We walked beside the sea
After a day which perished, silently,
Of its own glory.
Nor moon nor stars were out:
They did not dare to tread so soon about,
Though trembling in the footsteps of the sun;
The light was neither night's nor day's, but one
Which, lifelike, had a beauty in its doubt.
E. B. BROWNING.
On turning his flushed and excited face again towards the seat where he
had left Elsa, he found that she was gone. It did not surprise him, but
made him resolve instantly to follow and console her. He wandered about
for some time amongst the sunny windings of the cliffs before he found
the object of his search.
She was crouched down on the grass, her face hidden, her whole frame
shaken with sobs. It brought the tears to his own eyes to witness such
distress, yet his feeling towards Godfrey was not all anathema. Only
exceptional circumstances could have enabled him to assume the post of
comforter, and those circumstances had been brought about by the
impudent boy.
"Miss Brabourne," he said, gently, looking down at her.
She started, and checked her grief.
"Forgive my intruding," he went on, seating himself on a ledge of cliff
just above her, "but I have said too much already not to say more. You
must feel with me, our interview can't be broken off at this point; you
must hear me out now, and, if I have shattered all my hopes by my
reckless haste, why, I shall only have myself to thank for it."
She but half heard, and hardly understood him; her whole mind was at
work on one point.
"What must you think of me?" she cried. "Did you believe it?--what he
said of me?"
"Believe it! Believe what?" cried Osmond. "Don't allude to it, please,
please don't. It makes me lose my temper and feel inclined to rave. I
heard little that was said; what I did hear could inspire me only with
one sensation--anger at his impudence, sympathy for you."
"Then you don't--believe--you don't think that I was--trying to make you
flirt with me?"
It was out at last, and, having managed to pronounce the words, she
buried her face in her hands.
"Oh, Elsa!" was all that her lover could say; but the tone of it made
her lift her humbled head and seek his eyes. Whatever his look, she
could not meet it; her own sank again, she blushed pitifully, quivered,
hesitated, finally let him take her hand.
Consciousness was fully awake now. The girl, whose fingers thrilled in
his own, was a different being from the Elaine who had watched him
sketching in the lane. She knew that she was a woman, knew also that she
was beloved. Years of education would never have taught her so
completely as she was now taught by her lover's eyes.
He began to speak. She listened, in a trance of delight. He begged her
to forgive his weakness in failing to control his feelings for her. Poor
fellow, he was lowly enough to satisfy an empress. He knew that he had
no right to speak of love to this girl who had seen no men, had no
experience of life. He felt that he had taken an unfair advantage of her
ignorance, and the thought tortured his pride. He would not ask her if
she returned his love, still less demand of her any promise; he should
go to Edge Willoughby that very night, he said, and apologise to her
aunts for his unguarded behavior. He loved her dearly, devotedly. In a
year's time he would come and tell her so again. But not yet. He was
poor, and he could not brook that anyone should think he wanted a rich
wife, though, as has been said, his knowledge of Elaine's prospects was
by no means so minute as Claud Cranmer's. All his passion, all his
regret, were faltered forth; and the result was, to his utter
astonishment, a burst of indignation from his lady-love.
He did not believe her--could not trust her! Oh, she had thought that
he, at least, understood her, but she was wrong, of course! He, like
everyone else, thought her a foolish child, incapable of judging, or
knowing her own mind.
"Do you think that I have no feeling?" she asked, pitifully. "Do you
think that I can bear to have you leave me next week, and go back to
London and never be able to so much as hear from you, to know what you
are doing, or if you still think of me? How can you love such a creature
as you think me--foolish, ignorant, inconstant----"
Could it be Elsa who spoke? Elsa, whose lovely face glowed with
expression and feeling? Her development had indeed been rapid. Lost in
wonder and admiration, he could not answer her, but remained mutely
looking at her, till, with a little cry of angry shame, she bounded up
and ran away from him.
Leaping to his feet, he followed and captured her. Hardly knowing what
he did, he took her in his arms. Her lovely cheek rested against his
dark blue flannel coat, she was content to have it so, for the moment
she believed that she loved him.
The great red sun had rolled into the sea, when the two came up to the
camping place again. Tea was half over, and they were greeted with a
derisive chorus. Wyn, however, looked apprehensively at her brother's
illuminated expression and gleaming eye, and Claud, noting the same
danger-signals, looked at her, and their eyes met.
"Where is Godfrey?" asked Mr. Fowler.
"Jove, I forgot! I must go and fetch him," cried Osmond, laughing, as he
ran off.
"Mr. Allonby put him in punishment for behaving so badly," explained
Elsa, with burning blushes.
"What had he done?" asked Dr. Forbes, with interest.
"He was very rude to Mr. Allonby," she faltered.
"I'm grateful indeed to Allonby for keeping him in order," laughed her
godfather.
