THE RIDE HOME.
When Julian Crymes had departed, it appeared to Anthony that the dance
had lost its principal charm, and he wearied of it.
"Come, Urith," said he; "I think we will go. It is late." This was
almost the only time he had spoken to her since the opening dance.
"I am ready," she answered; "have been for two hours."
He went forth to see after the horse, and had it brought round to the
door. He took his place in the saddle, and Urith sat behind him. They
rode forth from the grounds into the high road, along which their course
lay for a mile and a half, after which it diverged over moor. Anthony
did not speak, and Urith remained equally silent. She had her hand on
his belt, and he felt the pressure. He was vexed with her; she had not
done him credit that evening. She was uncouth, and unfit to associate
with people accustomed to social intercourse--unable to take a part in
the amusements such as is expected of every young person. She was
decently dressed, but without richness and refinement of taste, and in
an old-fashioned gown that had been her mother's. The blood rushed into
his head as he thought of how folks must have laughed at him and her
when she failed in the opening dance. She was the bride of the evening;
every one was prepared to concede to her the place of pre-eminence, but
she had shown herself wholly incapable of occupying the place offered
her. Then how uninteresting she had appeared beside the other girls
present! Their faces had been radiant with mirth, hers dull with
discontent and ill-humour.
What if he had appeared there with Julian as his bride? How different
all would have been! She would have been well, handsomely dressed, and
in all the inherited jewelry of the Glanvilles. She would not have sat a
whole evening mum against the wall. She would have shown herself queen
of the revel. A warm breath, sweet as if laden with gorse essence,
fanned his face at the thought, and was followed at once by a sharp and
icy blast. Julian had been refused by him with all her wealth, her rank,
her accomplishments, her beauty, and what had he acquired instead?
How could he have supposed that Urith was devoid of all those feminine
delicacies of manner which enable a woman to place herself at ease in
all society? She had thrown a cold, wet blanket over his joy on this
first coming forth into the world from his seclusion at Willsworthy.
Then Anthony went on spinning at the same dark thread of ideas. He asked
himself what there was in Urith that had attracted him, why it was that
he had been so infatuated as to throw his luck to the winds so as to
possess her. When the head begins to reckon, then the heart is on the
way to bankruptcy.
He counted over the advantages he had rejected, measured the sacrifices
he had made for Urith's love, and he asked what she could throw into the
scale to outweigh all this?
His hand twitched the bridle, and made the horse toss his head and
plunge.
Urith also was occupied with her own thoughts. It had been a relief to
her to get away from the laughter and music and revelry of Wringworthy;
she thought that, could she be away from the heated room and swaling
candles, in the cool night air, under the stars, her tranquillity of
mind would return. But it was not so. Anthony's silence, her sense of
having offended him by her clumsiness, her dread lest his love for her
should be cooling; above all, the haunting spectre of a fear lest Julian
should be fulfilling her threat, and be weaning from her the heart of
her husband, followed her, and filled her blood with fever. But she
strove against this fear, fought it with all the weapons at her command.
It was impossible that his love, so strong, so unselfish, which had cost
him so much, should evaporate, and that his heart should sway about like
a weathercock. The resolution wherewith he had pursued his end, that
proved him to have a strong character, and not one that is turned about
in every direction.
He had some excuse for being out of humour. He was proud of her. He had
desired to let all see what a woman he had got as his wife. He was
disappointed, and the depth of his disappointment was the measure of
his pride in her.
But then there rose up before her mind the picture of Julian on
Anthony's arm, with burning cheeks and bright eyes, looking up in his
face, and his eyes resting upon her with a warmth that should be in them
only when fixed on the face of his wife. Did she not know that glow in
his countenance? That fire in his eye? Had he not looked at her in the
same way before they were married?
"Do you intend to drag me off my horse?" asked Anthony, "that you pull
at my belt so roughly?"
"And you, that you draw the rein so short and make the mare rear?"
Urith knew nothing of the world. It had ever seemed to her inconceivable
that after the bond and seal of marriage the thought of either should
stray; that any one should dare to dream of loving a man who was pledged
in heart and mind and soul to another woman. Yet Julian as much as told
her she still loved Anthony, would use all her fascinations to draw him
to her and away from his wife. Was Anthony so weak that his conscience
would suffer him to be thus attracted from the place of duty? No--a
thousand times, no. He was not so feeble, so lacking in moral strength
as this.
