other many times: “That young man will come rushing back!” It was very
nice—they said—to run across him. When did he arrive? They had thought
he was going on to Italy—he was looking rather tired. They did not ask
if he had seen her—being too kind, and perhaps afraid that he would say
'Yes,' which would be embarrassing; or that he would say 'No,' which
would be still more embarrassing when they found that he ought to have
said 'Yes.' Would he not come and sit with them a little—they were going
presently to see how Olive was? Lennan perceived that they were warning
him. And, forcing himself to look at them very straight, he said: “I
have just been there.”
Mrs. Ercott phrased her impressions that same evening: “He looks quite
hunted, poor young man! I'm afraid there's going to be fearful trouble
there. Did you notice how quickly he ran away from us? He's thin, too;
if it wasn't for his tan, he'd look really ill. The boy's eyes are so
pathetic; and he used to have such a nice smile in them.”
The Colonel, who was fastening her hooks, paused in an operation that
required concentration.
“It's a thousand pities,” he muttered, “that he hasn't any work to do.
That puddling about with clay or whatever he does is no good at all.”
And slowly fastening one hook, he unhooked several others.
Mrs. Ercott went on:
“And I saw Olive, when she thought I wasn't looking; it was just as if
she'd taken off a mask. But Robert Cramier will never put up with it.
He's in love with her still; I watched him. It's tragic, John.”
The Colonel let his hands fall from the hooks.
“If I thought that,” he said, “I'd do something.”
“If you could, it would not be tragic.”
The Colonel stared. There was always SOMETHING to be done.
“You read too many novels,” he said, but without spirit.
Mrs. Ercott smiled, and made no answer to an aspersion she had heard
before.
XI
When Lennan reached his rooms again after that encounter with the
Ercotts, he found in his letterbox a visiting card: “Mrs. Doone” “Miss
Sylvia Doone,” and on it pencilled the words: “Do come and see us before
we go down to Hayle—Sylvia.” He stared blankly at the round handwriting
he knew so well.
Sylvia! Nothing perhaps could have made so plain to him how in this
tornado of his passion the world was drowned. Sylvia! He had almost
forgotten her existence; and yet, only last year, after he definitely
settled down in London, he had once more seen a good deal of her; and
even had soft thoughts of her again—with her pale-gold hair, her true
look, her sweetness. Then they had gone for the winter to Algiers for
her mother's health.
When they came back, he had already avoided seeing her, though that was
before Olive went to Monte Carlo, before he had even admitted his own
feeling. And since—he had not once thought of her. Not once! The world
had indeed vanished. “Do come and see us—Sylvia.” The very notion was an
irritation. No rest from aching and impatience to be had that way.
And then the idea came to him: Why not kill these hours of waiting for
to-morrow's meeting by going on the river passing by her cottage? There
was still one train that he could catch.
He reached the village after dark, and spent the night at the inn; got
up early next morning, took a boat, and pulled down-stream. The bluffs
of the opposite bank were wooded with high trees. The sun shone softly
on their leaves, and the bright stream was ruffled by a breeze that bent
all the reeds and slowly swayed the water-flowers. One thin white
line of wind streaked the blue sky. He shipped his sculls and drifted,
listening to the wood-pigeons, watching the swallows chasing. If only
she were here! To spend one long day thus, drifting with the stream! To
have but one such rest from longing! Her cottage, he knew, lay on the
same side as the village, and just beyond an island. She had told him of
a hedge of yew-trees, and a white dovecote almost at the water's edge.
He came to the island, and let his boat slide into the backwater. It
was all overgrown with willow-trees and alders, dark even in this early
morning radiance, and marvellously still. There was no room to row; he
took the boathook and tried to punt, but the green water was too deep
and entangled with great roots, so that he had to make his way by
clawing with the hook at branches. Birds seemed to shun this gloom, but
a single magpie crossed the one little clear patch of sky, and flew low
behind the willows. The air here had a sweetish, earthy odour of too
rank foliage; all brightness seemed entombed. He was glad to pass out
again under a huge poplar-tree into the fluttering gold and silver of
the morning. And almost at once he saw the yew-hedge at the border of
some bright green turf, and a pigeon-house, high on its pole, painted
cream-white. About it a number of ring-doves and snow-white pigeons were
perched or flying; and beyond the lawn he could see the dark veranda of
a low house, covered by wistaria just going out of flower. A drift
of scent from late lilacs, and new-mown grass, was borne out to him,
together with the sound of a mowing-machine, and the humming of many
bees. It was beautiful here, and seemed, for all its restfulness, to
have something of that flying quality he so loved about her face, about
the sweep of her hair, the quick, soft turn of her eyes—or was that but
the darkness of the yew-trees, the whiteness of the dovecote, and the
doves themselves, flying?
