TWO RIDE TOGETHER
I
Often in these weeks the three rode together; seldom Percival and Dora
met out of Rollo's company. Brief moments while they waited him, brief
moments when he rode ahead of them, these were the most frequent of
their intimacies; more rarely came chance half-hours, and most rare of
all half-hours planned when she admitted they could be contrived. He
suffered nothing that their meetings should be thus fugitive and at
caprice, in main, of Rollo's moods and movements. That none as yet
should know their secret ministered to rather than chafed his ardour;
that, when their eyes met, their eyes spoke what in all the world only
they two knew, was of itself as darling a thing as when to all the
world she should be known for his alone. Then she would be his own,
but their secret the price of it; now he might not claim her, but ah,
their secret, theirs!
So secret it was, and she so much her rare and chaste and frozen self,
that even between them it was hardly spoken. He never had lost his
first awe and wonder at her beauty; and it filmed all his intercourse
with her and all his thoughts of her as with a gossamer veil that,
forbidding rough movements, forbade him touch her with the close words
of his passion that might bruise her or give her alarm. More by signs
than ever by words they spoke their secret. Words carried them over
the passing subjects that any might discuss; signs revealed the secret
that was theirs alone. When they met the faintest deepening of her
colour shades would show it, when they parted came a last glance and
again those shades would glow; when he sometimes touched her hand, her
hand would stay and speak it; when he sometimes held her eyes, ah, then
their secret stirred! In those few half-hours when alone they came
together, meeting near the Abbey, riding through the lanes, then with
none to see them he would hold her hand and feel it tell him of their
secret while their lips told empty words.
It was in these weeks, indeed, that he came to know he found it a
little hard to make conversation with her. That something of her
character was manifested in this difficulty he had no suspicion, nor
that in his solution of it her disposition was clearer yet revealed.
He found she was not greatly interested to hear of himself; then found
her most alert, and oftenest brought the little laugh he loved to hear,
the deepening he loved to see of those strange shades of colour on her
cheeks, by speaking to her of herself, or listening while of herself
she told him. At first he gave her glimpses of the van life with
Japhra on the road; her curiosity was not aroused. Something of the
famous fight he told her, and in vigorous passages of when the sticks
came out, and of the wild scenes that followed the crime of poor old
Hunt, whom she had known: he saw she was not greatly entertained.
Later, as events ran along, he gave them to her--told her of the day
when it was found that his increasing activities with the dear old
Rough 'Uns made it necessary he should live over there, no longer ride
daily to and fro from "Post Offic," and of how jolly, jolly good they
were to him and of the funny evenings in their company; told her of the
day when the Rough 'Uns had announced they thought it proper to
advancement of their business that a couple of hunters should be bought
for him so that he might ride to hounds and keep among the horsey folk
when the hunting season opened; told her of the day when he had from
Aunt Maggie the news that the affection between herself and Ima had
arranged that Ima was coming to spend the approaching winter--and
likely every winter--with her; all these he brought to Dora, but slowly
came to see they but little took her interest.
The discovery no more gave him suspicion that she was at fault in
sympathy than of itself it vexed him, as one commonly might be vexed in
such a case. It was himself he blamed when, recalling how he had
talked and how little had been her response, he feared that he had
tired her by his enthusiasms or, as reproaching himself he termed them,
his meanderings. Clumsy he called himself, inept, dull-witted; and
pictured her, his darling and his goddess, his frozen, rarest, perfect
Snow-White-and-Rose-Red, and hated to have blundered all his dulness on
so rare and exquisite a thing. Glad, then, the finding that he could
entertain her by exercise of what a thousand-fold entranced himself--by
encouraging her to speak of herself, her doings, her reflections, just
as in the drive in that hour when first he knew he loved her she had
spoken of her school. Lightest and most prattling what she told, and
light and very passing what she thought; but spoken in her quaintly
precise mode of speech and in her cold, high tone, and bringing from
her her cold little laugh, and on her cold white cheek lighting those
flames of colour. When he watched her with others he saw her perfect
face set in its strangely still, aloof expression; when she spoke with
him, and spoke of herself, he was content only to listen so he might
see it light and sometimes see their secret make it flame.
