When Mr. Ellington turned once more to the sea, after Mary Casely had
passed out of sight, the look of things had somehow altered in his eyes.
He went to the edge of the rocks, and looked down on the short ripples
that broke into whiteness below him. He was taken with the beauty of the
clear green water that moved over the shallows, and he found himself
watching the swift changes of shade caused by the passage of the light
breeze with something like active interest. The ragworts and the wild
geraniums made a yellow and purple fretwork all around him, and the
colour gave him a sense of keen gladness. He faced round and entered the
quivering gloom of the woods again, but his step on the gravel was sharp
and firm. Every faculty of him seemed to have waked. A blackbird bugled
cheerily in the underwood, and Ellington felt a strange thrill. He
reached the Hall, and sat down to wait for the dressing-bell, but the
hour before dinner, usually so heavy to him, went by briskly. During
dinner he made no attempt at sustained conversation, yet he answered his
grandfather's few short questions with a ready cheerfulness and fluency
which made the old man regard him with narrowed eyes.
When the night came fairly on, he sat looking out of his window into the
scented darkness. Had you asked him what he was thinking of, he could
not have told you, yet I suppose something unusual must have been
passing through his mind, for, when he had finally risen with a sigh of
content to close the window, he stepped up to the looking-glass and
regarded himself with curiosity. Once he smiled, as if by way of
practice, and then a sudden sense of shame seemed to come over him, for
he reddened and turned away. Most people will be able to guess what
ailed him, but he himself did not know at the time.
The week went away but slowly. On the Wednesday evening the old Squire
said: "You'll go over to Branspath to-morrow morning early. Richards
will drive you in, and you must call on Chernside and tell him I wish to
see him in the afternoon about Gibson's lease. He'll know what you
mean." The young man shifted uneasily. "Couldn't you send a note by
Richards?" He felt his face hot as he asked the question.
"Well, yes, I could, if I chose, but I want Richards to order a few
things in the High Street. He'll pick you up when you've done with
Chernside." At two o'clock next day young Mr. Ellington was back again
at the Hall. As he stepped down from the dog-cart, Richards pointed to
the horse. "I doubt we've done him some harm, Sir. Forty-five minutes
from the High Moor--the black mare couldn't do it no quicker. Matchem
here hasn't been driven for three weeks now." The horse was drooping his
head, the lather slid down his flanks,--so I fancy there had been hard
going.
The young Squire gave an indifferent look and hurried indoors. Within an
hour he was walking rather quickly toward the sea, without one sign of
the dreaminess that overweighed him when last he took the same road.
Presently (he knew it would come) a firm step came over the gravel, and
his heart went fast. Before he had got rid of his momentary dimness of
sight, he found himself obliged to stammer out something: "You managed
the wicket by yourself this time." The girl laughed brightly. Ellington
felt bound to go on speaking--
"You are going over to the Dene?"
"Yes; I think I'll take the short cut through the Ride."
"I think, if you don't mind, we may as well go by the Three
Plantations." He said "we" with the utmost ease, and, noticing no sign
of dissent, he walked on by the side of the girl, and a new chapter of
his life began.
Neither of them could tell exactly how they came to be walking together,
yet each of them would have been disappointed had it not fallen out so.
Neither of them had made a definite resolve to meet the other, but the
girl had made most calculations on the event. Within a month from that
day the pair were strolling under the gloom of the firs in the Three
Plantations. This time young Mr. Ellington had his arm round his
companion's waist; her tall figure was leaned towards him.
They were talking low, and the rustling sound of their whispers echoed a
little beneath the sombre arch of the trees.
They came to the little bridge which crossed the head of the Dean, and
then he took both her hands and said, "Now, good-bye; to-morrow at the
high end of the New Plantation." They had got to daily meetings within
that short month.
"I'll be there. You won't mind if I'm a bit behind time? Sometimes they
want me, and I don't care for my father to ask where I'm going."
"I've promised to wait for you, darling, half a lifetime, if need be.
Why should I grudge an hour?"
This question was not articulately answered, but the reply was
satisfactory. Then the couple parted.
So it happened that in a few brief weeks this quiet young man had
drifted into a disgraceful intrigue. He did not think it disgraceful,
because he had not reflected at all. The future was barred to him, and
he lived from one day to another content with the joy that the day
brought. He had made promises with rash profusion, and his promises had
been believed. Further and further he had been drawn, till the fire of
his blood made him fancy that he was proceeding voluntarily.
To Mary Casely the whole affair seemed quite natural. She knew nothing
about the pitiful stories of village maidens which make so much of the
stock of fiction. She had never read a story, so she fancied that her
secret meetings were part of the fixed order of life. She happened to
have a sweetheart who dressed well and spoke beautifully, and that was
all the difference between her and other girls. Besides this, she was a
singularly determined young woman. She had made up her mind to marry the
young Squire; he in his folly had given no single hint of the vast, the
insuperable difficulties that lay in the way; and so the bitter business
went on.
The summer passed into autumn, and late November came. Such an affair as
that of Mary Casely and the young Squire could not be long kept out of
the reach of acrid village gossip. Once or twice, as young Ellington
walked out of church from the pew by the chancel, he fancied he saw the
gardeners and farm-people looking at him with intelligence, and he felt
something catching at his throat.
