Mrs. Fyne had only smiled at me very expressively, very self-confidently.
"Oh I quite understand that you accept the fullest responsibility," I
said. "I am the only ridiculous person in this--this--I don't know how
to call it--performance. However, I've nothing more to do here, so I'll
say good-night--or good morning, for it must be past one."
But before departing, in common decency, I offered to take any wires they
might write. My lodgings were nearer the post-office than the cottage
and I would send them off the first thing in the morning. I supposed
they would wish to communicate, if only as to the disposal of the
luggage, with the young lady's relatives . . .
Fyne, he looked rather downcast by then, thanked me and declined.
"There is really no one," he said, very grave.
"No one," I exclaimed.
"Practically," said curt Mrs. Fyne.
And my curiosity was aroused again.
"Ah! I see. An orphan."
Mrs. Fyne looked away weary and sombre, and Fyne said "Yes" impulsively,
and then qualified the affirmative by the quaint statement: "To a certain
extent."
I became conscious of a languid, exhausted embarrassment, bowed to Mrs.
Fyne, and went out of the cottage to be confronted outside its door by
the bespangled, cruel revelation of the Immensity of the Universe. The
night was not sufficiently advanced for the stars to have paled; and the
earth seemed to me more profoundly asleep--perhaps because I was alone
now. Not having Fyne with me to set the pace I let myself drift, rather
than walk, in the direction of the farmhouse. To drift is the only
reposeful sort of motion (ask any ship if it isn't) and therefore
consistent with thoughtfulness. And I pondered: How is one an orphan "to
a certain extent"?
No amount of solemnity could make such a statement other than bizarre.
What a strange condition to be in. Very likely one of the parents only
was dead? But no; it couldn't be, since Fyne had said just before that
"there was really no one" to communicate with. No one! And then
remembering Mrs. Fyne's snappy "Practically" my thoughts fastened upon
that lady as a more tangible object of speculation.
I wondered--and wondering I doubted--whether she really understood
herself the theory she had propounded to me. Everything may be
said--indeed ought to be said--providing we know how to say it. She
probably did not. She was not intelligent enough for that. She had no
knowledge of the world. She had got hold of words as a child might get
hold of some poisonous pills and play with them for "dear, tiny little
marbles." No! The domestic-slave daughter of Carleon Anthony and the
little Fyne of the Civil Service (that flower of civilization) were not
intelligent people. They were commonplace, earnest, without smiles and
without guile. But he had his solemnities and she had her reveries, her
lurid, violent, crude reveries. And I thought with some sadness that all
these revolts and indignations, all these protests, revulsions of
feeling, pangs of suffering and of rage, expressed but the uneasiness of
sensual beings trying for their share in the joys of form, colour,
sensations--the only riches of our world of senses. A poet may be a
simple being but he is bound to be various and full of wiles, ingenious
and irritable. I reflected on the variety of ways the ingenuity of the
late bard of civilization would be able to invent for the tormenting of
his dependants. Poets not being generally foresighted in practical
affairs, no vision of consequences would restrain him. Yes. The Fynes
were excellent people, but Mrs. Fyne wasn't the daughter of a domestic
tyrant for nothing. There were no limits to her revolt. But they were
excellent people. It was clear that they must have been extremely good
to that girl whose position in the world seemed somewhat difficult, with
her face of a victim, her obvious lack of resignation and the bizarre
status of orphan "to a certain extent."