More than once while she so spoke and he so listened, "But I told you
that," she would say; "I perfectly recollect telling you."
And he: "Well, tell me again;" and at the note of his voice she would
seem to catch her breath as though some sharpness checked her
breathing, and he would see their secret flutter in her eyes and see it
stain its signal like a red rose on her cheeks.
II
It was by one definite step--not observed as such by him at the time
nor any significance in it apprehended--that they passed from this
stage of reserve on the matter between them and came towards its open
entertainment. The afternoon following Rollo's departure with Lady
Burdon on the long foreign tour marked the event, and Percival, meeting
Dora by chance, was in some loss of spirits at the fact. He found her
in very different case. Her mood was high. She had the air of one who
has made a success or who has escaped some shadowing mischief. He
could suppose no cause for such a thing or he would have said her
bearing signified relief, removal of some oppression, freedom from some
weight that had burdened her mind and that now, displaced, suffered her
mind to run up, made her tread lighter.
"There's something different about you to-day," he told her; then,
while she laughed, and while he caught more glee than commonly he knew
in the little sound he loved to hear, found the exact expression for
the change he saw, and named the new step in their relations--"You are
as if you'd suddenly got a holiday."
"Well, it is true that I somehow feel like that," she declared, "though
why I should, I am sure I cannot imagine."
Yet dimly she knew, dimly in these later days had felt closing about
her the purpose of her training, and when Percival spoke of the two
years--the "frightfully long time"--for which old Rollo was gone, knew
it half unknowingly for the period of her holiday. Another, more
freely schooled than she, had known it clearly, had questioned,
revolved, examined the sudden lightness that was hers, had realised it
came of freedom from constant reminder of an end that seemed to wait
her, and had inquired of herself, Why then glad?--Is that end unwelcome?
It was not hers so to examine; or examining, so to realise; or
realising, so to ask; nor asking, and being answered "Yes, unwelcome,"
to think to make resistance and crush the end before it came. Not hers
whose schooling in her mother's hands had made for and had won the
stifling of such processes of thought; not hers who was caparisoned and
trained for certain purpose; not hers who had responded in faultless
beauty and in cloistered mind. Hers, if she stretched her hands and on
a sudden found that purpose walled about her, only to follow on between
the walls, not to break through them; to glance at them or run them
with her fingers and see them silk and proper to her life, not beat
against them, find them steel behind the silk, cry "Trapped! Trapped!"
and wildly beat for outlet. Hers, if she raised her eyes and saw her
purposed end far down the narrow way, only to accept and move towards
it, not to halt, doubt, fear; hers to glance, and know, and think it
meet and proper to her life, not start and shrink, cry "No! No! No!"
and seek escape while yet escape might be.
So she was circumstanced; yet there remains, be restraint never so
firmly chilled into the bones, the purely primeval instinct of delight
in freedom; so she was trained, but scarcely yet had recognised
purpose, walls, or end. She only, as she told Percival, "somehow felt"
that she had holiday, and holiday her mood in the months that went.
Why she felt so, she was sure, as she said, she could not imagine; but
as the butterfly, content to live among the flowers of a hothouse and
never know itself prisoner, will airily toss aloft through the open
door yet scarcely think itself escaped, so, content to have remained,
but gaily floating free, blithe and new her mood when now they met.
Less frequent their meetings, the common excuse of Rollo being denied,
but ah, more fond! Fewer their secret exchanges, but ah, more dear!
Holiday her mood, and fluttering she came to him, and was swinging in
his ardour from her prison to his heart; from his heart to her prison,
swinging in his ardour, and had no more than glimpses--transient
tremors--of her prison's walls.
