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The Passionate Friends Chapter 4 - The Marriage of the Lady Mary Christian Parts 1-4 · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Chapter four, parts one to four of The Passionate Friends
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Speaker 1: by H. G. Wells. This LibriVox recording is in the
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Speaker 1: public domain recording by Peter Eastman, Chapter the fourth The
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Speaker 1: Marriage of the Lady Mary Christian One. For three or
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Speaker 1: four days I could get no word with Mary. I
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Speaker 1: could not now come and go as I had been
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Speaker 1: able to do in the days when we were still
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Speaker 1: the children. I could not work, I could not rest.
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Speaker 1: I prowled as near as I could to burn more house,
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Speaker 1: hoping for some glimpse of her, waiting for the moment
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Speaker 1: when I could decently present myself again at the house.
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Speaker 1: When at last I called, Justin had gone and things
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Speaker 1: had some flavor of the ancient time. Lady Ladislaw received
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Speaker 1: me with an airy intimacy. All the careful responsibility of
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Speaker 1: her luncheon party manner thrown aside. And how goes Cambridge,
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Speaker 1: she sang, sailing through the great saloon towards me. And
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Speaker 1: I thought that for the occasion Cambridge instead of Oxford,
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Speaker 1: would serve sufficiently. Well, you'll find them all at Tennis,
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Speaker 1: said Lady Ladyslaw, and waved me on to the gardens.
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Speaker 1: There I found all four of them, and had to
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Speaker 1: wait until their set was finished. Mary, I said, at
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Speaker 1: the first chance, are we never to talk again? It's
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Speaker 1: all different, she said, I am dying to talk to
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Speaker 1: you as we used to talk, and I stephenage. But
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Speaker 1: you see, next time I come, I said, I shall
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Speaker 1: bring you a letter. There is so much no she said.
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Speaker 1: Can't you get up in the morning very early, five
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Speaker 1: or six? No one is up until ever so late.
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Speaker 1: I'd stay up all night, serve, said Maxton, who was
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Speaker 1: playing the two of us and had stopped, I think
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Speaker 1: to tighten a shoe. Things conspired against any more intimacy
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Speaker 1: for a time, but we got our moment. On the
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Speaker 1: way to tea, she glanced back at Philip, who was
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Speaker 1: loosening the net, and then forward to estimate the distance
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Speaker 1: of Maxton and Guy. They're all three going, she said,
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Speaker 1: after Tuesday, then before six Wednesday. Yes, suppose, after all,
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Speaker 1: she threw out, I can't come, fortunes of war. If
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Speaker 1: I can't come one morning, I may come another. She
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Speaker 1: spoke hastily, and I perceived that Guy and Maxton had
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Speaker 1: turned and were waiting for us. You know the old
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Speaker 1: ice house towards the gardens. Yes, on the further side,
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Speaker 1: don't come by the road, come across by the end
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Speaker 1: of the mirror, Lie in the bracken until you see
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Speaker 1: me coming. I've not played tennis a dozen times this year,
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Speaker 1: not half a dozen. This last was for the boys.
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Speaker 1: You've played twenty times at least since you've been here,
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Speaker 1: said guy, with the simple bluntness of a brother. I'm
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Speaker 1: certain two to this day. A dewy morning in late
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Speaker 1: August brings back the thought of Mary and those stolen meetings.
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Speaker 1: I have the minutest recollection of the misty bloom upon
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Speaker 1: the turf, and the ragged, filmy carpet of gossamer on
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Speaker 1: either hand, of the warm wetness of every little blade
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Speaker 1: and blossom, and of the little scraps and seeds of
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Speaker 1: grass upon my soaking and discolored boots. Our footsteps were
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Speaker 1: dark green upon the dew gray grass, and I feel
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Speaker 1: the same hungry freshness again at the thought of those
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Speaker 1: stolen meetings. Presently came the sunrise, blinding, warming dew, dispelling
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Speaker 1: arrows of gold smiting through the tree stems, a flood
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Speaker 1: of light foaming over the bracken and gilding the undersides
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Speaker 1: of the branches. Everything is different and distinctive. In those
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Speaker 1: opening hours, everything has a different value from what it
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Speaker 1: has by day. All the little things upon the ground,
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Speaker 1: fallen branches, tussocks, wood piles, have a peculiar intensity and importance,
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Speaker 1: seem magnified because of the length of their shadows in
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Speaker 1: the slanting rays, and all the great trees seem lifted
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Speaker 1: above the light and merged with the sky. And at last,
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Speaker 1: a cool gray outline against the blaze. And with a
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Speaker 1: glancing iridescent halo about her, comes me, flitting, adventurous, friendly, wonderful. Oh, Stephanitch,
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Speaker 1: she cries to see you again. We each hold out
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Speaker 1: both our hands and clasp and hesitate, and rather shyly kiss. Come.
