Perhaps the most unfortunate characteristic of Pariahs is that though they cling instinctively to one another they are irritated and provoked by each other’s peculiarities.
This unhappy tendency was now to receive sad confirmation in our weed-puller’s case, for he was suddenly interrupted by the appearance at his gate of Lacrima Traffio.
He rose to meet her, and without inviting her to pass the entrance, for he was extremely nervous of village gossip, and one never knew what a casual passer-by might think, he leant over the low wall and talked with her from that security.
She seemed in a very depressed and pitiable mood and the large dark eyes that fixed themselves upon her friend’s face were full of an inarticulate appeal.
“I cannot endure it much longer,” she said. “It gets worse and worse every day.”
Maurice Quincunx knew perfectly well what she meant, but the curious irritation to which I have just referred drove him to rejoin:
“What gets worse?”
“Their unkindness,” answered the girl with a quick reproachful look, “their perpetual unkindness.”
“But they feed you well, don’t they?” said the hermit, removing his hat and rearranging the cabbage-leaf so as to adapt it to the new angle of the sun. “And they don’t beat you. You haven’t to scrub floors or mend clothes. People, like you and I, must be thankful for being allowed to eat and sleep at all on this badly-arranged earth.”
“I keep thinking of Italy,” murmured Lacrima. “I think it is your English ways that trouble me. I don’t believe — I can’t believe — they always mean to be unkind. But English people are so heartless!”
“You seemed to like that Andersen fellow well enough,” grumbled Mr. Quincunx.
“How can you be so silly, Maurice?” cried the girl, slipping through the gate in spite of its owner’s furtive glances down the road. “How can you be so silly?”
She moved past him, up the path, and seated herself upon the edge of the wheel-barrow.
“You can go on with your weeding,” she said, “I can talk to you while you work.”
“Of course,” murmured Mr. Quincunx, making no effort to resume his labour, “you naturally find a handsome fellow like that, a more pleasant companion than me. I don’t blame you. I understand it very well.”
Lacrima impatiently took up a handful of groundsel and spurge from the dusty heap by her side and flung them into the path.
“You make me quite angry with you, Maurice,” she cried. “How can you say such things after all that has happened between us?”
“That’s the way,” jeered the man bitterly, plucking at his beard. “That’s the way! Go on abusing me because you are not living at your full pleasure, like a stall-fed upper-class lady!”
“I shan’t stay with you another moment,” cried Lacrima, with tears in her eyes, “if you are so unkind.”
As soon as he had reduced her to this point, Mr. Quincunx instantaneously became gentle and tender. This is one of the profoundest laws of a Pariah’s being. He resents it when his companion in helplessness shows a spirit beyond his own, but directly such a one has been driven into reciprocal wretchedness, his own equanimity is automatically regained.
After only the briefest glance at the gate, he put his arms round the girl and kissed her affectionately. She returned his embrace with interest, disarranging as she did so the cabbage-leaf in his hat, and causing it to flutter down upon the path. They leant together for a while in silence, against the edge of the wheel-barrow, their hands joined.
Thus associated they would have appeared, to the dreaded passer-by, in the light of a pair of extremely sentimental lovers, whose passion had passed into the stage of delicious melancholia. The wind whirled the dust in little eddies around them and the sun beat down upon their heads.
“You must be kind to me when I come to tell you how unhappy I am,” said the Italian. “You are the only real friend I have in the world.”
It is sad to have to relate that these tender words brought a certain thrill of alarm into the heart of Mr. Quincunx. He felt a sudden apprehension lest she might indicate that it was his duty to run away with her, and face the world in remote regions.
No one but a born Pariah could have endured the confiding clasp of that little hand and the memory of so ardent a kiss without being roused to an impetuosity of passion ready to dare anything to make her its own.
Instead of pursuing any further the question of his friend’s troubles, Mr. Quincunx brought the conversation round to his own.
“The worst that could happen to me has happened,” he said, and he told her of his interview with the Romers the day before. The girl flushed with anger.
“But this is abominable!” she cried, “simply abominable! You’d better go at once and talk it over with Mrs. Seldom. Surely, surely, something can be done! It is clear they have robbed you of your money. It is a disgraceful thing! Santa Maria — what a country this is!”
“It is no use,” sighed the man helplessly. “Mrs. Seldom can’t help me. She is poor enough herself. And she will know as well as I do that in the matter of law I am entirely in their hands. My aunt had absolute confidence in Mr. Romer and no confidence in me. No doubt she arranged it with them that they were to dole me out the money like a charity. Mr. Romer did once talk about my lending it to him, and his paying interest on it, and so forth; but he managed all my aunt’s affairs, and I don’t know what arrangement he made with her. My aunt never liked me really. I think if she were alive now she would probably support them in what they are doing. She would certainly say, — she always used to say — that it would do me good to do a little honest work.” He pronounced the words “honest work” with concentrated bitterness.
“Probably,” he went on, “Mrs. Seldom would say the same. I know I should be extremely unwilling to try and make her see how horrible to me the idea of work of this kind is. She would never understand. She would think it was only that I wanted to remain a “gentleman” and not to lose caste. She would probably tell me that a great many gentlemen have worked in offices before now. I daresay they have, and I hope they enjoyed it! I know what these gentlemen-workers are, and how easy things are made for them. They won’t be made easy for me. I can tell you that, Lacrima!”
The girl drew a deep sigh, and walked slowly a few paces down the path, meditating, with her hands behind her. Presently she turned.
“Perhaps after all,” she said, “it won’t be as bad as you fancy. I know the head-clerk in Mr. Romer’s Yeoborough office and he is quite a nice man — altogether different from that Lickwit.”
Mr. Quincunx stroked his beard with a trembling hand. “Of course I knew you’d say that, Lacrima. You are just like the rest. You women all think, at the bottom of your hearts, that men are no good if they can’t make money. I believe you have an idea that I ought to do what people call ‘get on a bit in the world.’ If you think that, it only shows how little you understand me. I have no intention of ‘getting on.’ I won’t ‘get on’! I would sooner walk into Auber Lake and end the whole business!”
The suddenness and injustice of this attack really did rouse the Italian to anger. “Good-bye,” she said with a dark flash in her eyes. “I see its no use talking to you when you are in this mood. You have never, never spoken to me in that tone before. Good-bye! I can open the gate for myself, thank you.”