I wonder why he doesn't come!”
Peter stepped out of the college-lodge, gazing up and down the cobbled
street.
Harry, always undisturbed and good-natured, laughed. “One can never be
sure of Lorie. Looks as though it was going to rain. P'raps he's put it
off because of that.”
“If he had,” said Peter, “he'd have sent us word.”
For two hours they'd been inventing excuses for the Faun Man. He had
told them to invite a party of their friends and he'd drive them to
London. To go to London without permission was against all rules; but to
ask permission would be useless, since most of the men, like Peter and
Harry, were sitting for their Finals within the next fortnight. That
they were taking a sporting chance of discovery lent a touch of daring
to the excursion.
All of them had risen early and had been ready for the start since
nine. It was nearly eleven. If the Faun Man didn't turn up shortly they
wouldn't have time to cover the sixty odd miles to London and to catch
the last train back. That last train back was very necessary. If they
weren't in college or their lodgings by midnight when doors were locked,
there was no telling what would happen. Probably they'd get sent down,
which would mean that they'd miss their Finals, and would either lose
their degrees or have to wait a year before they were examined.
They were getting fidgety, pulling out and consulting their watches.
Some of them were already saying that it was too late to risk it. A horn
sounded. Peter glanced back from the road into the lodge and shouted,
“Hi, you fellows! Here he comes.”
Round the corner swung the chestnut leaders, tossing their heads and
jingling their bridles. As the wheelers followed and the coach drew into
sight, an exclamation went up, “Why, he isn't----”
They looked again to make certain. No, he wasn't. Instead, a woman sat
on the box, erect and lonely, perched high up, governing the reins with
her small, thin hands. Her trim figure was clad in a dark blue suit,
close-fitting as a riding-habit, with pale blue facings. Her hair was
caught back into a loose knot against her neck and dressed so smoothly
that it shone like metal. The effort of controlling the horses had
brought a flush to her cheeks. Her eyes sparkled with mischief at the
sensation she was creating. She reined in against the pavement, glancing
down provocatively at the group of young men. She looked a goddess,
and had the sense to know it. “Given up hoping for me,” she cried
cheerfully; “is that it?”
Peter nodded. “Pretty nearly. But where's the Faun Man and Cherry? Why
are you driving?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I'll tell you later. Scramble up.”
They scrambled up, filling the roof and joking, all their high spirits
and anticipation recovered.
“Ready.”
The guard sprang away from the leaders' heads and clambered up behind as
the coach started forward.
It was a gray day, with patches of blue gleaming through it, like light
through holes in the roof of a tent. As they passed over Magdalen Bridge
the willows shuddered and stooped above the water, prophesying that rain
was coming. The moisture in the air made colors stand out sudden and
separate. Even sounds seemed accentuated. From farmlands, near and far,
live things called plaintively. Cocks bugled shrill alarms. Cattle waded
restlessly knee-deep in summer meadows. Birds fluttered out of hedges,
as if setting out on journeys; then thought better of it and hastily
returned. Fields lay hushed. In contrast, the sky was torn and rutted.
Clouds lurched forward, black and sullen, like artillery taking up
positions. Detached wisps of mist hurried hither and thither, like
isolated bands of cavalry. Through the brooding stillness the coach
swayed onward. The horses' hoofs rattled as castanet accompaniment to
the laughter of conversation.
At the long, white inn of The Three Pigeons they changed horses, getting
ready for the climb out of the valley past Ashton Rowant. The golden
woman called to Peter to come and sit on the box beside her. She was a
pleased child, patting his hand and smiling down at him side-long as he
took his place. She treated him in public with the same affection that
she used to him in private; she had complained of the Faun Man for
treating her like that. Peter wondered.--Her eyes were immensely blue
and wide this morning. She seemed no older than on that first day when
he had seen her in the white room of the Happy Cottage. He watched her
now, as she leant out with her whip to catch the reins which the ostler
tossed up. How graceful she was, how determinedly young and buoyant!
He touched her. “You were going to tell me why Cherry and the Faun Man
didn't----.”
She broke in upon him. “Was I? Perhaps later. Can't you forget Cherry
just for once? I'm here and--and won't you be content with only me for a
little while, Peter?”