He lay there a long time quietly beneath the bank, careful not to
attract the attention of the old gardener, who was methodically pushing
his machine across and across the lawn. How he wanted her with him then!
Wonderful that there could be in life such beauty and wild softness as
made the heart ache with the delight of it, and in that same life grey
rules and rigid barriers—coffins of happiness! That doors should be
closed on love and joy! There was not so much of it in the world! She,
who was the very spirit of this flying, nymph-like summer, was untimely
wintered-up in bleak sorrow. There was a hateful unwisdom in that
thought; it seemed so grim and violent, so corpse-like, gruesome, narrow
and extravagant! What possible end could it serve that she should be
unhappy! Even if he had not loved her, he would have hated her fate just
as much—all such stories of imprisoned lives had roused his anger even
as a boy.
Soft white clouds—those bright angels of the river, never very long
away—had begun now to spread their wings over the woods; and the
wind had dropped so that the slumbrous warmth and murmuring of summer
gathered full over the water. The old gardener had finished his job of
mowing, and came with a little basket of grain to feed the doves. Lennan
watched them going to him, the ring-doves, very dainty, and capricious,
keeping to themselves. In place of that old fellow, he was really seeing
HER, feeding from her hands those birds of Cypris. What a group he could
have made of her with them perching and flying round her! If she were
his, what could he not achieve—to make her immortal—like the old Greeks
and Italians, who, in their work, had rescued their mistresses from
Time! . . .
He was back in his rooms in London two hours before he dared begin
expecting her. Living alone there but for a caretaker who came every
morning for an hour or two, made dust, and departed, he had no need
for caution. And when he had procured flowers, and the fruits and cakes
which they certainly would not eat—when he had arranged the tea-table,
and made the grand tour at least twenty times, he placed himself with a
book at the little round window, to watch for her approach. There, very
still, he sat, not reading a word, continually moistening his dry lips
and sighing, to relieve the tension of his heart. At last he saw her
coming. She was walking close to the railings of the houses, looking
neither to right nor left. She had on a lawn frock, and a hat of the
palest coffee-coloured straw, with a narrow black velvet ribbon. She
crossed the side street, stopped for a second, gave a swift look round,
then came resolutely on. What was it made him love her so? What was the
secret of her fascination? Certainly, no conscious enticements. Never
did anyone try less to fascinate. He could not recall one single little
thing that she had done to draw him to her. Was it, perhaps, her very
passivity, her native pride that never offered or asked anything, a sort
of soft stoicism in her fibre; that and some mysterious charm, as close
and intimate as scent was to a flower?
He waited to open till he heard her footstep just outside. She came in
without a word, not even looking at him. And he, too, said not a word
till he had closed the door, and made sure of her. Then they turned to
each other. Her breast was heaving a little, under her thin frock, but
she was calmer than he, with that wonderful composure of pretty women in
all the passages of love, as who should say: This is my native air!
They stood and looked at each other, as if they could never have enough,
till he said at last:
“I thought I should die before this moment came. There isn't a minute
that I don't long for you so terribly that I can hardly live.”
“And do you think that I don't long for you?”
“Then come to me!”
She looked at him mournfully and shook her head.