III
He had her engaged in such a glimpse--a little fearfully suspicious
that there were walls about her--on a day when they were hunting
together. Mrs. Espart changed her earlier intention of returning to
town in the Autumn after Rollo and his mother had left. To encourage
her position in the country-side formed part of her own share of the
plans for the young people that were to crystallise when the return was
made to Burdon Old Manor, and she began to centre Abbey Royal in the
social round of the neighbourhood. Her daughter's betrothal to Lord
Burdon, when it was done and announced, should thus, as she schemed,
lose nothing that was possible to the stir it would make. She was able
to use the local Hunt as a prominent part of these intentions, did not
ride herself, but horsed Dora well, subscribed handsomely and was
gladly taken up by the Master in her suggestion of a bi-monthly meet at
the Abbey.
Thus it was after hounds that Percival and Dora were given best chance
to meet. The Rough 'Uns' idea of mounting Percival for the field
proved successful to them as happy to him; Dora, in pursuance of her
mother's plans, had encouragement--and wanted none--rarely to miss a
meet. Hounds had run far on that day when she was caught by Percival
engaged in one of those transient glimpses of her state that sometimes
in these days came to puzzle her. He threw her into it, and that at a
moment most unlikely, for circumstances had it that she was
uncomfortable and out of temper. A bold fox carried the few who could
follow him--they two among them--to a point fifteen miles from the
Abbey before hounds ran into him. It was late afternoon, rain falling,
when Percival and Dora started to hack the long stretch home, and they
were little advanced on the road, and she feeling the wet, when she
pronounced her feelings by telling him petulantly: "You should not have
made me come on. I would have turned back long ago."
But it had been a rare run, and he was beneath the vigour of it.
"Come, it was a great run," he said. "It was worth it, Dora."
"Nothing is worth getting wet like this. You know how I hate getting
wet."
She was much wetter, and would give him no words, before a new trial
necessitated that she should speak again. Her saddle was slipping, she
said, and when he alighted and found the girths had loosened and then
that she must get down: "No, I'll try it a little farther," she told
him very vexedly. "We're nearly there now. To move is hateful. The
wet is touching me right through."
She gave him no answer to his "I'm awfully sorry, Dora;" but presently
said: "It's no good, I must get down, I suppose."
He looked up at her as he stood to help her from the saddle.
"You're angry, Dora?"
"Well, of course I am angry."
He acted upon an impulse that swept out her temper and put her to that
transient glimpse that vaguely showed her vague misgivings. He had
watched her as they rode in silence, watched the rain that swept
against her face run down her face that was like marble in her chill
and in her loss of temper. Cold as it her eyes that met his now, and
he had a sudden impression of her--all marble, all frozen snow, his
darling!--that seemed to embody all his every thought of her frozen
beauty and frozen quality since first he knew her, and that taxed
beyond his power the restraint that frozen quality ever had set upon
him. Beyond his power!--and as he brought her down he not released
her, almost roughly turned her to him; and with no word almost roughly
clasped her to him; and with "Dora!" kissed her wet face and held her
while startled she protested; and kissed again, again, again, again.
"No, I will not let you go! No, you have been cold to me! No, you
shall not go! I have never kissed you since that once I kissed you. I
will kiss you now. No, I will not let you go. I love you, love you,
love you!"
She bent her face away. He felt her panting in his arms and pressed
her to him; and with his hands could feel how wet she was, and with his
body felt her warm against him through her soaking clothes; and passion
of love broke from him in words, as passion of love he pressed upon her
face.
"Turn your face to me, Dora. You shall. I have endured enough. Turn
your face to me--your wet, cold, sweet face that I love. Give me your
lips. Give me your lips. I will kiss your lips and you shall kiss me.
Put your arms round me. Dora, put your arms round me. Now kiss me,
kiss me-- Ah! I love you, I love you--my darling, my beautiful, my
Snow-White-and-Rose-Red. Keep your arms there, Dora, Dora, my Dora!"