She spoke lightly, with a pretence at wounded feelings, and yet----. He
had piqued her pride. He had noticed it before, especially of late--the
same flippancy of tone and quick turning away of the head when Cherry's
name was mentioned. Harry explained it by saying that she was envious of
any affection given to another woman.
The new team was full of fire--it took all her attention. “So, girl! So!
Steady there. Steady!”
Peter knew these grays; he had heard the Faun Man speak of them,
“Nervous as cats. Take a devil of a lot of holding.” She handled them
like a veteran.
“Golden woman, you're wonderful.”
She shrugged her shoulders coquettishly, raising her brows and laughing
silently. Her eyes were between the leaders' ears on the road in front
of her. “I know. Can't help it, Peter. It's the way I was made.” And
then, “But what an awfully long while you've taken to discover it.”
“I haven't. But where was the good of my telling you? The Faun Man let's
you know it every day of your life.”
She pouted. “He does. But--but that isn't the same.” Green pasture-lands
of the valley were falling away behind. As they rose higher, woods
sprang up, standing tiptoe, drinking in the clouds. The atmosphere grew
more heavy and thunderous. The horses were walking now, scrambling for a
foothold and zigzagging from side to side as they took the steep ascent.
The men dropped off the coach to lighten it and went ahead.
Harry caught hold of Peter's arm. “Where's Lorie? Did she tell you?”
“No. When I ask her, she says, 'Later, perhaps.' Can't get another word
out of her.”
Then Harry saw a great light. “I bet you I've guessed. Something
happened at the last minute to delay him. He's coming over from
Tree-Tops to join us at High Wycombe. He'll be there with Cherry for
lunch. It's because of Cherry, to give you a surprise, that she won't
tell you.” At the top of the hill Peter took his place again beside the
golden woman. He understood her air of mystery now and played up to it.
In an instant all his world had changed. He was going to see Cherry. A
new sparkle came into his eyes. The golden woman noticed it. “Hulloa!
Wakened? What's happened?”
“_You've_ happened,” he said. “You're a topper. You don't mind my saying
it, do you? You're most awfully kind.”
She looked at him curiously. “Am I? What makes you say that?”
“I know what's happened to the Faun Man and Cherry. You can keep your
secret; but I had to thank you.”
“Thank me!” She fell silent.
He talked on in high spirits; it must have been the horses that
suggested Mr. Grace. “He hasn't been so bloomin' prosp'rous
lately--that's his way of putting it--not since Cat's Meat died. He has
to hire his horse and cab now, and doesn't seem to make much profit
out of it. 'Bloodsuckers!' he says. 'I 'as ter give 'em back all I
earns--and that's wot they calls 'iring. Bloodsuckers!'”
As they came down the hill by Dashwood's into High Wycombe, he ceased
talking, casting his eyes ahead. He thought it just possible that Cherry
and the Faun Man might have walked out to meet them. The guard was
sounding his horn in long flourishes. They were in the town now, passing
by the Market-place. Now the coach was drawing up before the hotel. No
one was there to watch them descend except the ostler and some idlers.
He hung about while the horses were taken out; every now and then he
stepped into the road, trying to make himself believe that, if he waited
long enough, he would see the girl with the red lips and gray eyes
hurrying down the street toward him.
Harry came out. “Guessed wrong that time, didn't I? Come along in. We're
having lunch.”
It was absurd, this anxiety that he felt--all out of proportion. And
yet it was always like that when he was going to meet her--it was always
like the first time. He never lost the thrill of choking gladness and
surprise. Each time he discovered something new in her of sweetness,
leaving him amazed at his former blindness.
Harry was speaking to the golden woman. “So they're not coming?”
She crouched her chin against her shoulder, gazing at him innocently and
wide-eyed. “Who?”
“Why, my brother and Cherry. What's the secret? Look here, Eve, you
ought to tell us. I'm certain he sent a message--some sort of an
explanation.”
“Are you?” She gave him a tantalizing smile; then turned to Peter.
“Peter shall know; perhaps before we reach London.”
There was a low rumble, followed by a crash. The rain came smashing
against the panes. They pushed back their chairs and ran to look out.
In an incredibly short time streets were flooded; gutters were turbulent
with muddy rivers. Rain thudded against the pavement and sprayed up in
little fountains.
“Doesn't look to me,” said Harry, “as though we'll ever get as far as
London.”