Well, he had known that she would not. He had not earned her. What right
had he to ask her to fly against the world, to brave everything, to have
such faith in him—as yet? He had no heart to press his words, beginning
then to understand the paralyzing truth that there was no longer
any resolving this or that; with love like his he had ceased to be a
separate being with a separate will. He was entwined with her, could act
only if her will and his were one. He would never be able to say to her:
'You must!' He loved her too much. And she knew it. So there was nothing
for it but to forget the ache, and make the hour happy. But how about
that other truth—that in love there is no pause, no resting?... With any
watering, however scant, the flower will grow till its time comes to be
plucked.... This oasis in the desert—these few minutes with her alone,
were swept through and through with a feverish wind. To be closer! How
not try to be that? How not long for her lips when he had but her hand
to kiss? And how not be poisoned with the thought that in a few minutes
she would leave him and go back to the presence of that other, who, even
though she loathed him, could see and touch her when he would? She was
leaning back in the very chair where in fancy he had seen her, and he
only dared sit at her feet and look up. And this, which a week ago would
have been rapture, was now almost torture, so far did it fall short of
his longing. It was torture, too, to keep his voice in tune with the
sober sweetness of her voice. And bitterly he thought: How can she sit
there, and not want me, as I want her? Then at a touch of her fingers
on his hair, he lost control, and kissed her lips. Her surrender lasted
only for a second.
“No, no—you must not!”
That mournful surprise sobered him at once.
He got up, stood away from her, begged to be forgiven.
And, when she was gone, he sat in the chair where she had sat. That
clasp of her, the kiss he had begged her to forget—to forget!—nothing
could take that from him. He had done wrong; had startled her, had
fallen short of chivalry! And yet—a smile of utter happiness would cling
about his lips. His fastidiousness, his imagination almost made him
think that this was all he wanted. If he could close his eyes, now, and
pass out, before he lost that moment of half-fulfilment!
And, the smile still on his lips, he lay back watching the flies
wheeling and chasing round the hanging-lamp. Sixteen of them there were,
wheeling and chasing—never still!
XII
When, walking from Lennan's studio, Olive reentered her dark little
hall, she approached its alcove and glanced first at the hat-stand. They
were all there—the silk hat, the bowler, the straw! So he was in! And
within each hat, in turn, she seemed to see her husband's head—with the
face turned away from her—so distinctly as to note the leathery look of
the skin of his cheek and neck. And she thought: “I pray that he will
die! It is wicked, but I pray that he will die!” Then, quietly, that
he might not hear, she mounted to her bedroom. The door into his
dressing-room was open, and she went to shut it. He was standing there
at the window.
“Ah! You're in! Been anywhere?”
“To the National Gallery.”
It was the first direct lie she had ever told him, and she was surprised
to feel neither shame nor fear, but rather a sense of pleasure at
defeating him. He was the enemy, all the more the enemy because she was
still fighting against herself, and, so strangely, in his behalf.
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
“Rather boring, wasn't it? I should have thought you'd have got young
Lennan to take you there.”
“Why?”
By instinct she had seized on the boldest answer; and there was nothing
to be told from her face. If he were her superior in strength, he was
her inferior in quickness.
He lowered his eyes, and said:
“His line, isn't it?”
With a shrug she turned away and shut the door. She sat down on the edge
of her bed, very still. In that little passage of wits she had won, she
could win in many such; but the full hideousness of things had come to
her. Lies! lies! That was to be her life! That; or to say farewell to
all she now cared for, to cause despair not only in herself, but in her
lover, and—for what? In order that her body might remain at the disposal
of that man in the next room—her spirit having flown from him for ever.
Such were the alternatives, unless those words: “Then come to me,” were
to be more than words. Were they? Could they be? They would mean such
happiness if—if his love for her were more than a summer love? And hers
for him? Was it—were they—more than summer loves? How know? And, without
knowing, how give such pain to everyone? How break a vow she had thought
herself quite above breaking? How make such a desperate departure from
all the traditions and beliefs in which she had been brought up! But in
the very nature of passion is that which resents the intrusion of hard
and fast decisions.... And suddenly she thought: If our love cannot stay
what it is, and if I cannot yet go to him for always, is there not still
another way?
She got up and began to dress for dinner. Standing before her glass
she was surprised to see that her face showed no signs of the fears and
doubts that were now her comrades. Was it because, whatever happened,
she loved and was beloved! She wondered how she had looked when he
kissed her so passionately; had she shown her joy before she checked
him?
In her garden by the river were certain flowers that, for all her care,
would grow rank and of the wrong colour—wanting a different soil. Was
she, then, like those flowers of hers? Ah! Let her but have her true
soil, and she would grow straight and true enough!