Godfrey appeared in a very cowed state, silent and sulky. His durance
had been longer and more disagreeable than he had bargained for. He was
quite determined to be ill if he could, and so wreak vengeance on his
gaoler; and his evil expression boded ill to poor Elsa, as he passed her
with a muttered, "You only wait, my lady, that's all!"
The twilight fell so rapidly that tea was obliged to be quickly cleared
away. It was not so hilarious a meal as dinner had been, for Osmond and
Elsa were quite silent, and Wyn too absorbed in thinking of them to be
lively.
They all went down to the shore to wash up the tea-things, and lingered
there a little, watching the tender violets and crimsons of the west,
and listening to the soft murmur of the lucid little wavelets which
hardly broke upon the sand.
Wyn leaned her chin upon her hand--her favorite attitude--and watched.
Jacqueline and young Haldane were busily washing and wiping the same
plate, an arrangement which seemed to provoke much lively discussion.
Claud was drying the knives and forks which Hilda handed to him. Osmond
and Elsa stood apart, doing nothing but look at one another. Wyn hated
herself for the choking feeling of sadness which possessed her. Osmond
had been so much to her; now, how would it be? Such jealousy was
miserable, contemptible, she knew; but the pain of it would not be
stilled at once.
Henry Fowler appeared, took the knives and forks, and carried them off,
followed by Hilda. Claud turned, and looked at Wyn.
"What a night," he said.
"Yes."
"Is that all the answer I am to expect?"
"What more can I say? Do you want me to contradict you?"
He was silent, his eyes fixed on the pure reach of sky.
"I wonder why I always feel sad just after sunset?" he remarked, after a
pause.
"Do you?" said Wyn, quickly.
"Yes; do you?"
"To-night I do."
"I thought so."
"Our holidays are nearly over," said the girl, with a sigh. "I must go
back to work again. I must utilize my material," she added, a little
bitterly. "All the splendor of these sunsets must go into the pages of a
novel, if I can reproduce it."
"It would go better into a poem," said Claud, tossing a pebble into the
water.
"That is one fault I may venture to say I am without," remarked
Wynifred. "I never write verses."
"I do; it amounts to a positive vice with me," returned he, coolly.
"I am sure I beg your pardon," she said, confused.
"You need not. It is only a vent. Everyone must have a vent of some
sort, otherwise the contents of their mind turn sour. Yours is fiction;
you don't need the puny consolation of verse, which is my only outlet."
"You are very sarcastic."
"So were you."
"If you always take your tone from me----" she began, and stopped.
"I should have my tongue under better control, you were about to add,"
he suggested.
"Nothing of the sort. I forget what I meant. I am not in a mood for
rational conversation this evening."
"Nor I. Let us talk nonsense."
"No, thank you. I can't do that well enough to be interesting. Go and
talk to Mr. Haldane; he studies nonsense as a fine art."
"I accept my dismissal; thank you for giving it so unequivocally," he
answered, huffily, and, turning on his heel, marched away, and spoke to
her no more that evening.
Later, when the darkness had fallen, and the company were dispersed to
their various homes, Henry Fowler, coming from the stable through the
garden, was arrested by the scent of his guest's cigar, and joined him
on the rustic seat under the trees.
It was a perfect summer night, moonless, but the whole purple vault of
heaven powdered with stars.
The garden of Lower House was, of course, like all the land in Edge
Valley, inclined at an angle of considerably more than forty-five
degrees, which fact added greatly to its picturesqueness. Right through
it flowed a brook which dashed over rough stones in a miniature cascade,
and added its low murmuring rush to the influence of the hour.
Claud sat idly and at ease, smoking a final cigar. It was almost
midnight, but on such a night it seemed impossible to go to bed.
"What are you thinking of?" asked Henry, as he sat down and struck a
light.
The match flickered over the young man's moody face; such an expression
was unusual with the cheerful brother of Lady Mabel. He merely shrugged
his shoulders in answer to the question.
"The Miss Allonbys are certainly charming girls," said Mr. Fowler, after
a pause. "The eldest, indeed, is most exceptional."
"You are right there," said Claud, suddenly, as though the remark
unloosed his tongue. "I don't profess to understand such a nature, I
must say."
His host looked inquiringly at him, surprised at the irritation of his
tones.
"If I were a different fellow, I declare to you I'd make her fall in
love with me," said the young man, vindictively, "if only for the
pleasure of seeing her become human."
"And why don't you try it, being as you are?" asked Mr. Fowler,
composedly, after a brief interval of astonishment. "Why this uncalled
for modesty? Is it on account of your one defect, or because you have
only one?"
Claud laughed, and flushed a little under cover of the friendly gloom.
"Miss Allonby is too near perfection to care for it in others," he said,
with a suspicion of a sneer.
"Indeed? Do you think so? She seems full of faults to me."
His companion turned his head sharply towards him.
"Perhaps I hardly meant faults. I should say--amiable weakness. I only
meant to express that to me she seems 'a being not too bright and good
for human nature's daily food.' I am such a recluse, Mr. Cranmer, I must
of necessity study my Wordsworth."
