The Rubicon

"Oh! I know I am; detestably lucky, as you say. Doesn't she sing beautifully, too? Hang it all, I won't talk about it, or else I shall go on for ever, and it's rather dull for you."

Percy laughed.

"Oh, don't mind me. I'm very happy. Pour out your joyful soul, but pass me a cigar first."

"Cigars!" said Reggie. "I really had quite forgotten about smoking. That's what comes of being in love. Really, old fellow, you had better fall in love as soon as you possibly can. Depend upon it, there's nothing like it. Here, catch!"

Reggie chucked a cigar case across to him.

"Have you seen your new cousin yet?" asked Percy.

"Who? Oh, Lady Hayes. No, I haven't. She's perfectly lovely, isn't she?"

"Eva has always been considered good-looking," remarked the other solemnly.

"I don't particularly care for Hayes himself," said Reggie. "He's so awfully polite and dried up. But I expect your sister's made him wake up a bit. I want to know her. Where is she?"

"They're abroad again, at present. Jim Armine's with them."

"Jim Armine?" said Reggie, doubtfully. "That pale chap with a big place in Somersetshire?"

"Probably the same. I don't know why Eva likes him so. I can't bear him."

"He's an oily sort of fellow," remarked Reggie, frankly. "But lots of women like him. He's too clever for me. I'm awfully stupid, you know."

"They met him abroad on their honeymoon," said Percy, "and he hung about a good deal, I fancy."

"I'm blowed if I'll have another man hanging about on my honeymoon," said Reggie.

"No; I don't suppose you will. It does seem one too many to the unbiassed mind. Rather like the serpent in paradise, who was certainly de trop."

"What serpent?" said Reggie, who was obviously thinking of something else. "Oh, I see, the devil, you mean."

"No, I didn't mean the devil exactly; I meant any third person."

"We're going shooting to-morrow over the High Croft," said Reggie, after a pause, in which he had determined, by a rapid mental process, that he was unable to initiate any more statements on the subject of the serpent, "and Gertrude and mother are going to bring us lunch. You and father will have to shoot alone after lunch; I'm going to drive on with Gertrude, just round about and home again."

Gertrude Carston certainly seemed a most desirable partner for Reggie; they were really both of them detestably lucky people. She had considerable beauty, of a large, breezy order; she was quite as adorably child-like as he, and showed quite as few signs of any tendency to grow up. She was fond of hunting, lawn-tennis, animals, loud hymns, anything, in fact, of a pronounced and intelligible stamp; she was quite ridiculously fond of Reggie, and they both behaved in the foolish, delightful manner in which people in such a predicament do behave. They had both settled to get up early the next morning and have a short walk before breakfast, which was not till a quarter to ten, but in the morning they both felt it quite impossible to do so, and came down feebly a few minutes after the gong had sounded, and pretended that they had been up an immense time waiting for the other, till that particularly flimsy falsehood broke down, and they both laughed prodigiously. It was obviously a good, honest love-match; for each of them only the other existed, in no ethereal, mysterious form, but simply as a capital, honest human being, lovable in every part. There were no regrets, no unsatisfied longings, no sentimental, half-morbid affection that was exacting or jealous. Love, like Janus of old, is a two-headed god. On some he smiles, to others his eyes are full of strange, bewildering doubts; on his lips there is a smile that is half a sigh, that wakes at times a tumultuous happiness, a bitter aching at others, and never brings content. That love may be more complex, more worthy of the agonised questionings with which men and women have worshipped him, more deserving of the reproach, the longing, the dread, the reviling, that has found its expression in bitter verses and heart-broken epigrams, but the simple, smiling face is there for some to see, and those are blest who see it. Their love may be on a lower level, but it is very sweet, and lies among pleasant gardens and by melodious streams; for such there is no mountain top, compassed about by heaven; earth lies about them, not beneath them, and for them there is no painful climbing, no bleeding hands or panting breasts, and perhaps, at the top, nothing but clouds and cold, palpable mist.

Such, at any rate, was their love at present, yet nothing is safe in this uncertain world. An earthquake may rend the pleasant garden, an east wind may wither its flowers, drought may drink up its melodious stream. But now it was the June of love, and the garden was very fair.