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Speaker 1: She says. We can talk for an hour. It's still
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Speaker 1: not six, and there is a fallen branch where we
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Speaker 1: can sit and put our feet out of the wet. Oh,
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Speaker 1: it's so good to be out of things again, clean
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Speaker 1: out of things with you. Look, there is a stag
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Speaker 1: watching us. You are glad to be with me, I ask,
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Speaker 1: jealous of the very sunrise. I am always glad, she says,
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Speaker 1: to be with you. Why don't we always get up
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Speaker 1: at dawn, stephanage, every day of our lives. We go,
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Speaker 1: rustling through the grass to the process great timber she
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Speaker 1: has chosen. I can remember even the thin bracelet on
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Speaker 1: the wrist of the hand that lifted her skirt. I
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Speaker 1: help her to clamor into a comfortable fork from which
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Speaker 1: her feet can swing. Such fragments as this are as
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Speaker 1: bright as undimmed as if we had met this morning.
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Speaker 1: But then comes our conversation, and that I find vague
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Speaker 1: and irregularly obliterated. But I think I must have urged
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Speaker 1: her to say she loved me, and beat about the
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Speaker 1: bush of that declaration, too fearful to put my heart's
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Speaker 1: wish to the issue, that she would promise to wait
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Speaker 1: three years for me until I could prove it was
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Speaker 1: not madness for her to marry me. I have been
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Speaker 1: thinking of it all night, and every night since I
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Speaker 1: have been here. I said, somehow I will do something,
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Speaker 1: in some way, I will get get hold of things.
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Speaker 1: Believe me, with all my strength. I was standing between
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Speaker 1: the forking boughs, and she was looking down upon me, Stephen. Dear,
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Speaker 1: she said, dear, dear boy, I have never wanted to
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Speaker 1: kiss you so much in all my life. Dear, come
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Speaker 1: close to me. She bent her fresh young face down
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Speaker 1: to mine. Her fingers were in my hair, My knight,
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Speaker 1: she whispered close to me, My beautiful young knight. I
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Speaker 1: whispered back and touched her dew fresh lips. And tell me,
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Speaker 1: what would you do to conquer the world for me?
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Speaker 1: She asked. I cannot remember now a word of all
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Speaker 1: the vague threatenings against the sundering universe with which I replied.
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Speaker 1: Her hand was on my shoulder as she listened. But
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Speaker 1: I do know that, even on this first morning, she
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Speaker 1: left me with a sense of beautiful unreality, of having dipped,
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Speaker 1: for some precious moments into heroic gossamer. All my world's
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Speaker 1: subjugation seemed already as evanescent as the morning haze and
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Speaker 1: the vanishing dews. As I stood a little hidden in
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Speaker 1: the shadows of the killing wood and ready to plunge
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Speaker 1: back at the first hint of an observer, and watched
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Speaker 1: her slender whiteness flit circumspectly towards the house. Three. Our
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Speaker 1: next three or four meetings are not so clearly defined.