“Got to,” said the golden woman.
The deluge commenced to slacken, but the storm still hung above
the valley, moaning and grumbling. Rain swept like smoke across the
house-tops.
Harry laughed. “Got to! You can't drive a four-inhand to London through
that. May as well make the best of it. We've to be back in Oxford before
midnight, or else----. Perhaps there's still time to do it. We'll give
it a chance.”
Some of the party burst into the room. “I say, you chaps, we've
discovered a regular circus. Such a rum old cock! Come out and talk to
him!”
The golden woman raised her head. “Why not bring him in here?”
“But we didn't think you'd------.”
She lifted her hands and let them fall despairingly. “You men! How
selfish you are, keeping everything that's vulgar to yourselves!”
Scuffling sounded in the passage and a voice booming protests, “Not like
this! It ain't fitting. Not before a lady.”
A red-faced sailor, in the loose blouse and baggy trousers of the
Royal Navy, was pushed through the doorway. In a deep bass voice he
immediately commenced to excuse himself. “Not my fault, miss.” He tugged
at an imaginary lock on his forehead. “I'm Mr. Taylor, I am--'ome on
a 'oliday, tryin' to find a nice gal wot'll appreciate my h'un-doubted
fine qualities.”
The golden woman stretched back her neck, half-closed her eyes and
chuckled. “Are you sure you have any, Mr. Taylor?”
The man fumbled at his cap. “Used to 'ave--used to sing terrible.”
“Sing terribly for me now, won't you?”
He struck an attitude, flattered by the request, and hitched up his
trousers. It was a ballad of betrayed maidenhood that he sang, solemn as
a dirge and intended to be hugely affecting. It told of the home-coming,
with her two babies, of a girl whose sweetheart had deserted her. It had
a chorus in which, with an unhappy wag of his head, the sailorman signed
to his audience to join:
“Go ring those village bells,
Let all the people know,
It was on a dark and stormy night,
One, two, three--perished in the snow.”
When they came to the enumerating of precisely how many perished, they
stuck out their fingers three times. But some of them weren't content
with only three deaths in one family; they wanted to go on counting.
Then the sailorman would stop singing and reprove them gently, “You
know, young gen'lemen, that ain't right. It ain't fitting to joke on
death.”
At last it occurred to him that something was amiss. “I'm afraid I'm
a-makin' a fool of meself.”
“Don't mention it, Mr. Taylor,” they shouted.
Their answer didn't reassure him, though they hurled it at him in
varying keys many times. He insisted on leaving, making his exit
backward because he had heard that a gentleman must always keep his face
toward a lady.
The rain was over. The sky had a sorry look for having been petulant.
The sun, though he still refused to come out, hung golden ladders from
the clouds. They stepped into the street, gazing up and feeling the air
with their hands.
“What about it?” asked Harry.
“Why, of course we're going,” said the golden woman. Her eyes met
Peter's; they seemed to beg him not to call off, but to accompany her.
Why was she so insistent about getting him to London? Who was waiting
there? Why wouldn't she tell him anything about the Faun Man or Cherry?
He calculated how long the drive would take. They were not quite
half-way. If they continued the journey they'd barely catch that last
train back. Again he recognized the appeal in her eyes.
“What about it? What do you say, Peter?”
“I? Why, I'm game. I'm going.”
Some of the men refused. The party was reduced to six when they started.
What a wet clean world they entered! It had all been made new and,
somehow, tender. The spray of rain was still in the air; it swept
against their faces coolly, vanished unexplained, and touched them again
without warning. In meadows and tree-tops there was a continual muffled
patter, as of little unseen people treading softly. From the back seats
came bursts of laughter and snatches of song, mimicking Mr. Taylor's
impressive chorus:
“It was on a dark and stormy night,
One, two, three--perished in the snow.”
The golden woman bent her head aside, “Tryin' to find a nice gal wot'll
appreciate my undoubted fine qualities! That's what all you men are
doing.”
“Oh, I don't know.”
“Yes, you are, from the minute you put on long trousers to the last
moment when you step into the grave. Men don't find her often; when they
do, as likely as not she doesn't want them.”
“I know a little about that,” said Peter; “so does Lorie. Women aren't
very kind to the men who love them.”
