Chapter Chapter 28 · THE COMING OF THE ROSES.

. THE COMING OF THE ROSES.

And the roses miscarried!

When Lewisham returned from Vigours' it was already nearly seven. He

entered the house with a beating heart. He had expected to find Ethel

excited, the roses displayed. But her face was white and jaded. He was

so surprised by this that the greeting upon his lips died away. He was

balked! He went into the sitting-room and there were no roses to be

seen. Ethel came past him and stood with her back to him looking out

of the window. The suspense was suddenly painful....

He was obliged to ask, though he was certain of the answer, "Has

nothing come?"

Ethel looked at him. "What did you think had come?"

"Oh! nothing."

She looked out of the window again. "No," she said slowly, "nothing

has come."

He tried to think of something to say that might bridge the distance

between them, but he could think of nothing. He must wait until the

roses came. He took out his books and a gaunt hour passed to supper

time. Supper was a chilly ceremonial set with necessary over-polite

remarks. Disappointment and exasperation darkened Lewisham's soul. He

began to feel angry with everything--even with her--he perceived she

still judged him angry, and that made him angry with her. He was

resuming his books and she was helping Madam Gadow's servant to clear

away, when they heard a rapping at the street door. "They have come at

last," he said to himself brightening, and hesitated whether he should

bolt or witness her reception of them. The servant was a

nuisance. Then he heard Chaffery's voice, and whispered a soft "damn!"

to himself.

The only thing to do now if the roses came was to slip out into the

passage, intercept them, and carry them into the bedroom by the door

between that and the passage. It would be undesirable for Chaffery to

witness that phase of sentiment. He might flash some dart of ridicule

that would stick in their memory for ever.

Lewisham tried to show that he did not want a visitor. But Chaffery

was in high spirits, and could have warmed a dozen cold welcomes. He

sat down without any express invitation in the chair that he

preferred.

Before Mr. and Mrs. Chaffery the Lewishams veiled whatever trouble

might be between them beneath an insincere cordiality, and Chaffery

was soon talking freely, unsuspicious of their crisis. He produced two

cigars. "I had a wild moment," he said. "'For once,' said I, 'the

honest shall smoke the admirable--or the admirable shall smoke the

honest,' whichever you like best. Try one? No? Those austere

principles of yours! There will be more pleasure then. But really, I

would as soon you smoked it as I. For to-night I radiate benevolence."

He cut the cigar with care, he lit it with ceremony, waiting until

nothing but honest wood was burning on the match, and for fully a

minute he was silent, evolving huge puffs of smoke. And then he spoke

again, punctuating his words by varied and beautiful spirals. "So

far," he said, "I have only trifled with knavery."

As Lewisham said nothing he resumed after a pause.

"There are three sorts of men in the world, my boy, three and no

more--and of women only one. There are happy men and there are knaves

and fools. Hybrids I don't count. And to my mind knaves and fools are

very much alike."

He paused again.

"I suppose they are," said Lewisham flatly, and frowned at the

fireplace.

Chaffery eyed him. "I am talking wisdom. To-night I am talking a

particular brand of wisdom. I am broaching some of my oldest and

finest, because--as you will find one day--this is a special occasion.

And you are distrait!"

Lewisham looked up. "Birthday?" he said.

"You will see. But I was making golden observations about knaves and

fools. I was early convinced of the absolute necessity of

righteousness if a man is to be happy. I know it as surely as there is

a sun in the heavens. Does that surprise you?"

"Well, it hardly squares--"

"No. I know. I will explain all that. But let me tell you the happy

life. Let me give you that, as if I lay on my deathbed and this was a

parting gift. In the first place, mental integrity. Prove all things,

hold fast to that which is right. Let the world have no illusions for

you, no surprises. Nature is full of cruel catastrophes, man is a

physically degenerate ape, every appetite, every instinct, needs the

curb; salvation is not in the nature of things, but whatever salvation

there may be is in the nature of man; face all these painful things. I

hope you follow that?"

"Go on," said Lewisham, with the debating-society taste for a thesis

prevailing for a minute over that matter of the roses.

"In youth, exercise and learning; in adolescence, ambition; and in

early manhood, love--no footlight passion." Chaffery was very solemn

and insistent, with a lean extended finger, upon this point.

"Then marriage, young and decent, and then children and stout honest

work for them, work too for the State in which they live; a life of

self-devotion, indeed, and for sunset a decent pride--that is the

happy life. Rest assured that is the happy life; the life Natural

Selection has been shaping for man since life began. So a man may go

happy from the cradle to the grave--at least--passably happy. And to

do this needs just three things--a sound body, a sound intelligence,

and a sound will ... A sound will."

Chaffery paused on the repetition.

"No other happiness endures. And when all men are wise, all men will

seek that life. Fame! Wealth! Art!--the Red Indians worship lunatics,

and we are still by way of respecting the milder sorts. But I say that

all men who do not lead that happy life are knaves and fools. The

physical cripple, you know, poor devil, I count a sort of bodily

fool."