His voice had run hoarse and broken in his passion; now, when obedient
she gave him her lips, obedient clung to him--her will, her physical
discomfort and her natural impassivity burnt up as in a flame by this
sudden assault--deep his voice went and strong:--
"That is all done now--all those days when I have been afraid to touch
my darling, afraid to tell her every hour, every moment, how I love her
for fear of frightening her. You are in my arms, my darling, and I can
feel my darling's heart, and those days can never come again. You
shall remember when you see me how I have held you here. You shall
remember how you lie in my arms and that they hold you strongly,
strongly, and that it is your safe, safe place. Look up at me! Ah,
ah, how beautiful you are--your eyes, your lips, your cold, sweet face
with the rain all wet on it. Kiss me! Ah, Dora--we were meant to
meet, meant to love."
She answered him more by the abandonment with which she lay in his arms
than by the faltering sentences in which she sometimes whispered while
they stood there. She was whispering, "I never meant you should think
I was afraid. Percival, I never meant you should think I did not want
to speak about our love. Only--" when she shivered violently, and he
chid himself for keeping her there, and for warmth's sake, he leading
the horses, they walked the last mile to the Abbey. Ardently then he
talked to her of future plans. He told her that late in the next year
it was arranged he was to go out to the Argentine with some ponies. A
big business was like to be established there, arising out of a sale to
a South American syndicate, and he was to arrange it and to select and
bring back ponies of a native strain for the development of a likely
type. When he returned--"This is why I am telling you, darling,"--the
good old Rough 'Uns had declared he should formally be made partner in
what had now become a great enterprise. "I shall claim you then, my
darling. I shall be able to claim you then."
She surprised him--and, not aware of her reason, thrilled him--by
halting suddenly and clasping his hands that had been holding hers.
"Oh, don't leave me, Percival! Percival, don't go away!"
He kissed her adoringly. "Do you love me so?"
She clung to him and only said: "Don't leave me, Percival. Percival,
you must not," and while he sought to soothe her plea--and still was
thrilled to hear it--suddenly went into a tempest of weeping, changing
his tender happiness to tenderest concern.
"Dora! Why, what is it? What is it, my darling? Tell me, tell
me--ah, don't, don't cry, don't tremble like that."
She had not controlled herself to answer him when sound of wheels came
down the road, lamps through the gloom. She checked herself, and was
at her horse's head when there drew up a carriage sent from the Abbey
to meet her and bring her back in shelter from the rain. A groom took
her horse and, standing by the door as she entered, prevented
explanation she might have made--had she been able to explain.
IV
Had she been able--for the thing that caused her sudden tears and
sudden plea was no more than a glimpse, one of those transient glimpses
of the walls, of the purpose, of the end of her training; differing
from other glimpses that sometimes came in that it caught her unstrung.
If it flickered again in the weeks that followed, it little more
disturbed her than sudden shadow across the garden disturbs the
butterfly passing among the flowers; a flicker of misgiving, a vague
disturbance--gone. The year's end took her away with her mother to
town. Succeeding Autumn that brought them back started Percival to the
Argentine.
"I just miss everybody by going by this boat," he told Aunt Maggie,
sitting with her far into the night before his departure. "There's Ima
coming to you to look after you till I get back and not coming till
next week, so I just miss her; and old Japhra bringing her, so I miss
seeing him too; and then"--he paused for the briefest moment--"there's
Dora and her mother staying another fortnight abroad so I miss them;
and old Rollo and Lady Burdon due next month--I miss them all. It's
the rottenest luck."
"They'll all be here for you when you get back," Aunt Maggie said.
He paused again before he spoke. "Yes. That's where my luck's going
to be dead in. I could tell you something, Aunt Maggie," and he
laughed. "But I won't--yet. My luck--look here, tell old Japhra this
from me; tell him I'm coming back for--he'll understand--the Big Fight,
and going to win it!"