“Oh, aren't they!” She flicked at the leaders so that they leapt like
stags. “You're young; you need civilizing. You don't know nothin', as
that sailorman would say. How many marriages are made for love? They're
made because women are kind. Many a woman marries because she can listen
to a man talking all about himself without letting him see that she is
bored by it. Happiness is the only reality; and love--love's almost,
almost a delusion.”
Peter looked at her quietly. She could say jaded things like that
when she was made so beautifully--when everyone turned to look after
her--when the finest man in the world would give his life to save her
from pain! What had God done with the years of her life? She never
looked any older. And she wasn't grateful. Perhaps, after all, Harry was
right--all her goodness had been put into the perfection of her body,
and her soul had suffered.
She was aware that his eyes rested on her in judgment. She tried to
refrain from the impulse. Turning, she flashed on him a sudden smile.
“Too bad to say things like that to you--you who hope for so much from
life! What's the trouble?”
“I was thinking.”
“Thinking?”
He spoke slowly, “That love only seems a delusion to people who refuse
to be loving.”
A common-land sprang up; geese wandered across it. Evening was falling
early, washing colors from the landscape, blurring everything with its
watery light. The sky stooped near to earth, threatening to tumble,
monstrous with bulging clouds.
They drew up at the inn at Gerrard's Cross. Peter climbed down to
stretch his legs while the horses were being changed. He found his
friends gathered about a timetable, peering over the shoulders of the
man who held it.
“We're not going to manage it,” one was saying. “There's another storm
brewing. Besides, we're not making haste--going as leisurely as if we
had all the day before us. Nothing for it, we'll have to drop off and go
back by train.”
“There's a train leaving here in half an hour,” said the man who held
the time-table. “I'm going to catch it. Getting sent down just before
your Finals isn't good enough.” Harry interrupted. “Before we decide
anything, we'd better go out and speak to her.”
The case was explained to the golden woman. They were most awfully
sorry. It wasn't very gallant conduct on their part; but what other
choice had they? Wouldn't she leave the horses and the guard at the inn,
and come back with them to Oxford? Or could they see her on the train
to Paddington? Having told the guard to go on with the harnessing, she
listened to them quietly. When they had finished she said, “Peter and
I are going to drive to London. You're willing to take a chance, aren't
you, Peter?”
He broke into his boyish laugh. “It'll be sport. I'll chance it.”
As the coach moved off he turned and waved to the others, who stood
watching from the common. The guard from his back seat, raising the
horn, gave them a farewell flourish. In his heart of hearts Peter wished
that he were among them. But----. Well, the golden woman had a secret.
She was going to tell it to him. It had something to do with Cherry. And
it wouldn't have been decent to have left her to finish the drive
alone to London. He'd get the last train back from Paddington, barring
accidents.
She was speaking to him. “That's better. At last we're alone together.”
“Do you think we'll do it?” he asked. .
“Do what?”
“Get there in time.”
She drew her brows together. “Peter, Peter, what does it matter? You
take life so seriously.”
They laughed.
“What are you going to do with it?” she asked. He looked puzzled. “With
life, I mean,” she added.
“Don't know. It depends.”
“On what?”
“People,” he answered vaguely, taking care to avoid mentioning Cherry.
“I may travel for a year. Perhaps Kay will come with me. After that I'm
going into my father's business.”
The golden woman's face became grave; beneath its gravity was a flame of
excitement. Her voice trembled and reached him softly. “That's not what
I meant. That's not doing anything with life. Those things are
incidents--externals. I meant, are you going to live life, or are you
going to miss everything? Life's an ocean, full of enduring, dotted with
a few islands. Are you going to be an explorer--or are you going to miss
everything?”
Odd that she, of all persons, should have asked him that! He remembered
how Harry had said that she was a ship, always setting sail for new
lands and never coming to anchor.
“An explorer! I'll first see the islands.”
A strand of her hair broke loose and fluttered about her eyes. “I can't
put it back,” she said. “I wish you'd do it.” Her hands were occupied
with the reins. He leant across her. As his face came under hers, she
held her breath. To him it was nothing. The horses, feeling her hands go
slack, broke into a gallop; for a moment she lost control of them. When
she had quieted them, she turned to him impulsively, “Peter, you're a
darling.” Her eyes held his with an expression of appeal and challenge;
then faltered, as though they were afraid to look at him.
