Back Aa

Tysons

Close

<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> <h3>THE FIRST STONE</h3> Tyson was much flattered by the rumor that Sir Peter Morley had pronounced his wife to be "the loveliest woman in Leicestershire"; for Lady Morley herself was a sufficiently splendid type, with her austere Puritan beauty. As for the rector, it was considered that his admiration of Mrs. Nevill Tyson somewhat stultified his utterances in the pulpit. It is not always well for a woman when the judgment of the other sex reverses that of her own. It was not well for Mrs. Nevill Tyson to be told that she had fascinated Sir Peter Morley and spoiled the rector's sermons; it was not well for her to be worshipped (collectively) by the riff-raff that swarmed about Thorneytoft at Tyson's invitation; but any of these things were better than for her to be left, as she frequently was, to the unmixed society of Captain Stanistreet. He had a reputation. Tyson thought nothing of going up to town for the week-end and leaving Louis to entertain his wife in his absence. To do him justice, this neglect was at first merely a device by which he heightened the luxury of possession. In his own choice phrase, he "liked to give a mare a loose rein when he knew her paces." It was all right. He knew Molly, and if he did not, Stanistreet knew him. But these things were subtleties which Drayton Parva did not understand, and naturally enough it began to avoid the Tysons because of them. Apparently Mrs. Nevill Tyson liked Stanistreet. She liked his humorous dark face and his courteous manners; above all, she liked that air of profound interest with which he listened to everything that she had to say; it made it easy for her to chatter to him as she chattered to nobody else, except (presumably) her husband. As for Stanistreet, try as he would (and he tried a great deal), he could not make Mrs. Nevill Tyson out. Day after day Mrs. Nevill Tyson, in amazing garments, sat and prattled to him in the dog-cart, while Tyson followed the hounds; yet for the life of him he could not tell whether she was really very infantile or only very deep. You see she was Tyson's wife. It must be said she gave him every opportunity for clearing his ideas on the subject, and if he did not know, other people might be allowed to make mistakes. And when he came to stay at Thorneytoft for weeks at a time, familiarity with the little creature's moods only complicated the problem. It was about the middle of February, and Stanistreet had been down for a fortnight's hunting, when, in the morning of his last day, Tyson announced his intention of going up to town with him to-morrow. He might be away for three weeks or a month altogether; it depended upon whether he enjoyed himself sufficiently. Stanistreet, who was looking at Mrs. Nevill Tyson at the time, saw the smile and the color die out of her face; her beauty seemed to suffer a shade, a momentary eclipse. She began to drink tea (they were at breakfast) with an air of abstraction too precipitate to be quite convincing. "Moll," said Tyson, "if you're going to this meet, you'd better run upstairs and put your things on." "I don't want to go to any meets." "Why not?" "Because—I—I don't like to see other women riding." "Bless her little heart!" (Tyson was particularly affectionate this morning) "she's never had a bridle in her ridiculous hands, and she talks about 'other women riding.'" "Because I want to ride, and you won't let me, and I'm jealous." "Well, if you mayn't ride with me, you may drive with Stanistreet." "I may drive Captain Stanistreet?" "Certainly not; Captain Stanistreet may drive you." "We'll see about that," said Mrs. Nevill Tyson as she left the room. She soon reappeared, enchantingly pretty again in her laces and furs. It was a glorious morning, the first thin white frost after a long thaw. The meet was in front of the Cross-Roads Inn, about a mile out of Drayton Parva. It was neutral ground, where Farmer Ashby could hold his own with Sir Peter any day, and speech was unfettered. Somebody remarked that Mrs. Nevill Tyson looked uncommonly happy in the dog-cart; while Tyson spoke to nobody and nobody spoke to him. Poor devil! he hadn't at all a pretty look on that queer bleached face of his. And all the time he kept twisting his horse's head round in a melancholy sort of way, and backing into things and out of them, fit to make you swear. She must have noticed something. They were trotting along, Stanistreet driving, by a road that ran side by side with the fields scoured by the hunt, and Tyson could always be seen going recklessly and alone. He could ride, he could ride! His worst enemy never doubted that. "It's very odd," said she, "but the people here don't seem to like Nevill one bit. I suppose they've never seen anything quite like him before." "I very much doubt if they have." "I think they're afraid of him. Mother is, I know; she blinks when she talks to him." "Does she blink when she talks to me?" "Of course not—you're different." "I am not her son-in-law, certainly." "Do you know, though he's so much older than me—I simply shudder when I think he's thirty-seven—and so awfully clever, and so bad-tempered, I'm not in the least afraid of him. And he really has a shocking bad temper." "I know it of old." "So many nice people have bad tempers. I think it's the least horrid fault you can have; because it comes on you when you're not thinking, and it isn't your fault at all." "No; it is generally some one else's." "I don't think much of people's passions myself. He might have something far worse than that." "Most undoubtedly. He might have atrocious taste in dress, or a tendency to drink." "Don't