When December came in, his misery had grown to acuteness. His old
passive wretchedness had given way to a settled nervous dread which wore
the brightness from his comely face.
One grey afternoon he took the old road to the sea again. The wind was
crying drearily, and the trees creaked as they swayed to each swift
gust. He shivered when he came in sight of the sea, for the low sky was
leaden. The very foam looked dull. Every few seconds came a muffled
boom, as a roller shattered itself against the rocks, and a tower of
spray shot up and fell on the sodden grass.
The wild flowers were gone, and the bents bowed themselves cheerlessly.
How many things else were gone! How many things else were cheerless!
He turned round when he could bear waiting no longer, and prepared to
carry his miseries home. Something ill must have happened. At the bluff
of the shrubbery where he had first seen Mary pass out of sight he heard
a step, but it was not that sharp, steady step he had learnt to know so
well. He was face to face with Mr. Casely. It had come at last. For
weeks he had foreshadowed this meeting in his dreams, and the fear had
so worked on him that he had learned a trick of glancing suddenly over
his shoulder. Casely looked steadily down at the young Squire for a time
that seemed long, and then, unclenching his tense jaw, said quietly--
"It wasn't me you were expecting to meet."
"I didn't expect to meet you. No; how do you come to be passing this
way?"
"I've been up to the Hall seeing your grandfather. You know what I've
been for very near as well as I do. And now I have to talk to you. Speak
straight, or I'll break you in two across my knee."
Ellington was not more of a coward than other men. But he didn't heed
the threat. His grandfather know. Nothing else was in his stunned mind.
He stood staring--unable to get a word past his lips. Casely spoke,
louder--
"What ails you? Have I to hit you?"
Then the young fellow found his voice.
"I wish you would. I wish you would kill me where I stand. I'm all in
the wrong, and I have no right to answer you. It began well--I mean, I
meant no harm. Never any man dared offer one of us a blow before, but it
has come to that now. I wouldn't lift a hand to stop you. I haven't an
excuse to give you."
"A nice thing it is for your father's son to be standing slavering there
and cowering to me like a whelp. I don't despise you for it, for I know
what you mean; but isn't it bonny? You haven't an excuse! Have you
nothing else--not a promise like them you've made to the lass?"
"I'd marry her now, but I know it would be a hundred thousand times
worse for her than if she married a common sailor man. I'm past
wretchedness. It couldn't be."
"And what about her? And, what about me? How is it for us? Now, look
you, my fine young man! I'll not stop a minute longer, or else there'll
be murder. But I'll tell you this much. I know as well as you there can
be nothing more. I'm not mad. She can't marry you, and you knew that
before you started lying to her. It's all over, and we must face the
folk in the place the best way we can. You're sorry, I see you are; but
understand this--sorry or not, if it wasn't that me and my forebears has
had nothing but good from them that went before you, and was better than
you, I'd kill you now, and reckon you no more than a herring. You'd
better get away out of my sight."
Then Mr. Casely tramped towards the wicket, and went home. He sat long
into the night, and when he went to bed he flung himself on the coverlid
with his clothes on. Towards morning he said aloud--"I'm glad he didn't
think to offer me money. If he had, I would have pulled his windpipe
out."
The young gentleman thus alluded to by Mr. Casely had gone home in a
state of stupefaction. He did not attempt to frame a thought. His limbs
took him along mechanically. He passed one of his aunts as he went to
his room, but he did not make any sign. When he had settled down, a tap
came at his door.
"Mr. Ellington'll have dinner laid for him in his study. He wants to see
you, Sir, in the study as soon after dinner as possible."
Young Ellington heard this without any fresh shock. The worst had
passed, and nothing henceforth could hurt him.
He could eat nothing. He found himself adding up the number of glasses;
dividing it into couples; counting the squares on the wall-pattern;
going through all the forlorn trivialities that employ the mind when
suffering has passed out of the conscious stage. When his time came for
meeting the terrible old man, he stepped straight into the study without
knocking, and stood stupidly waiting for the voice that he knew would
come. A thought of dignity never occurred to him. Had he been a mere
libertine he would have brazened it out, and would have tried at
flippancy. But he was not a libertine; he was simply an inexperienced
young man who was suffering remorse at its deadliest.
"You had better sit down."
He sought a chair, took his seat, and once more waited.
"Need we exchange any words about this business? You can have nothing to
say, so perhaps you had better leave the talking to me. You have behaved
like a scoundrel. You have crippled my hands. Only a year ago I turned
Thomson's girl off the estate, and gave her father notice to quit the
cottage after her. I got some newspaper chatter aimed at me then, and
now, by God, you've done worse than the fellow who ruined poor Thomson.
Look up there, and you'll see your father's portrait. He was a merry lad
in his day, but he wouldn't have intrigued with a washerwoman. That's
about what you have done. However, we'll have no more scolding. Of
course, you understand that the affair is to be done with?"
"It depends upon you, Sir. If you will, I dare marry her."
"I thought you were a little mad. Go! I wish I could say go for
altogether. I have some time to live though, and you shall know
something meanwhile. Go!"
The unfortunate had not a word to say even against his grandfather's
brutal insolence. He went, and passed the night in much the same way as
did Casely, save that where Casely's pride was still stubborn,
Ellington's pride was broken.