"While bloomed the magic flowers we scarcely knew
The gold was there. But now their petals strew
Life's pathway."
"And yet the flowers were fair,
Fed by youth's dew and love's enchanted air."
The cool evening air breathing on Joyce's flushed cheeks calms her as
she sets out for the walk that Barbara had encouraged her to take.
It is an evening of great beauty. Earth, sea, and sky seem blended in
one great soft mist, that rising from the ocean down below floats up to
heaven, its heart a pale, vague pink.
The day is almost done, and already shadows are growing around trees and
corners. There is something mystical and strange in the deep murmurs
that come from the nestling woods, the sweet wild coo of the pigeons,
the chirping of innumerable songsters, and now and then the dull hooting
of some blinking owl. Through all, the sad tolling of a chapel bell
away, away in the distance, where the tiny village hangs over the brow
of the rocks that gird the sea.
"While yet the woods were hardly more than brown,
Filled with the stillness of the dying day,
The folds and farms, and faint-green pastures lay,
And bells chimed softly from the gray-walled town;
The dark fields with the corn and poppies sown,
The dull, delicious, dreamy forest way,
The hope of April for the soul of May--
On all of these night's wide, soft wings swept down."
Well, it isn't night yet, however. She can see to tread her way along
the short young grasses down to a favorite nook of hers, where musical
sounds of running streams may be heard, and the rustling of growing
leaves make songs above one's head. Here and there she goes through
brambly ways, where amorous arms from blackberry bushes strive to catch
and hold her, and where star-eyed daisies and buttercups and delicate
faint-hearted primroses peep out to laugh at her discomfiture.
But she escapes from all their snares and goes on her way, her heart so
full of troublous fancies that their many wiles gain from her not so
much as one passing thought.
The pretty, lovely May is just bursting into bloom; its pink blossoms
here and its white blossoms there mingle gloriously, and the perfume of
it fills the silent air.
Joyce picks a branch or two as she goes on her way, and thrusts them
into the bosom of her gown.
And now she has reached the outskirts of the wood, where the river runs,
crossed by a rustic bridge, on which she has ever loved to rest and
dream, leaning rounded arms upon the wooden railings and seeing strange
but sweet things in the bright, hurrying water beneath her eyes.
She has gained the bridge now, and leaning languidly upon its frail
ramparts lets her gaze wander a-field. The little stream, full of
conversation as ever, flows on unnoticed by her. Its charms seem dead.
That belonged to the old life--the life she will never know again. It
seems to her quite a long time since she felt young. And yet only a few
short months have flown since she was young as the best of them--when
even Tommy did not seem altogether despicable as a companion, and she
had often been guilty of finding pleasure in running a race with him,
and of covering him not only with confusion, but with armfuls of scented
hay, when at last she had gained the victory over him, and had turned
from the appointed goal to overwhelm the enemy with merry sarcasms.
Oh, yes, that was all over. All done! An end must come to everything,
and to her light-heartedness an end had come very soon. Too soon, she
was inclined to believe, in an excess of self, until she remembered that
life was always to be taken seriously, and that she had deliberately
trifled with it, seeking only the very heart of it--the gaiety, the
carelessness, the ease.
Well, her punishment has come! She has learned that life is a failure
after all. It takes some people a lifetime to discover that great fact;
it has taken her quite a short time. Nothing is of much consequence. And
yet----
She sighs and looks round her. Her eyes fall upon a distant bank of
cloud overhanging a pretty farmstead, and throwing into bold relief the
ricks of hay that stand at the western side of it. A huge, black crow
standing on the top of this is napping his wings and calling loudly to
his mate. Presently he spreads his wings, and, with a creaking of them
like the noise of a sail in a light wind, disappears over her head. She
has followed his movements with a sort of lazy curiosity, and now she
knows that he will return in an hour or so with thousands of his
brethren, darkening the heavens as they pass to their night lodgings in
the tall elm trees.
It is good to be a bird. No care, no trouble. No pain! A short life and
a merry one. Better than a long life and a sorry one. Yes, the world is
all sorry.
She turns her eyes impatiently away from the fast vanishing crow; and
now they fall upon a perfect wilderness of daffodils that are growing
upon the edge of the bank a little way down. How beautiful they are.
Their soft, delicate heads nod lazily this way and that way. They seem
the very embodiment of graceful drowsiness. Some lines lately read recur
to her, and awake within her memory;
"I wandered lonely as a cloud,
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A crowd of golden daffodils
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze."
They seem so full of lazy joy, or unutterable rapture, that they belie
her belief in the falseness of all things. There must surely be some
good in a world that grows such charming things--things almost sentient.
And the trees swaying about her head, and dropping their branches into
the stream, is there no delight to be got out of them? The tenderness of
this soft, sweet mood, in which perpetual twilight reigns, enters into
her, and soothes the sad demon that is torturing her breast. Tears rise
to her eyes; she leans still further over the parapet, and drawing the
pink and white hawthorn blossoms from her bosom, drops them one by one
into the hasty little river, and lets it bear them away upon its bosom
to tiny bays unknown. Tears follow them, falling from her drooping lids.
Can neither daffodils, nor birds, nor trees, give her some little of
their joy to chase the sorrow from her heart?
Her soul seems to fling itself outward in an appeal to nature; and
nature, that kind mother of us all, responds to the unspoken cry.
A step upon the bridge behind her! She starts into a more upright
position and looks round her without much interest.
A dark figure is advancing toward her. Through the growing twilight it
seems abnormally large and black, and Joyce stares at it anxiously. Not
Freddy--not one of the laborers--they would be all clad in flannel
jackets of a light color.
"Oh, is it you?" says Dysart, coming closer to her. He had, however,
known it was she from the first moment his eyes rested upon her. No
mist, no twilight could have deceived him, for--
Lovers' eyes are sharp to see
And lovers' ears in hearing."
"Yes," says she, advancing a little toward him and giving him her hand.
A cold little hand, and reluctant.
"I was coming down to Mrs. Monkton with a message--a letter--from Lady
Baltimore."
"This is a very long way round from the Court, isn't it?" says she.
"Yes. But I like this calm little corner. I have come often to it
lately."
Miss Kavanagh lets her eyes wander to the stream down below. To this
little spot of all places! Her favorite nook! Had he hoped to meet her
there? Oh, no; impossible! And besides she had given it up for a long,
long time until this evening. It seems weeks to her now since last she
was here.
"You will find Barbara at home," says she gently.
"I don't suppose it is of very much consequence," says he, alluding to
the message. He is looking at her, though her averted face leaves him
little to study.
"You are cold," says he abruptly.
"Am I?" turning to him with a little smile. "I don't feel cold. I feel
dull, perhaps, but nothing else."
And in truth if she had used the word "unhappy" instead of "dull" she
would have been nearer the mark. The coming of Dysart thus suddenly into
the midst of her mournful reverie has but served to accentuate the
reality of it. A terrible sense of loneliness is oppressing her. All
things have their place in this world, yet where is hers? Of what
account is she to anyone? Barbara loves, her; yes, but not so well as
Freddy and the children! Oh, to be first with someone!
"I find no spring, while spring is well-nigh blown;
I find no nest, while nests are in the grove;
Woe's me for mine own heart that dwells alone--
My heart that breaketh for a little love."
Christina Rosetti's mournful words seem to suit her. Involuntarily she
lifts her heavy eyes, tired of the day's weeping, and looks at Dysart.
"You have been crying," says he abruptly.