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Speaker 1: We did not meet every morning for fear that her
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Speaker 1: early rising should seem too punctual to be no more
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Speaker 1: than a chance impulse, nor did we go to the
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Speaker 1: same place, But there stands out very clearly a conversation
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Speaker 1: in a different mood. We had met at the Sham Ruins,
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Speaker 1: at the far end of the great shrubbery, a huge
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Speaker 1: shattered Corinthian portico of rather damaged stucco, giving wide views
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Speaker 1: of the hills toward Alfredsham, between its three erect pillars,
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Speaker 1: and affording a dry seat upon its fallen ones. It
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Speaker 1: was an overcast morning, I remember, probably the hour was earlier,
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Speaker 1: a kind of twilight clearness made the world seem strange,
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Speaker 1: and the bushes and trees between us and the house
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Speaker 1: very heavy and still and dark. And we were at
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Speaker 1: cross purpose. For now it was becoming clear to me
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Speaker 1: that Mary did not mean to marry me, that she
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Speaker 1: dreaded making any promise to me for the future, that
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Speaker 1: all the heroic common cause I wanted with her was
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Speaker 1: quite alien to her dreams. But Mary, I said, looking
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Speaker 1: at her colorless, delicate face, don't you love me? Don't
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Speaker 1: you want me? You know I love you, Stephenage, She said,
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Speaker 1: you know, But if two people love one another, they
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Speaker 1: want to be always together, They want to belong to
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Speaker 1: each other. She looked at me with her face very
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Speaker 1: intent upon her meaning Stephenage, She said, after one of
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Speaker 1: those steadfast pauses of hers I want to belong to
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Speaker 1: myself naturally, I said, with an air of disposing of
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Speaker 1: an argument, and then paused, Why should one have to
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Speaker 1: tie oneself always to one other human being? She asked,
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Speaker 1: why must it be like that? I do not remember
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Speaker 1: how I tried to meet this extraordinary idea one loves,
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Speaker 1: I may have said. The subtle skepticisms of her mind
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Speaker 1: went all together beyond my habits of thinking. It had
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Speaker 1: never occurred to me that there was any other way
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Speaker 1: of living, except in these voluntary and involuntary mutual servitudes
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Speaker 1: in which men and women live and die. If you
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Speaker 1: love me, I urged, If you love me, I want
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Speaker 1: nothing better in all my life but to love and
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Speaker 1: serve and keep you and make you happy. She surveyed
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Speaker 1: me and weighed my words against her own. I love
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Speaker 1: meeting you, she said. I love your going because it
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Speaker 1: means that afterwards you will come again. I love this
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Speaker 1: this slipping out to you. But up there, there is
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Speaker 1: a room in the house that is my place, me,
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Speaker 1: my own nobody follows me there. I want to go
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Speaker 1: on living, Stephanage, just as I am living now. I
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Speaker 1: don't want to become someone certain possession, to be just
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Speaker 1: usual and familiar to any one. No, not even to you.
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Speaker 1: But if you love I cried to you least of all,
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Speaker 1: don't you see? I want to be wonderful to you, Stephanage,
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Speaker 1: more than to any one. I want. I want always
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Speaker 1: to make your heart beat faster. I want always to
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Speaker 1: be coming to you with my own heart beating faster,
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Speaker 1: always and always. I want it to be like that,
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Speaker 1: just as it has been on these mornings. It has
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Speaker 1: been beautiful, altogether beautiful. Yes, I said, rather helplessly, and
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Speaker 1: struggled with great issues I had never faced before. It
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Speaker 1: isn't i said, how people live. It is how I
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Speaker 1: want to live, said Mary. It isn't the way life goes.
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Speaker 1: I want it to be. Why shouldn't it be, Why
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Speaker 1: at any rate shouldn't it be for me? Four? I
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Speaker 1: made some desperate schemes to grow suddenly rich and powerful,
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Speaker 1: and I learned for the first time my true economic value. Already,
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Speaker 1: my father and I had been discussing my prospects in life,
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Speaker 1: and he had been finding me vague and difficult. I
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Speaker 1: was full of large political intentions, but so far I
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Speaker 1: had made no definite plans for a living that would
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Speaker 1: render my political ambitions possible. It was becoming apparent to
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Speaker 1: me that for a poor man in England, the only
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Speaker 1: possible route to political distinction is the bar and I
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Speaker 1: was doing my best to reconcile myself to the years
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Speaker 1: of waiting and practice that would have to precede my
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Speaker 1: political debut. My father disliked the law, and I do
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Speaker 1: not think it reconciled him to the idea of my
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Speaker 1: being a barrister that afterwards I hoped to become a politician.