Then in the doorway she saw her husband. She had never, till to-day,
quite hated him; but now she did, with a real blind horrible feeling.
What did he want of her standing there with those eyes fixed on
her—those forceful eyes, touched with blood, that seemed at once to
threaten, covet, and beseech! She drew her wrapper close round her
shoulders. At that he came up and said:
“Look at me, Olive!”
Against instinct and will she obeyed, and he went on:
“Be careful! I say, be careful!”
Then he took her by the shoulders, and raised her up to him. And, quite
unnerved, she stood without resisting.
“I want you,” he said; “I mean to keep you.”
Then, suddenly letting her go, he covered his eyes with his hands.
That frightened her most—it was so unlike him. Not till now had she
understood between what terrifying forces she was balancing. She did
not speak, but her face grew white. From behind those hands he uttered
a sound, not quite like a human noise, turned sharply, and went out.
She dropped back into the chair before her mirror, overcome by the most
singular feeling she had ever known; as if she had lost everything,
even her love for Lennan, and her longing for his love. What was it all
worth, what was anything worth in a world like this? All was loathsome,
herself loathsome! All was a void! Hateful, hateful, hateful! It was
like having no heart at all! And that same evening, when her husband had
gone down to the House, she wrote to Lennan:
“Our love must never turn to earthiness as it might have this afternoon.
Everything is black and hopeless. HE suspects. For you to come here is
impossible, and too dreadful for us both. And I have no right to ask you
to be furtive, I can't bear to think of you like that, and I can't bear
it myself. I don't know what to do or say. Don't try to see me yet. I
must have time, I must think.”
XIII
Colonel Ercott was not a racing man, but he had in common with others
of his countrymen a religious feeling in the matter of the Derby. His
remembrances of it went back to early youth, for he had been born and
brought up almost within sound of the coaching-road to Epsom. Every
Derby and Oaks day he had gone out on his pony to watch the passing of
the tall hats and feathers of the great, and the pot-hats and feathers
of the lowly; and afterwards, in the fields at home, had ridden races
with old Lindsay, finishing between a cow that judged and a clump of
bulrushes representing the Grand Stand.
But for one reason or another he had never seen the great race, and the
notion that it was his duty to see it had now come to him. He proposed
this to Mrs. Ercott with some diffidence. She read so many books—he did
not quite know whether she would approve. Finding that she did, he added
casually:
“And we might take Olive.”
Mrs. Ercott answered dryly:
“You know the House of Commons has a holiday?”
The Colonel murmured:
“Oh! I don't want that chap!”
“Perhaps,” said Mrs. Ercott, “you would like Mark Lennan.”
The Colonel looked at her most dubiously. Dolly could talk of it as a
tragedy, and a—a grand passion, and yet make a suggestion like that!
Then his wrinkles began slowly to come alive, and he gave her waist a
squeeze.
Mrs. Ercott did not resist that treatment.
“Take Olive alone,” she said. “I don't really care to go.”
When the Colonel went to fetch his niece he found her ready, and very
half-heartedly he asked for Cramier. It appeared she had not told him.
Relieved, yet somewhat disconcerted, he murmured:
“He won't mind not going, I suppose?”
“If he went, I should not.”
At this quiet answer the Colonel was beset again by all his fears. He
put his white 'topper' down, and took her hand.
“My dear,” he said, “I don't want to intrude upon your feelings; but—but
is there anything I can do? It's dreadful to see things going unhappily
with you!” He felt his hand being lifted, her face pressed against
it; and, suffering acutely, with his other hand, cased in a bright new
glove, he smoothed her arm. “We'll have a jolly good day, sweetheart,”
he said, “and forget all about it.”
She gave the hand a kiss and turned away. And the Colonel vowed to
himself that she should not be unhappy—lovely creature that she was,
so delicate, and straight, and fine in her pearly frock. And he pulled
himself together, brushing his white 'topper' vigorously with his
sleeve, forgetting that this kind of hat has no nap.
