Tussock Land; a Romance of New Zealand and the Commonwealth/Chapter 23
XXIII
Both Gertrude Wonder and King had received invitations to a picnic at National Park for the day upon which the Society of Artists opened its annual exhibition. The picnic was given by a lady whose interests were not in art, and Gertrude declared her intention of going. The exhibition could keep; and the only invitations to picnics or dances that she ever refused was when two reached her for the same day. Even then she felt aggrieved with Fate that she had to make a choice.
King had nearly written a refusal when this declaration of Gertrude’s reached him, and he promptly wrote an almost effusive acceptance. He meant, at the first opportunity, to put to the test the recurring doubt of the sincerity of Gertrude’s love for him; and this picnic promised the chance. He was also not sorry to find an excuse for staying away from the opening of the exhibition. He was afraid to compare his pictures with those of his rivals. He would let the critics first pronounce judgment. Meantime he would have settled a much more important matter.
So on the opening day of the exhibition he had joined the hilarious party at Redfern, and talked picnic talk with a bevy of picnic girls. Gertrude was surrounded by her girl friends—for she had the power of inspiring in younger girls an unreasoning heroine-worship that she found sometimes slightly embarrassing. The party included a fair sprinkling of men, all in flannels, among them, straight and splendid in his bronzed health, Roy Underwood. At National Park station they got out and strolled with much laughter and noise down the long cutting that led to the narrow arm of the sea below. Here a launch awaited them, and they crowded upon it. Then the little boat backed out and started on its journey down the narrow, winding water-way walled by the grotesque iteration of the haggard Australian gums. They had lunch on shore at a Government accommodation house, where the grapes and the passion-fruit hung upon the trellises of the garden walls in a profusion that pleaded to be relieved. After lunch the party broke up into little groups and wandered about the bush, finding wild flowers at every step.
All day King had striven to have Gertrude to himself, but she was altogether too popular a girl, too much in request, too well-informed as to her value, to give up to one what was meant for a picnic-party. And if King was an attentive waiter at her side, his devotion was palpably matched by that of Roy Underwood. In the rivalry of these two Gertrude experienced the supreme happiness of a care-free woman. She was the prize for which these two men were strenuously striving. For her they were pitting their rival strengths; for the slight trifle of her smile they were bitter antagonists. The temptation to be hard and heartless assailed her, and she did not resist. She deliberately played the two men off against each other; and yet she was not merely callous in her design. Perhaps she was not sure yet which was the more worthy. It was possible that her heart asked for this strife, that her love yet wavered uncertainly between the rival attributes of these strangely differing men.
King thought her this day perfectly heartless. It was unfair of her, callous and cruel. She had no right to so torture him. Roy delighted in the combat; he felt prouder of her than ever before. That girl, impervious to assault, armoured in her splendid cold aloofness, was the woman to stir a man’s admiration. She was a prize worth fighting for. How he would delight in the taming of her!
During the afternoon the hostess called for some man to take charge of a boat-full of girls. They had trooped into a roomy boat and declared their shrill intention of going fishing. To their hostess’s declaration that a man should go with them they emphatically protested that they could take care of themselves.
But the hostess laughed them down. “I want a thorough sailor,” she said; “I can’t afford to have seven girls drowned in one day. Seven funerals are more than I’m capable of attending.”
King politely pushed himself forward.
“No, King; you’re no good!” she laughed, and the girls in the boat echoed the laugh.
“Why, he’d be no use even to steer. We can all row better than Mr Southern!”
“He doesn’t know the difference between the rowlocks and the rudder!” cried another.
King retorted with a laughing sarcasm, and shrank back with a relief that was mixed with a tinge of pain.
“Ah, yes, Roy!” the hostess said with evident relief. “I’ll send Roy Underwood with you. He’ll take charge of you, and if even one of you is missing I’ll hold him to account. If you capsize he’ll have to rescue you in rotation. You’d better draw lots for the right to be rescued first.”
And King saw Roy Underwood depart for the boat. Roy was a doer of things, not a dreamer. He wished he had Roy’s direct aim and his certainty of success. Roy aimed low, but he reached his mark. But another thought drove that envy from him: Gertrude was not in the boat.
He sought and found her. She was lying under the shade of a squat gum, pretending that she was asleep. The heat was intense. Her broad-brimmed picnic-hat lay upon her face, shading her eyes. In the negligent grace of her pose there was a fascination that set King’s pulses madly throbbing. Then, as never before, he desired to win her, to hold her his own through life.
