ON BIGNOR HILL
They were riding along the top of the South Downs between Singleton and
Arundel, and when they came to where the old Roman road from Chichester
climbs over Bignor Hill, Stella Derrick raised her hand and halted. She
was then nineteen and accounted lovely by others besides Henry Thresk,
who on this morning rode at her side. She was delicately yet healthfully
fashioned, with blue eyes under broad brows, raven hair and a face pale
and crystal-clear. But her lips were red and the colour came easily into
her cheeks.
She pointed downwards to the track slanting across the turf from the brow
of the hill.
"That's Stane Street. I promised to show it you."
"Yes," answered Thresk, taking his eyes slowly from her face. It was a
morning rich with sunlight, noisy with blackbirds, and she seemed to him
a necessary part of it. She was alive with it and gave rather than took
of its gold. For not even that finely chiselled nose of hers could impart
to her anything of the look of a statue.
"Yes. They went straight, didn't they, those old centurions?" he said.
He moved his horse and stood in the middle of the track looking across a
valley of forest and meadow to Halnaker Down, six miles away in the
southwest. Straight in the line of his eyes over a shoulder of the down
rose a tall fine spire--the spire of Chichester Cathedral, and farther on
he could see the water in Bosham Creek like a silver mirror, and the
Channel rippling silver beyond. He turned round. Beneath him lay the blue
dark weald of Sussex, and through it he imagined the hidden line of the
road driving straight as a ruler to London.
"No going about!" he said. "If a hill was in the way the road climbed
over it; if a marsh it was built through it."
They rode on slowly along the great whaleback of grass, winding in and
out amongst brambles and patches of yellow-flaming gorse. The day was
still even at this height; and when, far away, a field of long grass
under a stray wind bent from edge to edge with the swift motion of
running water, it took them both by surprise. And they met no one. They
seemed to ride in the morning of a new clean world. They rose higher on
to Duncton Down, and then the girl spoke.
"So this is your last day here."
He gazed about him out towards the sea, eastwards down the slope to the
dark trees of Arundel, backwards over the weald to the high ridge of
Blackdown.
"I shall look back upon it."
"Yes," she said. "It's a day to look back upon."
She ran over in her mind the days of this last month since he had come to
the inn at Great Beeding and friends of her family had written to her
parents of his coming. "It's the most perfect of all your days here. I am
glad. I want you to carry back with you good memories of our Sussex."
"I shall do that," said he, "but for another reason."
Stella pushed on a foot or two ahead of him.
"Well," she said, "no doubt the Temple will be stuffy."
"Nor was I thinking of the Temple."
"No?"
"No."
She rode on a little way whilst he followed. A great bee buzzed past
their heads and settled in the cup of a wild rose. In a copse beside them
a thrush shot into the air a quiverful of clear melody.
Stella spoke again, not looking at her companion, and in a low voice and
bravely with a sweet confusion of her blood.
"I am very glad to hear you say that, for I was afraid that I had let you
see more than I should have cared for you to see--unless you had been
anxious to see it too."
She waited for an answer, still keeping her distance just a foot or two
ahead, and the answer did not come. A vague terror began to possess her
that things which could never possibly be were actually happening to
her. She spoke again with a tremor in her voice and all the confidence
gone out of it. Almost it appealed that she should not be put to shame
before herself.
"It would have been a little humiliating to remember, if that had
been true."
Then upon the ground she saw the shadow of Thresk's horse creep up until
the two rode side by side. She looked at him quickly with a doubtful
wavering smile and looked down again. What did all the trouble in his
face portend? Her heart thumped and she heard him say:
"Stella, I have something very difficult to say to you."
He laid a hand gently upon her arm, but she wrenched herself free. Shame
was upon her--shame unendurable. She tingled with it from head to foot.
She turned to him suddenly a face grown crimson and eyes which brimmed
with tears.
"Oh," she cried aloud, "that I should have been such a fool!" and she
swayed forward in her saddle. But before he could reach out an arm to
hold her she was upright again, and with a cut of her whip she was off
at a gallop.
"Stella," he cried, but she only used her whip the more. She galloped
madly and blindly over the grass, not knowing whither, not caring,
loathing herself. Thresk galloped after her, but her horse, maddened by
her whip and the thud of the hoofs behind, held its advantage. He settled
down to the pursuit with a jumble of thoughts in his brain.
"If to-day were only ten years on ... As it is it would be madness ...
madness and squalor and the end of everything ... Between us we
haven't a couple of pennies to rub together ... How she rides! ... She
was never meant for Brixton ... No, nor I ... Why didn't I hold my
tongue? ... Oh what a fool, what a fool! Thank Heaven the horses come
out of a livery stable ... They can't go on for ever and--oh, my God!
there are rabbit-holes on the Downs." And his voice rose to a shout:
"Stella! Stella!"