be silly. Did you know him when he was young? I don't mean to say he isn't young—thirty-seven's young enough for anybody—I mean when he was young like me?" "I can't say. I doubt if he was ever young—like you. But I knew him when he was a boy." "So you understand him?" "Oh, pretty well. Not always, perhaps. He's a difficult subject." "Anyhow, you like him? Don't you?" Stanistreet gave a curious hard laugh. "Oh yes—I like him." "That's all right. And really, I don't wonder that people can't make him out. He's the strangest animal I ever met in my life. I haven't made him out yet. I think I shall give him up." "Give him up, by all means. Isn't that what people generally do when they can't understand each other?" Mrs. Nevill Tyson made no answer. She was trying to think, and thinking came hard to Mrs. Nevill Tyson. "I suppose he's had a past. But of course it doesn't do to go poking and probing into a man's past—" Stanistreet lifted his eyebrows and looked at the little woman. She was sitting bolt upright, staring out over the vague fields; she seemed to have uttered the words unconsciously, as if at the dictation of some familiar spirit. "And yet I wish—no, I don't wish I knew. I know he must have had an awful time of it." She turned her face suddenly on Stanistreet. "What do you think he told me the other day? He said he had never known anybody who wasn't either a fool or a sinner. What do you think of that? Must you be one or the other?" Stanistreet shrugged his shoulders. "You may be both. We are all of us sinners, and certainly a great many of us are fools." "I wonder. He isn't a fool." Stanistreet wondered too. He wondered at the things she allowed herself to say; he wondered whether she was drawing any inference; and above all, he wondered at the shrinking introspective look on her careless face. In another minute Mrs. Nevill Tyson had started from her seat and was waving her muff wildly in the air. "Look—there he goes! Oh, did you see him take that fence? What an insane thing to do with the ground like that." He looked in the direction indicated by the muff, and saw Tyson riding far ahead of the hunt, a small scarlet blot on the gray-white landscape. "By Jove! he rides as if he were charging the enemy's guns at the head of a line of cavalry." "Yes." She leaned back; the excitement faded from her face, and she sighed. The sigh was so light that it scarcely troubled the frosty air, but it made Stanistreet look at her again. How adorably pretty she was in all her moods! Perhaps she was conscious of the look, for she rattled on again more incoherently than before. "I'm talking a great deal of nonsense; I always do when I get the chance. You can't talk nonsense to mother; she wouldn't understand it. She'd think it was sense. And, you see, I'm interested in my husband. I suppose it's the proper thing to take an interest in your husband. If you won't take an interest in your husband, what will you take an interest in? It's natural—not to say primitive. Do you know, he says I'm the most primitive person he ever came across. Should you say I was primitive? Don't answer that. I don't think he'd like me to talk about him quite so much. He thinks I never know where to draw the line. But I never see any lines to draw, and if I did, I wouldn't know how to draw them." Stanistreet smiled grimly. He was wondering whether she was "primitive." "Just look at Scarum's ears! Don't tease her. She doesn't like it. Dear thing! She's delicious to kiss—she's got such a soft nose. But she'll bolt as soon as look at you, and she's awfully hard to hold." Her fingers were twitching with the desire to hold Scarum. "I think I can manage her." "You see, somehow or the other I like talking to you. You may be a sinner, but I don't think you are a fool; and I've a sort of a notion that you understand." He was silent. So many women had thought he understood. "I wonder—do you understand!" The eyes that Mrs. Nevill Tyson turned on Stanistreet were not search-lights; they were wells of darkness, unsearchable, unfathomable. Something in Stanistreet, equally inscrutable, something that was himself and not himself, answered very low to that vague appeal. "Yes, I understand." He had turned towards her, smiling darkly, and all her face flashed back a happy smile. Surely, oh surely, Mrs. Nevill Tyson was the soul of indiscretion; for at that moment Miss Batchelor, trotting past with Lady Morley, looked from them to her companion and smiled too. That smile was the first stone. Miss Batchelor acknowledged them with a curt little nod, and Mrs. Nevill Tyson's face became instantly overclouded. Louis leaned a little nearer and said in a husky, uneven voice, "Surely you don't mind that impertinent woman?" "Not a bit," said Mrs. Nevill Tyson. "She's got a villainous seat." "Then what are you thinking about?" "I'm thinking what horrid hard lines it is that they won't let me hunt. All the time I might have been flying across country with Nevill, instead of—" "Instead of crawling in a dog-cart with me. Thank you, Mrs. Nevill." "You needn't thank me. I haven't given you anything." Again Stanistreet wondered whether Mrs. Nevill was very simple or very profound. And wondering, he gave the mare a cut across the flanks that made her leap in the shafts. "That was silly of you. She'll have her heels through before you know where you are. She's a demon to kick, is Scarum." Scarum had spared the splash-board this time, but she was going furiously, and the little dog-cart rocked from side to side. Mrs. Nevill Tyson rose to her feet. "Strikes me you can't drive a little bit," said she. "Please sit down, Mrs. Tyson." But Mrs. Tyson remained imperiously standing, trying