As she heard King’s footsteps on the dry eucalyptus leaves, Gertrude opened her great eyes. But she did not stir. She was conscious that her attitude was not ungraceful. As King, in silence, stood looking down on her, she raised her eyes to him with a grave and serious intentness. In her heart was stirring a little pity for him. He loved her so—and she tormented him so serenely. He was so sensitive, so easy to hurt. It was the knowledge of her power that led her into the perilous ways of proving it. And yet he depended so upon her love. It was a shameful thing that she, liking him so much, could thus deliberately wound him. She felt a vague contrition deep in her heart.
Suddenly her expression changed. She had seen in King’s eyes something from which she instinctively shrank. He meant to put her love to the test; and she was herself not sure! She hated action. Why could not he let things drift? But that was like men; they never were content with the promise of the future; they wanted an immediate heaven.
“I want some afternoon tea—lots of it!” she said hastily, sitting up and putting both hands to her tumbled red-brown hair.
“The billy isn’t boiling yet,” he replied easily, though in his brain the insistent need he had to kiss her seemed to have taken all speech from him.
“Well, we’ll go and see to it,” she said with a defiance in her eyes behind which he saw a fear.
It was the fear that decided him. She rose to her feet and turned to pass him. He caught her by the arm.
“No, no!” he said, “not yet! I mean to speak to you, Gertrude.”
She stood still beneath his grasp.
“Well?” she said, with a level look.
He accepted the defiance that her eyes implied. He kissed her despite her struggles.
“It is no use,” he said vehemently. “You must marry me, Gertrude. You love me, I know. Say it! Say it!”
She lay quiet in his arms—a lax, white thing. Yet he could feel through all the limp, dragging body the heavy throbbing of her pulses.
She lay quiet. It was not worth struggling after all. She had so wanted to have a good careless time in the world; but there was always this somewhere in the dim background. She must marry at last. But it was too soon, and yet she felt that now she must face her future. This man held her at bay.
She drew herself away from his arms and stood aside, with downcast eyes. She liked King very much, and he loved her as she never imagined she would be loved. But so did Roy Underwood. But at the thought of Roy a little line came, straight and firm, between her splendid brows. He was too masterful, too sure of himself, too sure of her. She would marry him only if he compelled her. And Gertrude was too proud of her individuality to submit herself so utterly to another personality, even to the personality of the man she loved. If she accepted Roy she would be his abject slave for life. He would master her, and she would submit, and slip gladly into that indolence of will that is the universal snare of the sex. It would be sweet to throw away with a splendid negligence that arrogant individuality in which she so openly rejoiced. But she could make such a surrender only if she greatly loved. And in the long glance she cast into the future she saw something that made her shudder. She was too assured of herself to take a place subservient, to let the love that dominated her heart dominate herself. It was necessary for her self-respect that she should marry a man who would not crush her individuality into a mere humble worship for him. Roy could force her into marrying him, for he was a strong man; but the surrender would be to herself contemptible. She was too arrogant to adore. She must be worshipped. Above her emotions, above her love, was throned her pride. Her individuality was to her more than her sex.
But already she felt herself submissive to Roy’s impetuous will. Slowly, grimly, he was beating her femininity down. She woke in the nights in a great fear that at last she might be glad to submit; she trembled to think that in the time to come she might kiss the hand that held the whip. At such moments Gertrude steeled herself with a “Never!” that was the more emphatic in that it was so forced. She cursed the femininity of her soul that could so betray her. God had not done fairly with her in making her a woman, in so weakening the fibre within her. Her sex was stealthily playing the traitor.
She looked up at King with a sudden clear glance that reflected a sudden clarifying of her doubts within her. He was not a strong man; there was no arrogant dominion to be feared here; he would always humbly adore. Here was her refuge—her refuge from Roy. She loved King with a love that was almost a pity; if she surrendered to him it was with a grace, a condescension. She could accept him as her master, making that little meaningless admission to his mere manhood with the usual feminine reservations.
And she loved King more than she loved Roy. Her love for King was a conscious, self-respecting thing; her love for Roy a submission that left her inarticulately protesting, vaguely ashamed and uneasy. Roy took her love as the right of a conqueror. She would be dragged through life in chains behind the chariot of his superb masculinity.
No; she could not bear that. And her love for King, freely given, and proud, was a finer thing than the abject love that was compelled by the superiority of Roy.
And King watched her debating with her heart. It was like her splendid sincerity to weigh his claims before giving her unalterable answer. Yet if, after all, this thing was not for him...? He scarce dared glance down that vista. He turned his eyes to hers, and in them was an appeal, humble, the worship of the slave for the goddess, the yearning of the unelect for the great things of this life.
Gertrude interpreted that glance. A wave of mother-pity whelmed her. She felt King’s dependence upon her love, his great and absorbing need of her. She could do so much for him, make his life so full, so splendid!
She moved blindly, unsteadily, towards him across the checkered shade of the clearing. Her eyes were bright behind their unshed tears.
Art was a small thing then. He saw Joy coming into his life with outstretched hands.