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Speaker 1: It isn't in our temperament, Stephen. He said, it's a pushing, bullying,
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Speaker 1: cramming base life. I don't see you succeeding there, and
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Speaker 1: I don't see myself rejoicing. Even if you do succeed.
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Speaker 1: You have to shout and Strattons don't shout. You have
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Speaker 1: to be smart and tricky, and there's never been a
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Speaker 1: smart and tricky Stratton. Yet you have to snatch opportunities
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Speaker 1: and get the better of the people and misrepresent the
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Speaker 1: realities of every case you touch. You're a paid misrepresenter.
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Speaker 1: They say you'll get a fellowship, Stephen, why not stay
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Speaker 1: up and do some thinking for a year or so.
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Speaker 1: There'll be enough to keep you write a little the bar,
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Speaker 1: I said, is only a means to an end. If
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Speaker 1: you succeed, If I succeed, one has to take the
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Speaker 1: chances of life everywhere. And what is the end constructive statesmanship?
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Speaker 1: Not in that way, said my father, pouring himself a
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Speaker 1: second glass of port, and turning over my high sounding
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Speaker 1: phrase with a faint hint of distaste. Constructive statesmanship. No,
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Speaker 1: once a barrister, always a barrister. You'll only be a
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Speaker 1: party politician, vulgar men, vulgar if you succeed, that is,
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Speaker 1: he criticized me, but he did not oppose me. And
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Speaker 1: already in the beginning of the summer we had settled
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Speaker 1: that I should be called to the bar. Now suddenly
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Speaker 1: I wanted to go back upon all these determinations. I
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Speaker 1: began to demand, in the intellectual slang of the time,
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Speaker 1: more actuality, and to amaze my father with talk about
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Speaker 1: empire makers and the greatness of Lord Strathcona and Cecil Rhodes. Why,
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Speaker 1: I asked, should I travel for a year in search
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Speaker 1: of opportunity at Oxford? I had made acquaintance with the
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Speaker 1: son of Bramley's, the big Mexican and Borneo Man, and
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Speaker 1: to him I wrote apropos of a half forgotten midnight
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Speaker 1: talk in the rooms of some common friend. He wrote
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Speaker 1: back with the suggestion that I should go and talk
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Speaker 1: to his father, And I tore myself away from Mary
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Speaker 1: and went up to see that great exploiter of undeveloped
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Speaker 1: possibilities and have one of the most illuminating and humiliating
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Speaker 1: conversations in the world. He was, I remember, a little,
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Speaker 1: pale complexioned, slow speaking man with a humorous blue eye,
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Speaker 1: a faint, just perceptible Northern accent, and a trick of
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Speaker 1: keeping silent for a moment after you had finished speaking.
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Speaker 1: And he talked to me as one might talk to
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Speaker 1: a child of eight who wanted to know how one
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Speaker 1: could become a commander in chief. His son had evidently
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Speaker 1: emphasized my union reputation, and he would have been quite willing,
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Speaker 1: I perceived, to give me employment if I had displayed
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Speaker 1: the slightest intelligence or ability in any utilizable direction. But
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Speaker 1: quite dreadfully he sounded my equipment with me and showed
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Speaker 1: me the emptiness of my stores. You want some way
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Speaker 1: that gives you a chance of growing rich rapidly, he said.
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Speaker 1: I it's not a bad idea, but there's others you know,
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Speaker 1: have tried that game before. Ye, you don't want riches
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Speaker 1: just for riches, but for an end. I I it's
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Speaker 1: the spending attracts. Ye. You'd not have me think you'd
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Speaker 1: the sin of avarice. I'm clear on that about ye. Well,
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Speaker 1: he explained, it's all one of three things we do,
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Speaker 1: you know, prospecting and forestalling and just stealing. And the
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Speaker 1: only respectable way is prospecting. You'd prefer the respectable way.