Her excitement communicated itself. He was embarrassed. He didn't
understand. He guessed that she was in trouble and was asking for his
kindness. “Golden woman, how easily you and I say things like that. If
Cherry had said it to me, or if you had said it to the Faun Man, how
much more----.”
She cut him short. “Don't.”
They had traveled half a mile in silence, when she whispered, “It wasn't
easily said.”
In the west, behind them, the sky began to burn. Little tongues of flame
licked the edges of black clouds. Mists writhed and drove across the
sinking sun. Peter stood up in his seat, looking back; it was a glimpse
of hell. He glanced ahead--everything over there was blackness. Trees
looked blasted; they bowed their heads. Roads and fields were empty.
There was no life, no color in the meadows.
“We're in for it,” he said.
Rain began to patter, softly at first. Wind was getting up and breathed
across the country in a long sigh. He spread a coat across the golden
woman's shoulders. She didn't thank him. Gathering the reins more firmly
in her hands, she whipped up the horses.
Their heads were bent together. Behind them, out of ear-shot on the
back-seat, the guard huddled. She spoke. “We're going to be late. I
intended we should be late. I wanted to get rid of the others. I knew
that you'd stick by me.”
And again she said, “You were talking of women not being kind.---- Men
aren't kind to the women who love them.”
She had changed. Her face had sharpened out of its contentment. Usually
its expression was lazy and laughing, but now----. Pain had come into
it. It was intense and thin with purpose; it was purpose she had always
lacked. He tried to find a word for the new thing that he found in
her. Was it only the distortion that the storm was working? A flash of
lightning slit the heavens; it ripped the clouds like a red-hot blade.
A shattering crash! The dynamite of the gods exploding! Darkness came
down. Another flash! Trees leant forward, like fugitives with arms
extended. And she--her face was white and dominant. It looked beautiful
and Medusa-like--snakes of loosened hair blew about it. She no longer
crouched her head. She sat tall and defiant, the rain splashing down
on her. What strength she had in her hands! She held in the quivering
horses, speaking to them now harshly, now caressingly. They pricked up
their ears, listening for her voice. He found the word for the new thing
that had come to her. It was passion.
“Come nearer. What did you mean when you told me you had guessed my
secret?”
“The Faun Man----”
She took him up. “Yes, Lorie--he and I had our first quarrel this
morning. We've both wasted our lives, waiting for something--something
that could never happen.”
“Why never?”
“Because I can't bring myself to--not in his way. He told me this
morning----. It doesn't matter what he told me. It hurt me to hear him
speak like that, so strongly and quietly and sadly. Lorie and I, we've
drifted--let life slip by. We've wakened; we're tired.” Then, like a
child, appealing against injustice. “He said I hadn't a heart--that
I was made of stone, not like other women. It's not true that I'm
different--is it, Peter?” And again, “Is it, Peter?” And then, “It hurt
to be blamed for not giving--giving what would be his to take, if he
were the right man.”
“The right man! That's what Cherry says. How does a woman know who is
the right man?”
She avoided a direct answer. “The right man is always born too late
or too early; or else he's wasting himself on someone who doesn't want
him.”
It was a city of the dead that they were entering. Rain swept the
streets in sudden and vindictive volleys. Lamps shone weakly; some were
extinguished. Few people were about. At Ealing they halted for their
last change.
“Won't be goin' any further?” the guard suggested.
When he was informed to the contrary, he glanced up at the drenched
faces. He seemed to see a thing that startled him. “Blime!” While he
hurried the ostlers with the harnessing, he tried not to look at those
white patches in the dusk; his eyes returned to them, unwillingly
fascinated. When he had released the leaders' heads, he stepped back and
swung himself up behind as the coach lunged into the storm.
There was barely time to reach Paddington. Peter calculated. If he
missed the train, the consequences would be grave. He asked the golden
woman to hurry. She listened, but made no attempt to quicken their pace.
She didn't seem at all disturbed by his dilemma. He almost suspected
her of holding in the horses. Too late to leave her now! As they trotted
through the premature night, he began to ask himself questions. Why had
she been so determined to finish the journey? Why had she shown such
eagerness to be alone with him?
He leant forward. “Where's Lorie?”
“In London.”
“And Cherry?”
She tossed her head impatiently, “With you, it's always Cherry.”
