IT was probably on the stroke of ten, and Dick had been half asleep for
some time against the bank, when Esther came up the road carrying a
bundle. Some kind of instinct, or perhaps the distant light footfalls,
recalled him, while she was still a good way off, to the possession of
his faculties, and he half raised himself and blinked upon the world. It
took him some time to recollect his thoughts. He had awakened with a
certain blank and childish sense of pleasure, like a man who had received
a legacy overnight; but this feeling gradually died away, and was then
suddenly and stunningly succeeded by a conviction of the truth. The
whole story of the past night sprang into his mind with every detail, as
by an exercise of the direct and speedy sense of sight, and he arose from
the ditch and, with rueful courage, went to meet his love.
She came up to him walking steady and fast, her face still pale, but to
all appearance perfectly composed; and she showed neither surprise,
relief, nor pleasure at finding her lover on the spot. Nor did she offer
him her hand.
‘Here I am,’ said he.
‘Yes,’ she replied; and then, without a pause or any change of voice, ‘I
want you to take me away,’ she added.
‘Away?’ he repeated. ‘How? Where?’
‘To-day,’ she said. ‘I do not care where it is, but I want you to take
me away.’
‘For how long? I do not understand,’ gasped Dick.
‘I shall never come back here any more,’ was all she answered.
Wild words uttered, as these were, with perfect quiet of manner and
voice, exercise a double influence on the hearer’s mind. Dick was
confounded; he recovered from astonishment only to fall into doubt and
alarm. He looked upon her frozen attitude, so discouraging for a lover
to behold, and recoiled from the thoughts which it suggested.
‘To me?’ he asked. ‘Are you coming to me, Esther?’
‘I want you to take me away,’ she repeated with weary impatience. ‘Take
me away—take me away from here.’
The situation was not sufficiently defined. Dick asked himself with
concern whether she were altogether in her right wits. To take her away,
to marry her, to work off his hands for her support, Dick was content to
do all this; yet he required some show of love upon her part. He was not
one of those tough-hided and small-hearted males who would marry their
love at the point of the bayonet rather than not marry her at all. He
desired that a woman should come to his arms with an attractive
willingness, if not with ardour. And Esther’s bearing was more that of
despair than that of love. It chilled him and taught him wisdom.
‘Dearest,’ he urged, ‘tell me what you wish, and you shall have it; tell
me your thoughts, and then I can advise you. But to go from here without
a plan, without forethought, in the heat of a moment, is madder than
madness, and can help nothing. I am not speaking like a man, but I speak
the truth; and I tell you again, the thing’s absurd, and wrong, and
hurtful.’
She looked at him with a lowering, languid look of wrath.
‘So you will not take me?’ she said. ‘Well, I will go alone.’
And she began to step forward on her way. But he threw himself before
her.
‘Esther, Esther!’ he cried.
‘Let me go—don’t touch me—what right have you to interfere? Who are you,
to touch me?’ she flashed out, shrill with anger.
Then, being made bold by her violence, he took her firmly, almost
roughly, by the arm, and held her while he spoke.
‘You know well who I am, and what I am, and that I love you. You say I
will not help you; but your heart knows the contrary. It is you who will
not help me; for you will not tell me what you want. You see—or you
could see, if you took the pains to look—how I have waited here all night
to be ready at your service. I only asked information; I only urged you
to consider; and I still urge and beg you to think better of your
fancies. But if your mind is made up, so be it; I will beg no longer; I
give you my orders; and I will not allow—not allow you to go hence
alone.’
She looked at him for awhile with cold, unkind scrutiny like one who
tries the temper of a tool.
‘Well, take me away, then,’ she said with a sigh.
‘Good,’ said Dick. ‘Come with me to the stables; there we shall get the
pony-trap and drive to the junction. To-night you shall be in London. I
am yours so wholly that no words can make me more so; and, besides, you
know it, and the words are needless. May God help me to be good to you,
Esther—may God help me! for I see that you will not.’