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Speaker 1: I suppose I knew you would. Well, let's see what
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Speaker 1: chances you have. And he began to probe my practical knowledge.
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Speaker 1: It was like an unfit man stripping for a medical inspection.
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Speaker 1: Did I know anything of oil, of rubber, of sugar,
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Speaker 1: of substances generally? Had I studied mineralogy or geology? Had
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Speaker 1: I any ideas of industrial processes, of technical chemistry, of
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Speaker 1: rare minerals, of labor problems in the handling of alien labor,
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Speaker 1: of the economics of railway management, or of camping out
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Speaker 1: in dry, thinly populated countries. Or again, could I maybe
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Speaker 1: speak Spanish or Italian or Russian. The little dons who
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Speaker 1: career about Oxford a foot and a wheel, wearing old
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Speaker 1: gowns and mortar boards, giggling over Spooner's latest and being
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Speaker 1: tremendous characters in the intervals of concocting the ruling class.
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Speaker 1: Mind had turned my mind away from such matters altogether.
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Speaker 1: I had left that sort of thing to Germans and
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Speaker 1: East End Jews and young men from the upper grade
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Speaker 1: board schools of Sheffield and Birmingham. I was made to
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Speaker 1: realize appalling wildernesses of ignorance. You see, said old Pramley.
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Speaker 1: You don't seem to know anything. Whatever. It's a difficulty.
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Speaker 1: It'll stand in your way a little now, though no
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Speaker 1: doubt you'd be quick at the uptake, after all the
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Speaker 1: education they've given ye. But it stands in your way
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Speaker 1: if ye think of setting out to do something large
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Speaker 1: and effective, just immediately. Moreover, it came out. I forget
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Speaker 1: now how that I hadn't clearly grasped the difference between
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Speaker 1: cumulative and non cumulative preference shares. I remember too, how
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Speaker 1: I dined alone that evening, in a mood between frantic
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Speaker 1: exasperation and utter abasement in the window of the Mediated
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Speaker 1: Universities Club, of which I was a junior member under
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Speaker 1: the undergraduate rule. And I lay awake all night in
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Speaker 1: one of the austere club bedrooms, saying to Old Bramley
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Speaker 1: a number of extremely able and penetrating things that had
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Speaker 1: unhappily not occurred to me drink the progress of our interview.
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Speaker 1: I didn't go back to Burnmore for several days. I
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Speaker 1: had set my heart on achieving something, on returning with
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Speaker 1: some earnest of the great attack I was to make
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Speaker 1: upon the separating great world between myself and Mary. I
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Speaker 1: am far enough off now from that angry and passionate
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Speaker 1: youngster to smile at the thought that my subjugation of
20:53
Speaker 1: things in general and high finance in particular took at
20:57
Speaker 1: last the form of proposing to go into the office
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Speaker 1: of Bean, Medhurst, Stockton and Schnadthorst upon half commissioned terms.
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Speaker 1: I was awaiting my father's reply to the startling new
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Speaker 1: suggestion when I got a telegram from Mary, we are
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Speaker 1: going to Scotland unexpectedly come down and see me. I
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Speaker 1: went home instantly and told my father I had come
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Speaker 1: to talk things over with him. A note from Mary
21:28
Speaker 1: lay upon the hall table as I came in and
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Speaker 1: encountered my father. I thought it better to come down
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Speaker 1: to you, I said, with my glance roving to find that,
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Speaker 1: and then I met his eye. It wasn't altogether an
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Speaker 1: unkindly eye, but I winced dishonestly. Talking is better for
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Speaker 1: all sorts of things, said my father, and wanted to
21:55
Speaker 1: know if the weather had been as hot in London
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Speaker 1: as it had been in Burnmore. Mary's note was in pencil,
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Speaker 1: scribbled hastily. I was to wait after eleven that night,
22:07
Speaker 1: near the great rose bushes behind the pavilion. Long before eleven,
22:12
Speaker 1: I was there on a seat in a thick shadow,
22:15
Speaker 1: looking across great lakes of moonlight, towards the phantom statuary
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Speaker 1: of the Italianate Garden and the dark laurels that partly
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Speaker 1: masked the house. I waited nearly an hour, an hour
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Speaker 1: of stillness and small creepings and cheapings and goings to
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Speaker 1: and fro among the branches in the bushes. Near by me,
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Speaker 1: a little green glow worm shared my vigil, and then
22:44
Speaker 1: wrapped about in a dark velvet cloak, still in her
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Speaker 1: white dinner dress with shining gleaming, glancing stones about her
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Speaker 1: dear throat, warm and wonderful and glowing and daring. Mary
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Speaker 1: came flitting out of the shadows to me, my dear,
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Speaker 1: she whispered, panting and withdrawing a little from our first
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Speaker 1: passionate embrace. Oh, my dear, how did I come? Twice before?