It was nearly luncheon time, and Reggie, in spite of the woodcock, looked on to the cottage, where a thin, blue smoke rose, on a hill above the trees, wondering whether Gertrude had come yet. The beat lay over uneven ground, with some thick cover, interspersed with heathery, open places, on the edges of which many woodcock rose in silent and ghostly flight for the last time. Reggie was an excellent shot, and was having a match with Percy – a shilling a woodcock – which promised to be an investment with good security, and quick returns. He was just arguing a disputed point, in which Percy stoutly upheld that a certain bird, at which they had fired simultaneously, was his own, not Reggie's, and that Reggie ought never to have shot at it, as it did not rise to him, when Gertrude appeared on the scene.

She had seen the party approaching from the cottage, and, as it was cold, she had walked on to meet them.

Percy felt much evil satisfaction at her appearance. The ways of women at shooting parties were known to him. Reggie was looking about in a bush, with the keepers, for a bird he had killed, and Gertrude stopped with him. She fully justified Percy's expectations.

"Oh! Reggie, what a pretty bird. It's an awful shame to shoot them. Poor dear! Oh! I am sure I saw it flap its wings. It can't be dead. Oh! do kill it quick. I think you're perfectly brutal. Now, you've killed it," she added with reproach, as if the object of shooting woodcock was to render them immortal.

They soon caught up the others, and Percy's wicked wish was fulfilled. No man in the world can shoot when his affianced is walking by him, making remarks on the weather, and on his homespun stockings, and telling him that she was sure he didn't hold his gun straight that time. But Reggie did not feel as if he had lost very much, when he handed Percy one-and-ninepence at lunch, which was the nearest equivalent he had for two shillings.

Mrs. Davenport was sitting by the fire when they came in, preferring to get warm passively, rather than actively.

"Well, boys," she said, "have you had good sport? Fifteen woodcock? How jolly!"

"And we should have got four more if Gertrude hadn't joined us," said Reggie. "Why did you let her come, mother?"

Gertrude looked at him in genuine, wide-eyed astonishment.

"What have I done, you stupid boy?" she exclaimed. "I only told you to hold your gun straighter; you were aiming at least five feet from the bird. Besides, it's horrid to kill woodcock; they're such jolly little beasts – birds, I mean."

"Then why did you tell me to aim straighter?" asked Reggie, with reason.

"Oh, I thought it would please you to kill them, my lord," she said. "At least, that's why you went out, wasn't it?"

Reggie was emptying his pockets of cartridges in the porch, and Gertrude was standing in the doorway, so that they were in comparative privacy.

"Would you rather please me than save the woodcock?" he asked softly.

"Reggie, I know those cartridges will go off if you drop them about so. Yes, oh the whole, I would. How dirty your hands are. Oh! is that blood on them?"

"No, dear, it's red paint, like what the Indians put on when they go out hunting."

"You extremely silly boy. Go and wash them, and then come to lunch. I'll come with you to the little pump round the corner. You can't be trusted alone."

"You'll catch cold standing about," said Reggie, not without a purpose.

"No more than you will. Besides, I want to talk to you."

"Talk away, I'm listening."

"Oh, well, it's nothing, really. I only meant to chat."

"Let's chat, then."

"Well, stoop down, while I pump on your hands. Do you know, I'm rather happy."

"What a funny coincidence; so am I."

And they went back to the house, feeling that they had had quite a successful conversation. But that was all they said.

Mr. Davenport was to join them after lunch, and go on shooting with Percy, and they had nearly finished when he entered. He was a stout, hearty-looking man of fifty, and inexpressible satisfaction was his normal expression.

"Well, you people look pretty comfortable," he said. "What sport, Reggie?"

"Oh! rabbits, lots of them, a few hares, ditto pheasants, and fifteen woodcock," said Reggie, with his month full of bread and cheese, whose naturally healthy appetite had not been spoiled by love.

"Reggie's going to take Gertrude a drive after lunch," said Mrs. Davenport; "and I shall walk home; I want a walk."