"Let me tell you of a fault of mine, and how I was punished for it," continued Rickie. "Two years ago I behaved badly to you, up at the Rings. No, even a few days before that. We went for a ride, and I thought too much of other matters, and did not try to understand you. Then came the Rings, and in the evening, when you called up to me most kindly, I never answered. But the ride was the beginning. Ever since then I have taken the world at second-hand. I have bothered less and less to look it in the face--until not only you, but every one else has turned unreal.
Never Ansell: he kept away, and somehow saved himself. But every one else. Do you remember in one of Tony Failing's books, 'Cast bitter bread upon the waters, and after many days it really does come back to you'? This had been true of my life; it will be equally true of a drunkard's, and I warn you to stop with me.""I can't stop after that cheque," said Stephen more gently. "But I do remember the ride. I was a bit bored myself."Agnes, who had not been seeing to the breakfast, chose this moment to call from the passage. "Of course he can't stop," she exclaimed. "For better or worse, it's settled. We've none of us altered since last Sunday week.""There you're right, Mrs. Elliot!" he shouted, starting out of the temperate past. "We haven't altered." With a rare flash of insight he turned on Rickie. "I see your game. You don't care about ME drinking, or to shake MY hand. It's some one else you want to cure--as it were, that old photograph. You talk to me, but all the time you look at the photograph." He snatched it up.
"I've my own ideas of good manners, and to look friends between the eyes is one of them; and this"--he tore the photograph across "and this"--he tore it again--"and these--" He flung the pieces at the man, who had sunk into a chair. "For my part, I'm off."Then Rickie was heroic no longer. Turning round in his chair, he covered his face. The man was right. He did not love him, even as he had never hated him. In either passion he had degraded him to be a symbol for the vanished past. The man was right, and would have been lovable. He longed to be back riding over those windy fields, to be back in those mystic circles, beneath pure sky.
Then they could have watched and helped and taught each other, until the word was a reality, and the past not a torn photograph, but Demeter the goddess rejoicing in the spring. Ah, if he had seized those high opportunities! For they led to the highest of all, the symbolic moment, which, if a man accepts, he has accepted life.
The voice of Agnes, which had lured him then ("For my sake," she had whispered), pealed over him now in triumph. Abruptly it broke into sobs that had the effect of rain. He started up. The anger had died out of Stephen's face, not for a subtle reason but because here was a woman, near him, and unhappy.
She tried to apologize, and brought on a fresh burst of tears.
Something had upset her. They heard her locking the door of her room. From that moment their intercourse was changed.
"Why does she keep crying today?" mused Rickie, as if he spoke to some mutual friend.
"I can make a guess," said Stephen, and his heavy face flushed.
"Did you insult her?" he asked feebly.
"But who's Gerald?"
Rickie raised his hand to his mouth.
"She looked at me as if she knew me, and then gasps 'Gerald,' and started crying.""Gerald is the name of some one she once knew.""So I thought." There was a long silence, in which they could hear a piteous gulping cough. "Where is he now?" asked Stephen.
"Dead."
"And then you--?"
Rickie nodded.
"Bad, this sort of thing."
"I didn't know of this particular thing. She acted as if she had forgotten him. Perhaps she had, and you woke him up. There are queer tricks in the world. She is overstrained. She has probably been plotting ever since you burst in last night.""Against me?"
"Yes."
Stephen stood irresolute. "I suppose you and she pulled together?" He said at last.
"Get away from us, man! I mind losing you. Yet it's as well you don't stop.""Oh, THAT'S out of the question," said Stephen, brushing his cap.
"If you've guessed anything, I'd be obliged if you didn't mention it. I've no right to ask, but I'd be obliged."He nodded, and walked slowly along the landing and down the stairs. Rickie accompanied him, and even opened the front door.
It was as if Agnes had absorbed the passion out of both of them.
The suburb was now wrapped in a cloud, not of its own making.
Sigh after sigh passed along its streets to break against dripping walls. The school, the houses were hidden, and all civilization seemed in abeyance. Only the simplest sounds, the simplest desires emerged. They agreed that this weather was strange after such a sunset.
"That's a collie," said Stephen, listening.
"I wish you'd have some breakfast before starting.""No food, thanks. But you know" He paused. "It's all been a muddle, and I've no objection to your coming along with me."The cloud descended lower.
"Come with me as a man," said Stephen, already out in the mist.
"Not as a brother; who cares what people did years back? We're alive together, and the rest is cant. Here am I, Rickie, and there are you, a fair wreck. They've no use for you here,--never had any, if the truth was known,--and they've only made you beastly. This house, so to speak, has the rot. It's common-sense that you should come.""Stephen, wait a minute. What do you mean?"
"Wait's what we won't do," said Stephen at the gate.
"I must ask--"
He did wait for a minute, and sobs were heard, faint, hopeless, vindictive. Then he trudged away, and Rickie soon lost his colour and his form. But a voice persisted, saying, "Come, I do mean it.
Come; I will take care of you, I can manage you."The words were kind; yet it was not for their sake that Rickie plunged into the impalpable cloud. In the voice he had found a surer guarantee. Habits and sex may change with the new generation, features may alter with the play of a private passion, but a voice is apart from these. It lies nearer to the racial essence and perhaps to the divine; it can, at all events, overleap one grave.
