! When I was your age, I remember feeling it deeply that I was not allowed to risk the lives of others.”

      Lennan stammered out:

      “I didn’t think of that; but I thought where Mrs. Stormer could go, I could.”

      “Ah! For all our admiration we cannot quite admit – can we, when it comes to the point?”

      The boy’s loyalty broke into flame:

      “It’s not that. I think Mrs. Stormer as good as any man – only – only – ”

      “Not quite so good as you, eh?”

      “A hundred times better, sir.”

      Stormer smiled. Ironic beast!

      “Lennan,” he said, “distrust hyperbole.”

      “Of course, I know I’m no good at climbing,” the boy broke out again; “but – but – I thought where she was allowed to risk her life, I ought to be!”

      “Good! I like that.” It was said so entirely without irony for once, that the boy was disconcerted.

      “You are young, Brother Lennan,” his tutor went on. “Now, at what age do you consider men develop discretion? Because, there is just one thing always worth remembering – women have none of that better part of valour.”

      “I think women are the best things in the world,” the boy blurted out.

      “May you long have that opinion!” His tutor had risen, and was ironically surveying his knees. “A bit stiff!” he said. “Let me know when you change your views!”

      “I never shall, sir.”

      “Ah, ah! Never is a long word, Lennan. I am going to have some tea;” and gingerly he walked away, quizzing, as it were, with a smile, his own stiffness.

      Lennan remained where he was, with burning cheeks. His tutor’s words again had seemed directed against her. How could a man say such things about women! If they were true, he did not want to know; if they were not true, it was wicked to say them. It must be awful never to have generous feelings; always to have to be satirical. Dreadful to be like the ‘English Grundys’; only different, of course, because, after all, old Stormer was much more interesting and intelligent – ever so much more; only, just as ‘superior.’ “Some never get away!” Had she meant – from that superiority? Just down below were a family of peasants scything and gathering in the grass. One could imagine her doing that, and looking beautiful, with a coloured handkerchief СКАЧАТЬ