So, without more speech, they set out together, and were already got some
distance from the spot, ere he observed that she was still carrying the
hand-bag. She gave it up to him, passively, but when he offered her his
arm, merely shook her head and pursed up her lips. The sun shone clearly
and pleasantly; the wind was fresh and brisk upon their faces, and smelt
racily of woods and meadows. As they went down into the valley of the
Thyme, the babble of the stream rose into the air like a perennial
laughter. On the far-away hills, sun-burst and shadow raced along the
slopes and leaped from peak to peak. Earth, air and water, each seemed
in better health and had more of the shrewd salt of life in them than
upon ordinary mornings; and from east to west, from the lowest glen to
the height of heaven, from every look and touch and scent, a human
creature could gather the most encouraging intelligence as to the
durability and spirit of the universe.
Through all this walked Esther, picking her small steps like a bird, but
silent and with a cloud under her thick eyebrows. She seemed insensible,
not only of nature, but of the presence of her companion. She was
altogether engrossed in herself, and looked neither to right nor to left,
but straight before her on the road. When they came to the bridge,
however, she halted, leaned on the parapet, and stared for a moment at
the clear, brown pool, and swift, transient snowdrift of the rapids.
‘I am going to drink,’ she said; and descended the winding footpath to
the margin.
There she drank greedily in her hands and washed her temples with water.
The coolness seemed to break, for an instant, the spell that lay upon
her; for, instead of hastening forward again in her dull, indefatigable
tramp, she stood still where she was, for near a minute, looking straight
before her. And Dick, from above on the bridge where he stood to watch
her, saw a strange, equivocal smile dawn slowly on her face and pass away
again at once and suddenly, leaving her as grave as ever; and the sense
of distance, which it is so cruel for a lover to endure, pressed with
every moment more heavily on her companion. Her thoughts were all
secret; her heart was locked and bolted; and he stood without, vainly
wooing her with his eves.
‘Do you feel better?’ asked Dick, as she at last rejoined him; and after
the constraint of so long a silence, his voice sounded foreign to his own
ears.
She looked at him for an appreciable fraction of a minute ere she
answered, and when she did, it was in the monosyllable—‘Yes.’
Dick’s solicitude was nipped and frosted. His words died away on his
tongue. Even his eyes, despairing of encouragement, ceased to attend on
hers. And they went on in silence through Kirton hamlet, where an old
man followed them with his eyes, and perhaps envied them their youth and
love; and across the Ivy beck where the mill was splashing and grumbling
low thunder to itself in the chequered shadow of the dell, and the miller
before the door was beating flour from his hands as he whistled a
modulation; and up by the high spinney, whence they saw the mountains
upon either hand; and down the hill again to the back courts and offices
of Naseby House. Esther had kept ahead all the way, and Dick plodded
obediently in her wake; but as they neared the stables, he pushed on and
took the lead. He would have preferred her to await him in the road
while he went on and brought the carriage back, but after so many
repulses and rebuffs he lacked courage to offer the suggestion. Perhaps,
too, he felt it wiser to keep his convoy within sight. So they entered
the yard in Indian file, like a tramp and his wife.
The grooms eyebrows rose as he received the order for the pony-phaeton,
and kept rising during all his preparations. Esther stood bolt upright
and looked steadily at some chickens in the corner of the yard. Master
Richard himself, thought the groom, was not in his ordinary; for in
truth, he carried the hand-bag like a talisman, and either stood
listless, or set off suddenly walking in one direction after another with
brisk, decisive footsteps. Moreover he had apparently neglected to wash
his hands, and bore the air of one returning from a prolonged nutting
ramble. Upon the groom’s countenance there began to grow up an
expression as of one about to whistle. And hardly had the carriage
turned the corner and rattled into the high road with this inexplicable
pair, than the whistle broke forth—prolonged, and low and tremulous; and
the groom, already so far relieved, vented the rest of his surprise in
one simple English word, friendly to the mouth of Jack-tar and the sooty
pitman, and hurried to spread the news round the servants’ hall of Naseby
House. Luncheon would be on the table in little beyond an hour; and the
Squire, on sitting down, would hardly fail to ask for Master Richard.