to keep her balance like a small sailor in a rollicking sea. "Get up." Stanistreet muttered wrathfully under his mustache, and she caught the words "damned foolery." "Bundle out this minute." She made a grab at the rail in an undignified manner. He doubled the reins firmly over his right hand, and with his left arm he forced her back into her seat. He was holding her there when Farmer Ashby turned out of a by-lane and followed close behind them. And Farmer Ashby had a nice tale to tell at "The Cross-Roads" of how he had seen the Captain driving with his arm round Mrs. Tyson's waist. That was another stone. Stanistreet tugged at the reins with both hands and pulled the mare almost on to her haunches; her hoofs shrieked on the iron road; she stood still and snorted, her forelegs well out, her hide smoking. When he had made quite sure that the animal's attitude was that of temporary exhaustion rather than of passion, Stanistreet changed seats, and gave the reins to Mrs. Nevill Tyson; and Scarum burst into her second heat. "I suppose you have a right to drive your own animal into the ditch," said he. Mrs. Nevill Tyson set her teeth with a determined air, planted her feet firmly on the floor of the trap to give herself a good purchase; she gave the reins a little twist as she had seen Stanistreet do, she balanced the whip like a fishing-rod, with the line dangling over Scarum's ears, and then she rattled away over the wrinkling roads at a glorious pace; she reeled over cart-ruts, she went thump over sods and bump over mud-heaps, she grazed walls and hedges, skimmed over the brink of ditches, careened round corners, and tore past most things on the wrong side; and Stanistreet's sense of deadly peril was lost in the pleasure of seeing her do it. When she was not chattering to him she was encouraging Scarum with all sorts of endearments, small chirping sounds and delicate chuckles, smiling that indefinably malicious, lop-sided smile which Stanistreet had been taught all his life to interpret as a challenge. Now they were going down a lane of beeches, they bent their heads under the branches, and a shower of rime fell about her shoulders, powdering her black hair; he watched it thawing in the warmth there till it sparkled like a fine dew; and now they were running between low hedges, and the keen air from the frosted fields smote the blood into her cheeks and the liquid light into her eyes; it lifted the fringe from her forehead and crisped it over the fur border of her hat; flying ends of lace and sable were flung behind her like streamers; she seemed to be winged with the wind of speed; she was the embodiment of vivid, reckless, beautiful life. It came over him with a sort of shock that this woman was Tyson's wife, irrevocably, until one or other of them died. And Tyson was not the sort of man to die for anybody's convenience but his own. At last they swayed into the courtyard at Thorneytoft. "Thank heaven we're alive!" he said, as he followed her into the house. Mrs. Nevill Tyson turned on the threshold. "Do you mean to say you didn't enjoy it!" "Oh, of course it was delightful; but I don't know that it was exactly—safe." "I see—you were afraid. We were safe enough so long as I was driving." He smiled drearily. He felt that he had been whirled along in a delirious dream—a madman driven by a fool. As if in answer to his thoughts, she called back over the banisters— "I'm not such a fool as I look, you know." No, for the life of him Stanistreet did not know. His doubt was absurd, for it implied that Mrs. Nevill Tyson practiced the art of symbolism, and he could hardly suppose her to be so well acquainted with the resources of language. On the other hand, he could not conceive how, after living more than half a year with Tyson, she had preserved her formidable naïveté. At dinner that evening she still further obscured the question by boasting that she had saved Captain Stanistreet's life. Stanistreet protested. "Nonsense," said she; "you know perfectly well that you'd have upset the whole show if you'd been left to yourself." Tyson stared at his wife. "Do you mean to say that he let you drive?" "Let me? Not he! He couldn't help it." Her white throat shook with derisive laughter. "I took the reins; or, if you like, I kicked over the traces. I always told you I'd do it some day." Tyson pushed his chair back from the table and scowled meditatively. Mrs. Nevill Tyson was smiling softly to herself as she played with the water in her finger-glass. Presently she rose and shook the drops from her fingertips, like one washing her hands of a light matter. Stanistreet got up and opened the door for her, standing very straight and militant and grim; and as she passed through she looked back at him and laughed again. "I can see," said Tyson, as Stanistreet took his seat again, "you've been letting that wife of mine make more or less of a fool of herself. If you had no consideration for her neck or your own, you might have thought of my son and heir." "Oh," said Stanistreet, a little vaguely, for he was startled, "I kept a good lookout." "Not much use in that," said Tyson. Stanistreet battled with his doubt. Tyson had furnished him with a key to his wife's moods. Moreover, a simpler explanation had occurred to him. Mrs. Nevill Tyson was fond of driving; she had been forbidden to drive, therefore she drove; she had never driven any animal in her life before, and, notwithstanding her inexperience, she had accomplished the dangerous feat without injury to anybody. Hence no doubt her laughter and her triumph. But this again was symbolism. He determined to sleep on it. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2