They parted on the lawn, and she came obediently up the steps. Her face was full of terror and bewilderment.
“So you’ve had a wetting, Miss Beaumont!”
“Wetting? Oh, yes. But, Mr. Inskip—I don’t understand: I’ve failed.”
I expressed surprise.
“Mr. Ford is to go—at once. I’ve failed.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’ve failed with Harcourt. He’s offended. He won’t laugh. He won’t let me do what I want. Latin and Greek began it: I wanted to know about gods and heroes and he wouldn’t let me: then I wanted no fence round Other Kingdom and no bridge and no path—and look! Now I ask that Mr. Ford, who has done nothing, shan’t be punished for it—and he is to go away forever.”
“Impertinence is not ‘nothing,’ Miss Beaumont.” For I must keep in with Harcourt.
“Impertinence is nothing!” she cried. “It doesn’t exist. It’s a sham, like ‘claims’ and ‘position’ and ‘rights.’ It’s part of the great dream.”
“What ‘great dream’?” I asked, trying not to smile.
“Tell Mr. Ford—here comes Harcourt; I must go to bed. Give my love to Mr. Ford, and tell him ‘to guess.’ I shall never see him again, and I won’t stand it. Tell him to guess. I am sorry I called him a crybaby. He was not crying like a baby. He was crying like a grownup person, and now I have grown up too.”
I judged it right to repeat this conversation to my employer.
IV
The bridge is built, the fence finished, and Other Kingdom lies tethered by a ribbon of asphalt to our front door. The seventy-eight trees therein certainly seem nearer, and during the windy nights that followed Ford’s departure we could hear their branches sighing, and would find in the morning that beech-leaves had been blown right up against the house. Miss Beaumont made no attempt to go out, much to the relief of the ladies, for Harcourt had given the word that she was not to go out unattended, and the boisterous weather deranged their petticoats. She remained indoors, neither reading nor laughing, and dressing no longer in green, but in brown.
Not noticing her presence, Mr. Worters looked in one day and said with a sigh of relief: “That’s all right. The circle’s completed.”
“Is it indeed!” she replied.
“You there, you quiet little mouse? I only meant that our lords, the British workmen, have at last condescended to complete their labours, and have rounded us off from the world. I—in the end I was a naughty, domineering tyrant, and disobeyed you. I didn’t have the gate out at the further side of the copse. Will you forgive me?”
“Anything, Harcourt, that pleases you, is certain to please me.”
The ladies smiled at each other, and Mr. Worters said: “That’s right, and as soon as the wind goes down we’ll all progress together to your wood; and take possession of it formally, for it didn’t really count that last time.”
“No, it didn’t really count that last time,” Miss Beaumont echoed.
“Evelyn says this wind never will go down,” remarked Mrs. Worters. “I don’t know how she knows.”
“It will never go down, as long as I am in the house.”
“Really?” he said gaily. “Then come out now, and send it down with me.”
They took a few turns up and down the terrace. The wind lulled for a moment, but blew fiercer than ever during lunch. As we ate, it roared and whistled down the chimney at us, and the trees of Other Kingdom frothed like the sea. Leaves and twigs flew from them, and a bough, a good-sized bough, was blown on to the smooth asphalt path, and actually switchbacked over the bridge, up the meadow, and across our very lawn. (I venture to say “our,” as I am now staying on as Harcourt’s secretary.) Only the stone steps prevented it from reaching the terrace and perhaps breaking the dining-room window. Miss Beaumont sprang up and, napkin in hand, ran out and touched it.
“Oh, Evelyn—” the ladies cried.
“Let her go,” said Mr. Worters tolerantly. “It certainly is a remarkable incident, remarkable. We must remember to tell the Archdeacon about it.”
“Harcourt,” she cried, with the first hint of returning colour in her cheeks, “mightn’t we go up to the copse after lunch, you and I?”
Mr. Worters considered.
“Of course, not if you don’t think best.”
“Inskip, what’s your opinion?”
I saw what his own was, and cried, “Oh, let’s go!” though I detest the wind as much as anyone.
“Very well. Mother, Anna, Ruth, Mrs. Osgood—we’ll all go.”
And go we did, a lugubrious procession; but the gods were good to us for once, for as soon as we were started, the tempest dropped, and there ensued an extraordinary calm. After all, Miss Beaumont was something of a weather prophet. Her spirits improved every minute. She tripped in front of us along the asphalt path, and ever and anon turned round to say to her lover some gracious or alluring thing. I admired her for it. I admire people who know on which side their bread’s buttered.
“Evelyn, come here!”
“Come here yourself.”
“Give me a kiss.”
“Come and take it then.”
He ran after her, and she ran away, while all our party laughed melodiously.
“Oh, I am so happy!” she cried. “I think I’ve everything I want in all the world. Oh dear, those last few days indoors! But oh, I am so happy now!” She had changed her brown dress for the old flowing green one, and she began to do her skirt dance in the open meadow, lit by sudden gleams of the sunshine. It was really a beautiful sight, and Mr. Worters did not correct her, glad perhaps that she should recover her spirits, even if she lost her tone. Her feet scarcely moved, but her body so swayed and her dress spread so gloriously around her, that we were transported with joy. She danced to the song of a bird that sang passionately in Other Kingdom, and the river held back its waves to watch her (one might have