And so he was tenderness itself on the journey down, satisfying all
her wants before she had them, telling her stories of Indian life, and
consulting her carefully as to which horse they should back. There was
the Duke's, of course, but there was another animal that appealed to him
greatly. His friend Tabor had given him the tip—Tabor, who had the best
Arabs in all India—and at a nice price. A man who practically never
gambled, the Colonel liked to feel that his fancy would bring him in
something really substantial—if it won; the idea that it could lose not
really troubling him. However, they would see it in the paddock, and
judge for themselves. The paddock was the place, away from all the
dust and racket—Olive would enjoy the paddock! Once on the course, they
neglected the first race; it was more important, the Colonel thought,
that they should lunch. He wanted to see more colour in her cheeks,
wanted to see her laugh. He had an invitation to his old regiment's
drag, where the champagne was sure to be good. And he was so proud of
her—would not have missed those young fellows' admiration of her for
the world; though to take a lady amongst them was, in fact, against the
rules. It was not, then, till the second race was due to start that they
made their way into the paddock. Here the Derby horses were being led
solemnly, attended each by a little posse of persons, looking up their
legs and down their ribs to see whether they were worthy of support,
together with a few who liked to see a whole horse at a time. Presently
they found the animal which had been recommended to the Colonel. It
was a chestnut, with a starred forehead, parading in a far corner. The
Colonel, who really loved a horse, was deep in admiration. He liked
its head and he liked its hocks; above all, he liked its eye. A fine
creature, all sense and fire—perhaps just a little straight in the
shoulder for coming down the hill! And in the midst of his examination
he found himself staring at his niece. What breeding the child showed,
with her delicate arched brows, little ears, and fine, close nostrils;
and the way she moved—so sure and springy. She was too pretty to suffer!
A shame! If she hadn't been so pretty that young fellow wouldn't have
fallen in love with her. If she weren't so pretty—that husband of hers
wouldn't—! And the Colonel dropped his gaze, startled by the discovery
he had stumbled on. If she hadn't been so pretty! Was that the meaning
of it all? The cynicism of his own reflection struck him between wind
and water. And yet something in himself seemed to confirm it somehow.
What then? Was he to let them tear her in two between them, destroying
her, because she was so pretty? And somehow this discovery of his—that
passion springs from worship of beauty and warmth, of form and
colour—disturbed him horribly, for he had no habit of philosophy. The
thought seemed to him strangely crude, even immoral. That she should
be thus between two ravening desires—a bird between two hawks, a fruit
between two mouths! It was a way of looking at things that had never
before occurred to him. The idea of a husband clutching at his wife, the
idea of that young man who looked so gentle, swooping down on her;
and the idea that if she faded, lost her looks, went off, their greed,
indeed, any man's, would die away—all these horrible ideas hurt him the
more for the remarkable suddenness with which they had come to him. A
tragic business! Dolly had said so. Queer and quick—were women! But his
resolution that the day was to be jolly soon recurred to him, and he
hastily resumed inspection of his fancy. Perhaps they ought to have a
ten-pound note on it, and they had better get back to the Stand! And as
they went the Colonel saw, standing beneath a tree at a little distance,
a young man that he could have sworn was Lennan. Not likely for an
artist chap to be down here! But it WAS undoubtedly young Lennan,
brushed-up, in a top-hat. Fortunately, however, his face was not turned
in their direction. He said nothing to Olive, not wishing—especially
after those unpleasant thoughts—to take responsibility, and he kept her
moving towards the gate, congratulating himself that his eyes had been
so sharp. In the crush there he was separated from her a little, but she
was soon beside him again; and more than ever he congratulated himself
that nothing had occurred to upset her and spoil the day. Her cheeks
were warm enough now, her dark eyes glowing. She was excited no doubt
by thoughts of the race, and of the 'tenner' he was going to put on for
her.
He recounted the matter afterwards to Mrs. Ercott. “That chestnut
Tabor put me on to finished nowhere—couldn't get down the hill—knew it
wouldn't the moment I set eyes on it. But the child enjoyed herself.
Wish you'd been there, my dear!” Of his deeper thoughts and of that
glimpse of young Lennan he did not speak, for on the way home an ugly
suspicion had attacked him. Had the young fellow, after all, seen and
managed to get close to her in the crush at the paddock gateway?