“Well then, Lorie--is he going to meet us?”
“If he does, what difference will it make?”
“To me? Not much. But to you--you'll know then, and you'll be happy.”
“Shall I?”
Her indifference spurred him into earnestness. From differing points of
view, the golden woman and Cherry used the same arguments. If he could
convince her, he could perhaps convince Cherry. In fighting for the Faun
Man, it was his own battle he was fighting.
“You don't know yourself, golden woman--you don't know his value. He's
become a habit--you'll miss him terribly. He's been too extravagant in
the giving of himself. He's made you selfish. If you were to lose him,
if suddenly from giving you everything, he were to give you nothing-----”
Her voice reached him bitterly. “That's what he threatens--to starve me
after giving me everything. He didn't say it in those words, but----.
What do I care?”
“You do care. You're caring now. All day long you've been caring. If he
isn't there to meet us----.”
“I shall be glad.”
“You won't.” He spoke eagerly. “You won't. To-night you may think you'll
be glad, but to-morrow--to-morrow you'll be without him. Just think,
you've kept him marking time all these years. He's expected and
expected. You've banked on him--felt safe because of him. You're
foolish. You can't cheat at the game of life--you can't even cheat
yourself; in the end you're bound to play fair.”
She didn't answer.
“You won't be glad if he's not there.”
Silence.
“Is he going to meet us?”
“If he doesn't---- She went no further.
“Will Cherry be there?”
Her face flashed down on him, white and stabbing. “_Again_. Always
Cherry.”
Later she whispered, “Forgive me, Peter.”
Without a word, they passed through tunnels of muted houses. The sky
closed down on them. The rain drew a curtain about them. The slap of the
horses' hoofs upon the paving started echoes. Traffic slipped by them
spectrelike, as if moving in another world. Now it was between shuttered
shops of Regent Street that they trotted. At last Trafalgar Square, vast
and chaotic, a pagan temple from which the roof had fallen!
They strained forward from the box, searching through the darkness. From
the entrance to The Métropole light streamed across the pavement. It was
the end of their journey. As the horn sounded, a man stepped out from
shelter. For a moment--but no; he had only been sent to take the coach
to the stables. As they clattered to a standstill, several guests came
out on to the steps of the hotel to watch them. The guard climbed down
and ran to the leaders' heads. No one was there to greet them--no one
who was familiar.
She laughed high up, excitedly, “What did I tell you?”
“Not there,” he agreed reluctantly; “neither of them.” She touched his
hand and caught her breath. “As I said--neither of them care. You
and I--we're still alone.” He was sorry for her, guessing her
disappointment. Had Lorie been there it would have spelt forgiveness.
Big Ben boomed ten. He started. “Hulloa! I'm dished. I can't get back.”
“You're not going back? You don't want to leave me? Say you don't.”
He was embarrassed. He didn't know what to make of her. She was on his
hands; he ought to be in Oxford. Evidently she had been harder hit than
she acknowledged. He tried to speak cheerfully. “Look here, it's time we
became sensible. That chap's waiting for us to scramble down--he wants
to take the horses. Let's go into the hotel. I'll engage a room for
you--high time you got those wet things off. Nice little mess we've made
of it! When I've seen you settled, I'll toddle off to Topbury and spend
the night with my people.”
“Will you?”
She glanced at him slantingly. To his immense surprise, she brought the
whip down smartly across the horses. As the leaders darted forward the
guard, taken unaware, was thrown off his balance. As Peter looked
back through the steaming mist, he saw him picking himself up from the
pavement, waving his arms and shouting.
Utterly bewildered by her shifting moods, he turned to her, “You've left
that chap behind.---- I wish you'd tell me what the game is. I don't
want you to drive me to Topbury and, anyhow, the Embankment's all out of
the direction.”
“I'm not driving you to Topbury, stupid.”
He spoke more sternly, “Seriously, you must tell me. You've brought me
to London and--by Jove, I almost believe you tried to make me miss my
train. It isn't sporting. Why don't you turn back to The Métropole. I'll
get you a room and----.”
“Too many people to see us,” she said shortly.
He had only one means of stopping her--to catch hold of the reins. Too
risky! He gazed about him, wondering what to do. They were traversing
the Embankment--it was empty save for outcasts huddled on benches like
corpses. The night looked sodden. The river gleamed murkily. Lights on
bridges, hanging like chains, shone obscurely.