Hence, as the intelligent reader can foresee, this groom has a part to
play in the imbroglio.
Meantime, Dick had been thinking deeply and bitterly. It seemed to him
as if his love had gone from him, indeed, yet gone but a little way; as
if he needed but to find the right touch or intonation, and her heart
would recognise him and be melted. Yet he durst not open his mouth, and
drove in silence till they had passed the main park-gates and turned into
the cross-cut lane along the wall. Then it seemed to him as if it must
be now, or never.
‘Can’t you see you are killing me?’ he cried. ‘Speak to me, look at me,
treat me like a human man.’
She turned slowly and looked him in the face with eyes that seemed
kinder. He dropped the reins and caught her hand, and she made no
resistance, although her touch was unresponsive. But when, throwing one
arm round her waist, he sought to kiss her lips, not like a lover indeed,
not because he wanted to do so, but as a desperate man who puts his
fortunes to the touch, she drew away from him, with a knot in her
forehead, backed and shied about fiercely with her head, and pushed him
from her with her hand. Then there was no room left for doubt, and Dick
saw, as clear as sunlight, that she had a distaste or nourished a grudge
against him.
‘Then you don’t love me?’ he said, drawing back from her, he also, as
though her touch had burnt him; and then, as she made no answer, he
repeated with another intonation, imperious and yet still pathetic, ‘You
don’t love me, _do_ you, _do_ you?’
‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘Why do you ask me? Oh, how should I know?
It has all been lies together—lies, and lies, and lies!’
He cried her name sharply, like a man who has taken a physical hurt, and
that was the last word that either of them spoke until they reached
Thymebury Junction.
This was a station isolated in the midst of moorlands, yet lying on the
great up line to London. The nearest town, Thymebury itself, was seven
miles distant along the branch they call the Vale of Thyme Railway. It
was now nearly half an hour past noon, the down train had just gone by,
and there would be no more traffic at the junction until half-past three,
when the local train comes in to meet the up express at a quarter before
four. The stationmaster had already gone off to his garden, which was
half a mile away in a hollow of the moor; a porter, who was just leaving,
took charge of the phaeton, and promised to return it before night to
Naseby House; only a deaf, snuffy, and stern old man remained to play
propriety for Dick and Esther.
Before the phaeton had driven off, the girl had entered the station and
seated herself upon a bench. The endless, empty moorlands stretched
before her, entirely unenclosed, and with no boundary but the horizon.
Two lines of rails, a waggon shed, and a few telegraph posts, alone
diversified the outlook. As for sounds, the silence was unbroken save by
the chant of the telegraph wires and the crying of the plovers on the
waste. With the approach of midday the wind had more and more fallen, it
was now sweltering hot and the air trembled in the sunshine.
Dick paused for an instant on the threshold of the platform. Then, in
two steps, he was by her side and speaking almost with a sob.
‘Esther,’ he said, ‘have pity on me. What have I done? Can you not
forgive me? Esther, you loved me once—can you not love me still?’
‘How can I tell you? How am I to know?’ she answered. ‘You are all a
lie to me—all a lie from first to last. You were laughing at my folly,
playing with me like a child, at the very time when you declared you
loved me. Which was true? was any of it true? or was it all, all a
mockery? I am weary trying to find out. And you say I loved you; I
loved my father’s friend. I never loved, I never heard of, you, until
that man came home and I began to find myself deceived. Give me back my
father, be what you were before, and you may talk of love indeed!’
‘Then you cannot forgive me—cannot?’ he asked.
‘I have nothing to forgive,’ she answered. ‘You do not understand.’
‘Is that your last word, Esther?’ said he, very white, and biting his lip
to keep it still.
‘Yes, that is my last word,’ replied she.
