“Time went on. There was no swordsman, or pistol-shot like me in London,
they said. We had as many pupils as we liked—it was the only part of my
life when I have been able to save money. I had no chance to spend it.
We gave lessons all day, and in the evening were too tired to go out.
That year I had the misfortune to lose my dear mother. I became a rich
man—yes, sir, at that time I must have had not less than six hundred a
year.
“It was a long time before I saw Eilie again. She went abroad to Dresden
with her father's sister to learn French and German. It was in the
autumn of 1875 when she came back to us. She was seventeen then—a
beautiful young creature.” He paused, as if to gather his forces for
description, and went on.
“Tall, as a young tree, with eyes like the sky. I would not say she was
perfect, but her imperfections were beautiful to me. What is it makes
you love—ah! sir, that is very hidden and mysterious. She had never lost
the trick of closing her lips tightly when she remembered her uneven
tooth. You may say that was vanity, but in a young girl—and which of us
is not vain, eh? 'Old men and maidens, young men and children!'
“As I said, she came back to London to her little room, and in the
evenings was always ready with our tea. You mustn't suppose she
was housewifely; there is something in me that never admired
housewifeliness—a fine quality, no doubt, still—” He sighed.
“No,” he resumed, “Eilie was not like that, for she was never quite the
same two days together. I told you her eyes were like the sky—that was
true of all of her. In one thing, however, at that time, she always
seemed the same—in love for her father. For me! I don't know what I
should have expected; but my presence seemed to have the effect of
making her dumb; I would catch her looking at me with a frown, and then,
as if to make up to her own nature—and a more loving nature never came
into this world, that I shall maintain to my dying day—she would go to
her father and kiss him. When I talked with him she pretended not to
notice, but I could see her face grow cold and stubborn. I am not quick;
and it was a long time before I understood that she was jealous, she
wanted him all to herself. I've often wondered how she could be his
daughter, for he was the very soul of justice and a slow man too—and she
was as quick as a bird. For a long time after I saw her dislike of me, I
refused to believe it—if one does not want to believe a thing there are
always reasons why it should not seem true, at least so it is with me,
and I suppose with all selfish men.
“I spent evening after evening there, when, if I had not thought only of
myself, I should have kept away. But one day I could no longer be blind.
“It was a Sunday in February. I always had an invitation on Sundays
to dine with them in the middle of the day. There was no one in the
sitting-room; but the door of Eilie's bedroom was open. I heard her
voice: 'That man, always that man!' It was enough for me, I went down
again without coming in, and walked about all day.
“For three weeks I kept away. To the school of course I came as usual,
but not upstairs. I don't know what I told Dalton—it did not signify
what you told him, he always had a theory of his own, and was persuaded
of its truth—a very single-minded man, sir.
“But now I come to the most wonderful days of my life. It was an early
spring that year. I had fallen away already from my resolution, and used
to slink up—seldom, it's true—and spend the evening with them as before.
One afternoon I came up to the sitting-room; the light was failing—it
was warm, and the windows were open. In the air was that feeling which
comes to you once a year, in the spring, no matter where you may be, in
a crowded street, or alone in a forest; only once—a feeling like—but I
cannot describe it.
“Eilie was sitting there. If you don't know, sir, I can't tell you
what it means to be near the woman one loves. She was leaning on the
windowsill, staring down into the street. It was as though she might
be looking out for some one. I stood, hardly breathing. She turned
her head, and saw me. Her eyes were strange. They seemed to ask me a
question. But I couldn't have spoken for the world. I can't tell
you what I felt—I dared not speak, or think, or hope. I have been in
nineteen battles—several times in positions of some danger, when the
lifting of a finger perhaps meant death; but I have never felt what
I was feeling at that moment. I knew something was coming; and I was
paralysed with terror lest it should not come!” He drew a long breath.
“The servant came in with a light and broke the spell. All that night
I lay awake and thought of how she had looked at me, with the colour
coming slowly up in her cheeks—
“It was three days before I plucked up courage to go again; and then I
felt her eyes on me at once—she was making a 'cat's cradle' with a bit
of string, but I could see them stealing up from her hands to my face.
And she went wandering about the room, fingering at everything. When her
father called out: 'What's the matter with you, Elie?' she stared at
him like a child caught doing wrong. I looked straight at her then, she
tried to look at me, but she couldn't; and a minute later she went out
of the room. God knows what sort of nonsense I talked—I was too happy.
“Then began our love. I can't tell you of that time. Often and often
Dalton said to me: 'What's come to the child? Nothing I can do pleases
her.' All the love she had given him was now for me; but he was too
simple and straight to see what was going on. How many times haven't I
felt criminal towards him! But when you're happy, with the tide in your
favour, you become a coward at once....”
V
“Well, sir,” he went on, “we were married on her eighteenth birthday. It
was a long time before Dalton became aware of our love. But one day he
said to me with a very grave look:
“'Eilie has told me, Brune; I forbid it. She's too young, and you're—too
old!' I was then forty-five, my hair as black and thick as a rook's
feathers, and I was strong and active. I answered him: 'We shall be
married within a month!' We parted in anger. It was a May night, and
I walked out far into the country. There's no remedy for anger, or,
indeed, for anything, so fine as walking. Once I stopped—it was on a
common, without a house or light, and the stars shining like jewels. I
was hot from walking, I could feel the blood boiling in my veins—I said
to myself 'Old, are you?' And I laughed like a fool. It was the thought
of losing her—I wished to believe myself angry, but really I was afraid;
fear and anger in me are very much the same. A friend of mine, a bit of
a poet, sir, once called them 'the two black wings of self.' And so
they are, so they are...! The next morning I went to Dalton again, and
somehow I made him yield. I'm not a philosopher, but it has often seemed
to me that no benefit can come to us in this life without an equal loss
somewhere, but does that stop us? No, sir, not often....