XIV
That letter of hers fanned the flame in Lennan as nothing had yet fanned
it. Earthiness! Was it earthiness to love as he did? If so, then not for
all the world would he be otherwise than earthy. In the shock of reading
it, he crossed his Rubicon, and burned his boats behind him. No more
did the pale ghost, chivalrous devotion, haunt him. He knew now that he
could not stop short. Since she asked him, he must not, of course, try
to see her just yet. But when he did, then he would fight for his life;
the thought that she might be meaning to slip away from him was too
utterly unbearable. But she could not be meaning that! She would never
be so cruel! Ah! she would—she must come to him in the end! The world,
life itself, would be well lost for love of her!
Thus resolved, he was even able to work again; and all that Tuesday
he modelled at a big version of the fantastic, bull-like figure he had
conceived after the Colonel left him up on the hillside at Beaulieu. He
worked at it with a sort of evil joy. Into this creature he would put
the spirit of possession that held her from him. And while his fingers
forced the clay, he felt as if he had Cramier's neck within his grip.
Yet, now that he had resolved to take her if he could, he had not quite
the same hatred. After all, this man loved her too, could not help it
that she loathed him; could not help it that he had the disposition of
her, body and soul!
June had come in with skies of a blue that not even London glare and
dust could pale. In every square and park and patch of green the air
simmered with life and with the music of birds swaying on little boughs.
Piano organs in the streets were no longer wistful for the South; lovers
already sat in the shade of trees.
To remain indoors, when he was not working, was sheer torture; for he
could not read, and had lost all interest in the little excitements,
amusements, occupations that go to make up the normal life of man. Every
outer thing seemed to have dropped off, shrivelled, leaving him just a
condition of the spirit, a state of mind.
Lying awake he would think of things in the past, and they would mean
nothing—all dissolved and dispersed by the heat of this feeling in him.
Indeed, his sense of isolation was so strong that he could not
even believe that he had lived through the facts which his memory
apprehended. He had become one burning mood—that, and nothing more.
To be out, especially amongst trees, was the only solace.
And he sat for a long time that evening under a large lime-tree on a
knoll above the Serpentine. There was very little breeze, just enough
to keep alive a kind of whispering. What if men and women, when they had
lived their gusty lives, became trees! What if someone who had burned
and ached were now spreading over him this leafy peace—this blue-black
shadow against the stars? Or were the stars, perhaps, the souls of men
and women escaped for ever from love and longing? He broke off a branch
of the lime and drew it across his face. It was not yet in flower, but
it smelled lemony and fresh even here in London. If only for a moment he
could desert his own heart, and rest with the trees and stars!
No further letter came from her next morning, and he soon lost his power
to work. It was Derby Day. He determined to go down. Perhaps she would
be there. Even if she were not, he might find some little distraction in
the crowd and the horses. He had seen her in the paddock long before the
Colonel's sharp eyes detected him; and, following in the crush, managed
to touch her hand in the crowded gateway, and whisper: “To-morrow, the
National Gallery, at four o'clock—by the Bacchus and Ariadne. For God's
sake!” Her gloved hand pressed his hard; and she was gone. He stayed in
the paddock, too happy almost to breathe....
Next day, while waiting before that picture, he looked at it with
wonder. For there seemed his own passion transfigured in the darkening
star-crowned sky, and the eyes of the leaping god. In spirit, was he not
always rushing to her like that? Minutes passed, and she did not come.
What should he do if she failed him? Surely die of disappointment and
despair.... He had little enough experience as yet of the toughness of
the human heart; how life bruises and crushes, yet leaves it beating....
Then, from an unlikely quarter, he saw her coming.
They walked in silence down to the quiet rooms where the Turner
watercolours hung. No one, save two Frenchmen and an old official,
watched them passing slowly before those little pictures, till they came
to the end wall, and, unseen, unheard by any but her, he could begin!