She was mocking him in low caressing tones. “You don't want to leave me?
Say you don't.”
The odd repetition of the question struck him. He had missed its first
significance. It couldn't be! He pressed nearer, peering into her
face. He caught the hungry pleading in her eyes--the mad defiance. “You
mean----? You never meant----. Eve, you're too good a woman.”
She halted the horses, and gazed down on him smilingly. She shook
her head slowly, denying his assertion of her goodness. “You hadn't
guessed?”
“Guessed!” He drew himself upright. The passion in her voice appalled
him.
Her arms went about him; cold wet lips were pressing his mouth. “You
dear boy-man! You dear boy-man!”
He thrust her from him. He was choking. Her lips--they scorched him. He
had seen in all women's faces the likeness to his mother's and Kay's.
But now----.
A bedraggled creature, in tattered finery, with a broken plume nodding
evilly across her forehead, struggled from a bench, shuffled across
the pavement and whined up at him. He took no notice. He tried not
to believe what had been meant. Through their nervous silence trees
shuddered; the muffled skirmish of the rain thudded.
The golden woman was watching him. A gleam of hatred in her eyes at
first--the reflection of his own loathing. Then, as pity replaced his
loathing, a look of horror spread. She sank her face in her hands; her
fingers locked and twisted. She looked like one who had become sane, and
remembered her madness. “What am I? What have I done?” She whispered the
questions over and over; the storm beat down upon her shoulders. He sat
like one turned to stone, not daring to touch her, powerless to put his
pity into words.---- And of this the bedraggled street-walker, whining
up from the pavement, was sole witness.
A policeman tramped heavy-footed out of the distance. “'Ere you, none
o' that. 'Urry along.” This to the streetwalker. To the golden woman,
“H'anything the matter with the 'osses, me lady?”
She came to herself. The street-walker was limping into the shadows. Her
eyes followed her with fascination. She felt for her purse; not finding
it, she commenced unfastening the brooch that was at her neck. Seeing
her intention, Peter put his hand in his pocket. She stayed him with an
impatient gesture.
Calling to the woman, she leant down from the box and said something.
The policeman waited stolidly. He repeated his question, “H'anything the
matter with the 'osses, me lady?”
“No.”
She swung the coach round. There was no explanation.
Of that wild drive back through the night Peter saved but a blurred
remembrance. Scarcely a word was spoken--there was nothing that could be
said. After they had struck the open country, they went at a gallop most
of the journey. Every now and then they drew up at a darkened inn.
He climbed down from the box and hammered on a closed door. A window
opened. A rapid explanation. Grumbling. Sleepy men appeared, only partly
dressed, carrying lanterns. Horses were taken out and a fresh team
harnessed. As the dawn came up, pale and haggard, he saw her face; it
was hard-lipped and ashen. He would never forget it. Every year showed.
The golden hair had broken loose; it was the only young thing left. She
was no longer the golden woman; he drove that night beside the figure of
repentance.
Hills taken cruelly at a gallop! Cocks crowing! Unawakened towns! The
waking country! He pieced her into his experience. What was it that
women wanted? To be married and not to be married? To accept the
flattery of being loved and not to return it? Riska, his Aunt Jehane,
Glory, Cherry--all the women he had known--they passed before him. He
tried to read their eyes. Their heads were bowed; all that he could
learn of them was the pathetic frailty of their bodies.
Marching through the meadows came Oxford, its spires indomitably pointed
against the clouds. Now they were traveling the austere length of High
Street. At Carfax they turned. On Folly Bridge they drew up.
She had brought him back. He wanted to say something generous.
“Lorie, he loves you. If he asks you again----”
She nodded. “If he asks me,” she said brokenly.
He walked along the edge of the river, golden in the early summer's
morning, silver with mists curling from off it. He plunged in at a point
opposite the Calvary barge. As he swam, he looked back. From the coach,
high on the arch of the bridge, her eyes followed him. Just before he
landed, she raised the whip; the horses strained forward.
Running through the meadows, he came to the wall which went about
Calvary, found a foothold and dropped safely over. After he had
undressed, he hid his dripping clothing. He was in bed and sleeping
soundly, when later in the morning his scout came to wake him.