“We were married on the 30th of June 1876, in the parish church.
The only people present were Dalton, Lucy, and Lucy's husband—a big,
red-faced fellow, with blue eyes and a golden beard parted in two. It
had been arranged that we should spend the honeymoon down at their inn
on the river. My wife, Dalton and I, went to a restaurant for lunch.
She was dressed in grey, the colour of a pigeon's feathers.” He paused,
leaning forward over the crutch handle of his stick; trying to conjure
up, no doubt, that long-ago image of his young bride in her dress “the
colour of a pigeon's feathers,” with her blue eyes and yellow hair, the
little frown between her brows, the firmly shut red lips, opening to
speak the words, “For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in
sickness and in health.”
“At that time, sir,” he went on suddenly, “I was a bit of a dandy. I
wore, I remember, a blue frock-coat, with white trousers, and a grey top
hat. Even now I should always prefer to be well dressed....
“We had an excellent lunch, and drank Veuve Clicquot, a wine that you
cannot get in these days! Dalton came with us to the railway station. I
can't bear partings; and yet, they must come.
“That evening we walked out in the cool under the aspen-trees. What
should I remember in all my life if not that night—the young bullocks
snuffling in the gateways—the campion flowers all lighted up along the
hedges—the moon with a halo-bats, too, in and out among the stems, and
the shadows of the cottages as black and soft as that sea down there.
For a long time we stood on the river-bank beneath a lime-tree. The
scent of the lime flowers! A man can only endure about half his joy;
about half his sorrow. Lucy and her husband,” he went on, presently,
“his name was Frank Tor—a man like an old Viking, who ate nothing but
milk, bread, and fruit—were very good to us! It was like Paradise in
that inn—though the commissariat, I am bound to say, was limited. The
sweetbriar grew round our bedroom windows; when the breeze blew the
leaves across the opening—it was like a bath of perfume. Eilie grew as
brown as a gipsy while we were there. I don't think any man could have
loved her more than I did. But there were times when my heart stood
still; it didn't seem as if she understood how much I loved her.
One day, I remember, she coaxed me to take her camping. We drifted
down-stream all the afternoon, and in the evening pulled into the reeds
under the willow-boughs and lit a fire for her to cook by—though, as a
matter of fact, our provisions were cooked already—but you know how it
is; all the romance was in having a real fire. 'We won't pretend,'
she kept saying. While we were eating our supper a hare came to our
clearing—a big fellow—how surprised he looked! 'The tall hare,' Eilie
called him. After that we sat by the ashes and watched the shadows, till
at last she roamed away from me. The time went very slowly; I got up to
look for her. It was past sundown. I called and called. It was a long
time before I found her—and she was like a wild thing, hot and flushed,
her pretty frock torn, her hands and face scratched, her hair down, like
some beautiful creature of the woods. If one loves, a little thing will
scare one. I didn't think she had noticed my fright; but when we got
back to the boat she threw her arms round my neck, and said, 'I won't
ever leave you again!'
“Once in the night I woke—a water-hen was crying, and in the moonlight
a kingfisher flew across. The wonder on the river—the wonder of the
moon and trees, the soft bright mist, the stillness! It was like another
world, peaceful, enchanted, far holier than ours. It seemed like a
vision of the thoughts that come to one—how seldom! and go if one tries
to grasp them. Magic—poetry-sacred!” He was silent a minute, then went
on in a wistful voice: “I looked at her, sleeping like a child, with her
hair loose, and her lips apart, and I thought: 'God do so to me, if
ever I bring her pain!' How was I to understand her? the mystery
and innocence of her soul! The river has had all my light and all my
darkness, the happiest days, and the hours when I've despaired; and I
like to think of it, for, you know, in time bitter memories fade, only
the good remain.... Yet the good have their own pain, a different kind
of aching, for we shall never get them back. Sir,” he said, turning to
me with a faint smile, “it's no use crying over spilt milk.... In the
neighbourhood of Lucy's inn, the Rose and Maybush—Can you imagine a
prettier name? I have been all over the world, and nowhere found names
so pretty as in the English country. There, too, every blade of grass;
and flower, has a kind of pride about it; knows it will be cared for;
and all the roads, trees, and cottages, seem to be certain that they
will live for ever.... But I was going to tell you: Half a mile from the
inn was a quiet old house which we used to call the 'Convent'—though I
believe it was a farm. We spent many afternoons there, trespassing in
the orchard—Eilie was fond of trespassing; if there were a long way
round across somebody else's property, she would always take it. We
spent our last afternoon in that orchard, lying in the long grass. I was
reading Childe Harold for the first time—a wonderful, a memorable poem!
I was at that passage—the bull-fight—you remember:
“'Thrice sounds the clarion; lo! the signal falls, The din expands, and
expectation mute'
—“when suddenly Eilie said: 'Suppose I were to leave off loving you?' It
was as if some one had struck me in the face. I jumped up, and tried to
take her in my arms, but she slipped away; then she turned, and began
laughing softly. I laughed too. I don't know why....”