The arguments he had so carefully rehearsed were all forgotten; nothing
left but an incoherent pleading. Life without her was not life; and they
had only one life for love—one summer. It was all dark where she was
not—the very sun itself was dark. Better to die than to live such false,
broken lives, apart from each other. Better to die at once than to
live wanting each other, longing and longing, and watching each other's
sorrow. And all for the sake of what? It maddened, killed him, to think
of that man touching her when he knew she did but hate him. It shamed
all manhood; it could not be good to help such things to be. A vow when
the spirit of it was gone was only superstition; it was wicked to waste
one's life for the sake of that. Society—she knew, she must know—only
cared for the forms, the outsides of things. And what did it matter what
Society thought? It had no soul, no feeling, nothing. And if it were
said they ought to sacrifice themselves for the sake of others, to make
things happier in the world, she must know that was only true when love
was light and selfish; but not when people loved as they did, with
all their hearts and souls, so that they would die for each other any
minute, so that without each other there was no meaning in anything. It
would not help a single soul, for them to murder their love and all the
happiness of their lives; to go on in a sort of living death. Even if
it were wrong, he would rather do that wrong, and take the consequences!
But it was not, it COULD not be wrong, when they felt like that!
And all the time that he was pouring forth those supplications, his eyes
searched and searched her face. But there only came from her: “I don't
know—I can't tell—if only I knew!” And then he was silent, stricken
to the heart; till, at a look or a touch from her, he would break out
again: “You do love me—you do; then what does anything else matter?”
And so it went on and on that summer afternoon, in the deserted
room meant for such other things, where the two Frenchmen were too
sympathetic, and the old official too drowsy, to come. Then it all
narrowed to one fierce, insistent question:
“What is it—WHAT is it you're afraid of?”
But to that, too, he got only the one mournful answer, paralyzing in its
fateful monotony.
“I don't know—I can't tell!”
It was awful to go on thus beating against this uncanny, dark, shadowy
resistance; these unreal doubts and dreads, that by their very dumbness
were becoming real to him, too. If only she could tell him what she
feared! It could not be poverty—that was not like her—besides, he had
enough for both. It could not be loss of a social position, which was
but irksome to her! Surely it was not fear that he would cease to love
her! What was it? In God's name—what?
To-morrow—she had told him—she was to go down, alone, to the
river-house; would she not come now, this very minute, to him instead?
And they would start off—that night, back to the South where their
love had flowered. But again it was: “I can't! I don't know—I must have
time!” And yet her eyes had that brooding love-light. How COULD she hold
back and waver? But, utterly exhausted, he did not plead again; did not
even resist when she said: “You must go, now; and leave me to get back!
I will write. Perhaps—soon—I shall know.” He begged for, and took one
kiss; then, passing the old official, went quickly up and out.
XV
He reached his rooms overcome by a lassitude that was not, however,
quite despair. He had made his effort, failed—but there was still within
him the unconquerable hope of the passionate lover.... As well try to
extinguish in full June the beating of the heart of summer; deny to the
flowers their deepening hues, or to winged life its slumbrous buzzing,
as stifle in such a lover his conviction of fulfilment....
He lay down on a couch, and there stayed a long time quite still, his
forehead pressed against the wall. His will was already beginning to
recover for a fresh attempt. It was merciful that she was going away
from Cramier, going to where he had in fancy watched her feed her doves.
No laws, no fears, not even her commands could stop his fancy from
conjuring her up by day and night. He had but to close his eyes, and she
was there.
A ring at the bell, repeated several times, roused him at last to go
to the door. His caller was Robert Cramier. And at sight of him, all
Lennan's lethargy gave place to a steely feeling. What had brought
him here? Had he been spying on his wife? The old longing for physical
combat came over him. Cramier was perhaps fifteen years his senior, but
taller, heavier, thicker. Chances, then, were pretty equal!
“Won't you come in?” he said.
“Thanks.”
The voice had in it the same mockery as on Sunday; and it shot through
him that Cramier had thought to find his wife here. If so, he did not
betray it by any crude look round. He came in with his deliberate step,
light and well-poised for so big a man.
“So this,” he said, “is where you produce your masterpieces! Anything
great since you came back?”
Lennan lifted the cloths from the half-modelled figure of his bull-man.
He felt malicious pleasure in doing that. Would Cramier recognize
himself in this creature with the horn-like ears, and great bossed
forehead? If this man who had her happiness beneath his heel had come
here to mock, he should at all events get what he had come to give. And
he waited.
“I see. You are giving the poor brute horns!”