But she never looked over her shoulder. She fled the more desperately,
shamed through and through! Along the high ridge, between the bushes and
the beech-trees, their shadows flitted over the turf, to a jingle of bits
and the thunder of hoofs. Duncton Beacon rose far behind them; they had
crossed the road and Charlton forest was slipping past like dark water
before the mad race came to an end. Stella became aware that escape was
impossible. Her horse was spent, she herself reeling. She let her reins
drop loose and the gallop changed to a trot, the trot to a walk. She
noticed with gratitude that Thresk was giving her time. He too had fallen
to a walk behind her, and quite slowly he came to her side. She turned
to him at once.
"This is good country for a gallop, isn't it?"
"Rabbit-holes though," said he. "You were lucky."
He answered absently. There was something which had got to be said now.
He could not let this girl to whom he owed--well, the only holiday that
he had ever taken, go home shamed by a mistake, which after all she had
not made. He was very near indeed to saying yet more. The inclination was
strong in him, but not so strong as the methods of his life. Marriage
now--that meant to his view the closing of all the avenues of
advancement, and a life for both below both their needs.
"Stella, just listen to me. I want you to know that had things been
different I should have rejoiced beyond words."
"Oh, don't!" she cried.
"I must," he answered and she was silent. "I want you to know," he
repeated, stammering and stumbling, afraid lest each word meant to heal
should only pierce the deeper. "Before I came here there was no one.
Since I came here there has been--you. Oh, my dear, I would have been
very glad. But I am obscure--without means. There are years in front of
me before I shall be anything else. I couldn't ask you to share them--or
I should have done so before now."
In her mind ran the thought: what queer unimportant things men think
about! The early years! Wouldn't their difficulties, their sorrows be the
real savour of life and make it worth remembrance, worth treasuring? But
men had the right of speech. Not again would she forget that. She bowed
her head and he blundered on.
"For you there'll be a better destiny. There's that great house in the
Park with its burnt walls. I should like to see that rebuilt and you in
your right place, its mistress." And his words ceased as Stella abruptly
turned to him. She was breathing quickly and she looked at him with a
wonder in her trouble.
"And it hurts you to say this!" she said. "Yes, it actually hurts you."
"What else could I say?"
Her face softened as she looked and heard. It was not that he was cold of
blood or did not care. There was more than discomfort in his voice, there
was a very real distress. And in his eyes his heart ached for her to see.
Something of her pride was restored to her. She fell at once to his tune,
but she was conscious that both of them talked treacheries.
"Yes, you are right. It wouldn't have been possible. You have your name
and your fortune to make. I too--I shall marry, I suppose, some one"--and
she suddenly smiled rather bitterly--"who will give me a Rolls-Royce
motor-car." And so they rode on very reasonably.
Noon had passed. A hush had fallen upon that high world of grass and
sunlight. The birds were still. They talked of this and that, the
latest crisis in Europe and the growth of Socialism, all very wisely
and with great indifference like well-bred people at a dinner-party.
Not thus had Stella thought to ride home when the message had come that
morning that the horses would be at her door before ten. She had ridden
out clothed on with dreams of gold. She rode back with her dreams in
tatters and a sort of incredulity that to her too, as to other girls,
all this pain had come.
They came to a bridle-path which led downwards through a thicket of trees
to the weald and so descended upon Great Beeding. They rode through the
little town, past the inn where Thresk was staying and the iron gates of
a Park where, amidst elm-trees, the blackened ruins of a great house
gaped to the sky.
"Some day you will live there again," said Thresk, and Stella's lips
twitched with a smile of humour.
"I shall be very glad after to-day to leave the house I am living in,"
she said quietly, and the words struck him dumb. He had subtlety enough
to understand her. The rooms would mock her with memories of vain dreams.
Yet he kept silence. It was too late in any case to take back what he had
said; and even if she would listen to him marriage wouldn't be fair. He
would be hampered, and that, just at this time in his life, would mean
failure--failure for her no less than for him. They must be
prudent--prudent and methodical, and so the great prizes would be theirs.
A mile beyond, a mile of yellow lanes between high hedges, they came to
the village of Little Beeding, one big house and a few thatched cottages
clustered amongst roses and great trees on the bank of a small river.
Thither old Mr. Derrick and his wife and his daughter had gone after the
fire at Hinksey Park had completed the ruin which disastrous speculations
had begun; and at the gate of one of the cottages the riders stopped and
dismounted.
"I shall not see you again after to-day," said Stella. "Will you come in
for a moment?"
Thresk gave the horses to a passing labourer to hold and opened the gate.
"I shall be disturbing your people at their luncheon," he said.
"I don't want you to go in to them," said the girl. "I will say goodbye
to them for you."
Thresk followed her up the garden-path, wondering what it was that she
had still to say to him. She led him into a small room at the back of the
house, looking out upon the lawn. Then she stood in front of him.
"Will you kiss me once, please," she said simply, and she stood with her
arms hanging at her side, whilst he kissed her on the lips.
"Thank you," she said. "Now will you go?"
He left her standing in the little room and led the horses back to the
inn. That afternoon he took the train to London.