‘Then we are here on false pretences, and we stay here no longer,’ he
said. ‘Had you still loved me, right or wrong, I should have taken you
away, because then I could have made you happy. But as it is—I must
speak plainly—what you propose is degrading to you, and an insult to me,
and a rank unkindness to your father. Your father may be this or that,
but you should use him like a fellow-creature.’
‘What do you mean?’ she flashed. ‘I leave him my house and all my money;
it is more than he deserves. I wonder you dare speak to me about that
man. And besides, it is all he cares for; let him take it, and let me
never hear from him again.’
‘I thought you romantic about fathers,’ he said.
‘Is that a taunt?’ she demanded.
‘No,’ he replied, ‘it is an argument. No one can make you like him, but
don’t disgrace him in his own eyes. He is old, Esther, old and broken
down. Even I am sorry for him, and he has been the loss of all I cared
for. Write to your aunt; when I see her answer you can leave quietly and
naturally, and I will take you to your aunt’s door. But in the meantime
you must go home. You have no money, and so you are helpless, and must
do as I tell you; and believe me, Esther, I do all for your good, and
your good only, so God help me.’
She had put her hand into her pocket and withdrawn it empty.
‘I counted upon you,’ she wailed.
‘You counted rightly then,’ he retorted. ‘I will not, to please you for
a moment, make both of us unhappy for our lives; and since I cannot marry
you, we have only been too long away, and must go home at once.’
‘Dick,’ she cried suddenly, ‘perhaps I might—perhaps in time—perhaps—’
‘There is no perhaps about the matter,’ interrupted Dick. ‘I must go and
bring the phaeton.’ And with that he strode from the station, all in a
glow of passion and virtue. Esther, whose eyes had come alive and her
cheeks flushed during these last words, relapsed in a second into a state
of petrifaction. She remained without motion during his absence, and
when he returned suffered herself to be put back into the phaeton, and
driven off on the return journey like an idiot or a tired child.
Compared with what she was now, her condition of the morning seemed
positively natural. She sat white and cold and silent, and there was no
speculation in her eyes. Poor Dick flailed and flailed at the pony, and
once tried to whistle, but his courage was going down; huge clouds of
despair gathered together in his soul, and from time to time their
darkness was divided by a piercing flash of longing and regret. He had
lost his love—he had lost his love for good.
The pony was tired, and the hills very long and steep, and the air
sultrier than ever, for now the breeze began to fail entirely. It seemed
as if this miserable drive would never be done, as if poor Dick would
never be able to go away and be comfortably wretched by himself; for all
his desire was to escape from her presence and the reproach of her
averted looks. He had lost his love, he thought—he had lost his love for
good.
They were already not far from the cottage, when his heart again faltered
and he appealed to her once more, speaking low and eagerly in broken
phrases.
‘I cannot live without your love,’ he concluded.
‘I do not understand what you mean,’ she replied, and I believe with
perfect truth.
‘Then,’ said he, wounded to the quick, ‘your aunt might come and fetch
you herself. Of course you can command me as you please. But I think it
would be better so.’
‘Oh yes,’ she said wearily, ‘better so.’
This was the only exchange of words between them till about four o’clock;
the phaeton, mounting the lane, ‘opened out’ the cottage between the
leafy banks. Thin smoke went straight up from the chimney; the flowers
in the garden, the hawthorn in the lane, hung down their heads in the
heat; the stillness was broken only by the sound of hoofs. For right
before the gate a livery servant rode slowly up and down, leading a
saddle horse. And in this last Dick shuddered to identify his father’s
chestnut.
Alas! poor Richard, what should this portend?
The servant, as in duty bound, dismounted and took the phaeton into his
keeping; yet Dick thought he touched his hat to him with something of a
grin. Esther, passive as ever, was helped out and crossed the garden
with a slow and mechanical gait; and Dick, following close behind her,
heard from within the cottage his father’s voice upraised in an anathema,
and the shriller tones of the Admiral responding in the key of war.