"Yes," weighed Lewisham, "I suppose he is."

"Now a fool fails of happiness because of his insufficient mind, he

miscalculates, he stumbles and hobbles, some cant or claptrap whirls

him away; he gets passion out of a book and a wife out of the stews,

or he quarrels on a petty score; threats frighten him, vanity beguiles

him, he fails by blindness. But the knave who is not a fool fails

against the light. Many knaves are fools also--_most_ are--but some

are not. I know--I am a knave but no fool. The essence of your knave

is that he lacks the will, the motive capacity to seek his own greater

good. The knave abhors persistence. Strait is the way and narrow the

gate; the knave cannot keep to it and the fool cannot find it."

Lewisham lost something of what Chaffery was saying by reason of a rap

outside. He rose, but Ethel was before him. He concealed his anxiety

as well as he could; and was relieved when he heard the front door

close again and her footsteps pass into the bedroom by the passage

door. He reverted to Chaffery.

"Has it ever occurred to you," asked Chaffery, apparently apropos of

nothing, "that intellectual conviction is no motive at all? Any more

than a railway map will run a train a mile."

"Eh?" said Lewisham. "Map--run a train a mile--of course, yes. No, it

won't."

"That is precisely my case," said Chaffery. "That is the case of

your pure knave everywhere. We are not fools--because we know. But

yonder runs the highway, windy, hard, and austere, a sort of dry

happiness that will endure; and here is the pleasant by-way--lush,

my boy, lush, as the poets have it, and with its certain man-trap

among the flowers ..."

Ethel returned through the folding doors. She glanced at Lewisham,

remained standing for awhile, sat down in the basket chair as if to

resume some domestic needlework that lay upon the table, then rose and

went back into the bedroom.

Chaffery proceeded to expatiate on the transitory nature of passion

and all glorious and acute experiences. Whole passages of that

discourse Lewisham did not hear, so intent was he upon those

roses. Why had Ethel gone back into the bedroom? Was it possible--?

Presently she returned, but she sat down so that he could not see her

face.

"If there is one thing to set against the wholesome life it is

adventure," Chaffery was saying. "But let every adventurer pray for an

early death, for with adventure come wounds, and with wounds come

sickness, and--except in romances--sickness affects the nervous

system. Your nerve goes. Where are you then, my boy?"

"Ssh! what's that?" said Lewisham.

It was a rap at the house door. Heedless of the flow of golden wisdom,

he went out at once and admitted a gentleman friend of Madam Gadow,

who passed along the passage and vanished down the staircase. When he

returned Chaffery was standing to go.

"I could have talked with you longer," he said, "but you have

something on your mind, I see. I will not worry you by guessing

what. Some day you will remember ..." He said no more, but laid his

hand on Lewisham's shoulder.

One might almost fancy he was offended at something.

At any other time Lewisham might have been propitiatory, but now he

offered no apology. Chaffery turned to Ethel and looked at her

curiously for a moment. "Good-bye," he said, holding out his hand to

her.

On the doorstep Chaffery regarded Lewisham with the same curious look,

and seemed to weigh some remark. "Good-bye," he said at last with

something in his manner that kept Lewisham at the door for a moment

looking after his stepfather's receding figure. But immediately the

roses were uppermost again.

When he re-entered the living room he found Ethel sitting idly at her

typewriter, playing with the keys. She got up at his return and sat

down in the armchair with a novelette that hid her face. He stared at

her, full of questions. After all, then, they had not come. He was

intensely disappointed now, he was intensely angry with the ineffable

young shop-woman in black. He looked at his watch and then again, he

took a book and pretended to read and found himself composing a

scathing speech of remonstrance to be delivered on the morrow at the

flower-shop. He put his book down, went to his black bag, opened and

closed it aimlessly. He glanced covertly at Ethel, and found her

looking covertly at him. He could not quite understand her expression.

He fidgeted into the bedroom and stopped as dead as a pointer.

He felt an extraordinary persuasion of the scent of roses. So strong

did it seem that he glanced outside the room door, expecting to find a

box there, mysteriously arrived. But there was no scent of roses in

the passage.

Then he saw close by his foot an enigmatical pale object, and

stooping, picked up the creamy petal of a rose. He stood with it in

his hand, perplexed beyond measure. He perceived a slight disorder of

the valence of the dressing-table and linked it with this petal by a

swift intuition.

He made two steps, lifted the valence, and behold! there lay his

roses crushed together!

He gasped like a man who plunges suddenly into cold water. He remained

stooping with the valence raised.

Ethel appeared in the half doorway and her expression was unfamiliar.

He stared at her white face.

"Why on earth did you put my roses here?" he asked.

She stared back at him. Her face reflected his astonishment.

"Why did you put my roses here?" he asked again.

"Your roses!" she cried, "What! Did _you_ send those roses?"