Claud was silent for a long time, and only the harmonious rushing of the
brook broke the hush.
"Is that the idea she gives you?" he asked, at length. "Shall I tell you
what I think of her? That she is incapable of passion, and so unfit for
her century."
"Incapable of passion," said the elder man, slowly, "and so safe from
the knowledge of infinite pain. For her sake I almost wish it were so.
Have you read her books?"
"Yes."
"Don't you think the passion in them rings true?"
"True enough; she has wasted it there. There is her real world. I--we--"
he corrected himself very hastily--"are only shadows."
"I think that remark of yours is truer than you know," said Mr. Fowler.
"I am sure that Miss Allonby lives in a dream----"
"But you think she could be awakened?"
"If you could fuse her ideal with the real. I read a poem in the volume
of Browning you lent me the other day. It told of a man who set himself
to imagine the form of the woman he loved standing before him in the
room. He summoned to his mind's eyes every detail of her personal
appearance,--her dress, her expression,--till the power of his will
brought the real woman to stand where the fancied shape had been. It is
not altogether a pleasant poem, but it reminded me of her, in a way. She
is standing, I conjecture, with her eyes and her heart fixed on an
ideal. If a real man could take its place, he would know what the
character of Wynifred Allonby really is. No other mortal ever will."
Claud smoked on for a minute or two in silence; then, taking his cigar
from his mouth, he broke off the ash carefully against the sole of his
boot.
"Your estimate of her is practically worthless," he remarked, "because
you are supposing her to be consistent, which you know is an
impossibility. No woman is consistent; if they were, not one in a
hundred would ever marry at all. Who do you suppose ever married her
ideal?"
"You are right, then," said his companion, thoughtfully. "The
adaptability of woman is marvellous. Mercifully for us. But I have a
fancy that the lady in question is an exception to most rules. One is so
apt to argue from something taken for granted, and therefore most likely
incorrect. We start here from the assumption that a girl's ideal is an
ideal of perfection--a thing that never could be realized; and I should
imagine that to be true in the majority of instances. But it's my idea
that Miss Allonby has too much insight to build herself such a
sand-castle. The hero of her novel is just a moderately intelligent man
of the present day, with his faults fearlessly catalogued--he is no
sentimental abstraction. And yet I am sure that he is not a man she has
met, but a man she hopes to meet. That is to say, I am sure she had not
met him when she wrote the book, but I see no reason why she should not
come across him some day."
Claud made a restless movement. He tossed away the end of the cigar,
threw himself back on the garden-seat, and locked his hands behind his
head.
"The modern girl," he observed, "is complicated."
"Perhaps that is what makes her so interesting," said Mr. Fowler.
"Is she interesting--to you?"
"She is most interesting--to me," was the ready rejoinder.
There was no answer. In the dim starlight the elder man studied the face
of the younger. He thought Claud Cranmer was better-looking than he had
previously considered him. There was something sweet in the expression
of his mouth, something lovable in the questioning gaze of his blue-grey
eyes.
The silence was broken by the fretful barking of Spot, Claud's
fox-terrier. He roused himself from his reverie.
"What's up with that little beggar now, I wonder?" he said, as he rose,
half-absently, and sauntered over the bridge.
"Spot! Spot! Come here! Stop that row, can't you?"
He vanished gradually among the shadows, and Henry Fowler was left
alone.
"Is he in love with her, or is he not?" he dreamily asked himself. "Talk
of the complications of the modern girl--there's no getting to the
bottom of the modern young man. I don't believe he knows himself."
He caught his breath with something like a sigh of regret for an
irreclaimable past.
"I almost wish I were young again, with a heart and a future to lay at
her feet!"
It was the nearest he had ever come to a treason against the memory of
Alice Willoughby. Love in his early days had seemed such a different
thing--meaning just the protecting, reverential fondness of what was in
every sense strong for what was in every sense weak. Now it went so far
deeper--it included so many emotions, some of them almost conflicting.
Physically--in strength, size, and experience--Wynifred was his
inferior. Intellectually, though she had read more books than he, he
felt that they were equals. But there was a fine inner fibre--a
something to which he could not give a name--an insight, a delicacy of
hers which soared far above him. Something which was more than sex,
which no intimacy could remove or weaken--a power of spirit, a loftiness
which was new in his experience of women.
The men of his day had taken it for granted that woman, however
charming, was _small_; they had smiled indulgently at pretty airs and
graces, at miniature spites. They had thought it only natural that these
captivating creatures should pout and fret if disappointed of a new
gown, should shriek at a spider, go into hysterics if thwarted, and deny
the beauty of their good-looking female friends. Such a being as this
naturally called forth a different species of homage from that demanded
by a Wynifred Allonby, to whom everything mean, or cramped, or trivial
was as foreign as it was to Henry Fowler himself. It was not that she
resisted the impulse to be small; it was not in her nature; she could no
more be spiteful than a horse could scratch; she had been framed
otherwise.