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Speaker 1: When I was a girl? I got out this way
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Speaker 1: by the corner of the conservatory and down the laundry wall.
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Speaker 1: You can't see from here, but it's easy, easy. There's
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Speaker 1: a tree that helps. And now I have come that
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Speaker 1: way to you. You. Oh, love me, my Stephen, Love me, dear,
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Speaker 1: Love me, as if we were never to love again?
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Speaker 1: Am I beautiful, my dear? Am I beautiful? In the moonlight?
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Speaker 1: Tell me? Perhaps this is the night of our lives, dear,
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Speaker 1: Perhaps never again will you and I be happy. But
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Speaker 1: the wonder, dear, the beauty, isn't it still? It's as
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Speaker 1: if nothing really stood solid and dry, as if every
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Speaker 1: thing floated. Everyone in all the world has gone to
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Speaker 1: sleep tonight and left the world to us. Come come
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Speaker 1: this way and peep at the house there, stoop under
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Speaker 1: the branches. See not a light is left, and all
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Speaker 1: its blinds are drawn and its eyes shut. One window
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Speaker 1: is open, my little window, Stephen. But that is the
24:25
Speaker 1: shadow where that creeper makes everything black. Along here a
24:29
Speaker 1: little further as night stalk now, now sniff, Stephen, sniff
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Speaker 1: the scent of it. It lies like a bank of
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Speaker 1: scented air. And Stephen, there look a star, a star
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Speaker 1: without a sound, falling out of the blue. It's gone.
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Speaker 1: There was her dear face close to mine, soft under
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Speaker 1: the soft moonlight, and the breath of her sweet speech
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Speaker 1: mingled with the scent of the night stalk. That was
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Speaker 1: indeed the most beautiful night of my life, a night
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Speaker 1: of moonlight and cool fragrance and adventurous excitement. We were
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Speaker 1: transported out of this old world of dusty limitations. It
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Speaker 1: was as if for those hours the curse of man
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Speaker 1: was lifted from our lives. No one discovered us, no
25:29
Speaker 1: evil thing came near us. For a long time. We
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Speaker 1: lay close in one another's arms, upon a bank of time.
25:39
Speaker 1: Our heads were close together. Her eyelashes swept my cheek.
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Speaker 1: We spoke rarely and in soft whispers, and our hearts
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Speaker 1: were beating, beating. We were as solemn as great mountains,
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Speaker 1: and as innocent as sleeping children. Our kisses were kisses
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Speaker 1: of moonlight, and it seemed to me that nothing that
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Speaker 1: had ever happened, or could happen afterwards, mattered against that happiness.
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Speaker 1: It was nearly three when at last I came back
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Speaker 1: into my father's garden. No one had missed me from
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Speaker 1: my room, and the house was all asleep. But I
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Speaker 1: could not get in because I had closed a latch
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Speaker 1: behind me, and so I stayed in the little arbor
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Speaker 1: until day, watching the daybreak upon long beaches of pale
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Speaker 1: cloud over the hills towards Alfredcham. I slept at last
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Speaker 1: with my head upon my arms upon the stone table,
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Speaker 1: until the noise of shooting bolts and doors being unlocked
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Speaker 1: roused me to watch my chance, and slip back again
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Speaker 1: into the house and up the shuddered, darkened staircase to
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Speaker 1: my tranquil, undisturbed bedroom. End of Chapter four, Parts one, two, four,