They had turned off the high road upon the moor. Here was no stoned
road, no road that lay white in the darkness before them, but turf, by
daylight recognisable as a road by hoof marks, and the fret of feet over
the turf. By night it could be followed only by observing stones set up
at intervals and capped with whitewash. Stones had been picked off the
roadway and thrown on one side, so that the turf was smooth almost as a
racecourse. The head of the horse was turned now somewhat easterly. The
sky above the rugged moor range was silvery, and from behind a rocky
crest rose the moon, doubled in size by the haze that hung over the
moor, and seemed like a mighty flame of the purest white light.
"There, there!" said Urith. "Do you see, Anthony; the moon is up above
that old Lyke Way, along which we made our first journey together."
She disengaged her hand from his belt, and put it round his waist.
He raised his head and looked away to the east, at the ridge of moor
and rock, black against the glittering orb. He remembered then how he
had mounted her on his horse--how he had stood by her and looked into
her eyes! He recalled the strange magic that had then come over him--a
longing for her, mingled with a presentiment of evil--a fear lest she
were drawing him on to destruction. That fear was verified--she had
lured him on to his ruin. He was a ruined man; he had lost all that he
valued--the esteem of his fellows, the comforts and luxuries of life.
Then began again the odious and monotonous enumeration of the sacrifices
he had made.
Why did Urith remind him of that ride? Did she want to find occasion to
reproach him? Was it not enough that he was scourging himself with the
whips of his own thoughts for his precipitate folly in marrying her?
But Urith was not at that moment thinking of reproach. She breathed moor
air, was beyond hedges and enclosures, in the open, vast, uncultivated
heather-land, and there her brain had cooled, and her heart had
recovered composure. The atmosphere was other than that of a ball-room,
which had filled her with intoxication, and had bred phantoms that had
affrighted her.
As he rode on, with the light of the rising moon on his face, Anthony
felt the pressure of Urith's hand below his heart. The pressure was
slight, and yet it weighed heavy on him, and interfered with his
breathing; that light hand, as it rose and fell with the motion of the
horse, and at each inhalation, seemed to strike reproachfully against
his side, to knock, and bid him open to better thoughts.
How was it that he was so changed--that he, who had forced himself on
the reluctant Urith, had not let her alone till she had yielded to his
persistency to precipitate the marriage--that he should be trying to
shift the blame on her? If he had made sacrifices to win her, she had
not invited him to do so; he had done it with his eyes open--he had done
it moved by no other influence, urged by his own caprice solely.
It had never occurred to him that Urith had made sacrifices on her part;
that he had demanded them of her, and given her no rest till they were
made. He had made her marry him against her conscience and wishes, too
quickly after her mother's death, and against her mother's dying
orders. But he considered that what was done could not be undone, that
as he had made his bed, so must he lie, as he had laden himself, so he
must trudge. What then was the use of repining, and fretting over the
past?
"Yet--it was the Lyke Way," he said, in a low tone, "the way of death,
on which we set our feet together."
"No," she said, "not altogether." She released her hand from his heart,
and placed it on the arm that held the bridle. "Stay the mare a moment,
Tonie."
"Why?"
"I have something to tell you."
"Can you not say it as we ride on--it is late?"
"No--stay the mare."
He drew rein.
"Well--what is it?" he asked, a little impatiently.
She looked round.
"We are quite alone?"
"Yes--of course--who else could be here?"
Then she put her hand on his shoulder. "Turn your ear to me, Tonie. I
will not say it aloud."
He did as required. But she did not speak for a few moments.
He showed signs of impatience.
Then she gathered resolution, and whispered something into his ear; only
a word or two, but he started, and turned in his saddle.
"What! Urith--is it true?"
"I must not ride with you more after to-night," she said, and her eyes
fell.
Then he put his arm round her, and drew her to him, and kissed her on
one cheek, then on the other, then on her mouth, and laughed aloud.
"Hold tight!" he said. "Put both arms round me, both hands on my heart!
O Urith! Urith! What will my father say when he knows this? He will
relent. He must."