If Cramier had seen, he had dared to add a touch of cynical humour,
which the sculptor himself had never thought of. And this even evoked in
the young man a kind of admiring compunction.
“Those are not horns,” he said gently; “only ears.”
Cramier lifted a hand and touched the edge of his own ear.
“Not quite like that, are they—human ears? But I suppose you would call
this symbolic. What, if I may ask, does it represent?”
All the softness in Lennan vanished.
“If you can't gather that from looking, it must be a failure.”
“Not at all. If I am right, you want something for it to tread on, don't
you, to get your full effect?”
Lennan touched the base of the clay.
“The broken curve here”—then, with sudden disgust at this fencing, was
silent. What had the man come for? He must want something. And, as if
answering, Cramier said:
“To pass to another subject—you see a good deal of my wife. I just
wanted to tell you that I don't very much care that you should. It is as
well to be quite frank, I think.”
Lennan bowed.
“Is that not,” he said, “perhaps rather a matter for HER decision?”
That heavy figure—those threatening eyes! The whole thing was like a
dream come true!
“I do not feel it so. I am not one of those who let things drift. Please
understand me. You come between us at your peril.”
Lennan kept silence for a moment, then he said quietly:
“Can one come between two people who have ceased to have anything in
common?”
The veins in Cramier's forehead were swollen, his face and neck had
grown crimson. And Lennan thought with strange elation: Now he's going
to hit me! He could hardly keep his hands from shooting out and seizing
in advance that great strong neck. If he could strangle, and have done
with him!
But, quite suddenly, Cramier turned on his heel. “I have warned you,” he
said, and went.
Lennan took a long breath. So! That was over, and he knew where he was.
If Cramier had struck out, he would surely have seized his neck and held
on till life was gone. Nothing should have shaken him off. In fancy he
could see himself swaying, writhing, reeling, battered about by those
heavy fists, but always with his hands on the thick neck, squeezing out
its life. He could feel, absolutely feel, the last reel and stagger
of that great bulk crashing down, dragging him with it, till it lay
upturned, still. He covered his eyes with his hands.... Thank God! The
fellow had not hit out!
He went to the door, opened it, and stood leaning against the door-post.
All was still and drowsy out there in that quiet backwater of a street.
Not a soul in sight! How still, for London! Only the birds. In a
neighbouring studio someone was playing Chopin. Queer! He had almost
forgotten there was such a thing as Chopin. A mazurka! Spinning like
some top thing, round and round—weird little tune!... Well, and what
now? Only one thing certain. Sooner give up life than give her up! Far
sooner! Love her, achieve her—or give up everything, and drown to that
tune going on and on, that little dancing dirge of summer!
XVI
At her cottage Olive stood often by the river.
What lay beneath all that bright water—what strange, deep, swaying, life
so far below the ruffling of wind, and the shadows of the willow trees?
Was love down there, too? Love between sentient things, where it was
almost dark; or had all passion climbed up to rustle with the reeds, and
float with the water-flowers in the sunlight? Was there colour? Or had
colour been drowned? No scent and no music; but movement there would be,
for all the dim groping things bending one way to the current—movement,
no less than in the aspen-leaves, never quite still, and the winged
droves of the clouds. And if it were dark down there, it was dark, too,
above the water; and hearts ached, and eyes just as much searched for
that which did not come.
To watch it always flowing by to the sea; never looking back, never
swaying this way or that; drifting along, quiet as Fate—dark, or
glamorous with the gold and moonlight of these beautiful days and
nights, when every flower in her garden, in the fields, and along the
river banks, was full of sweet life; when dog-roses starred the lanes,
and in the wood the bracken was nearly a foot high.
She was not alone there, though she would much rather have been; two
days after she left London her Uncle and Aunt had joined her. It was
from Cramier they had received their invitation. He himself had not yet
been down.
Every night, having parted from Mrs. Ercott and gone up the wide shallow
stairs to her room, she would sit down at the window to write to Lennan,
one candle beside her—one pale flame for comrade, as it might be his
spirit. Every evening she poured out to him her thoughts, and ended
always: “Have patience!” She was still waiting for courage to pass that
dark hedge of impalpable doubts and fears and scruples, of a dread that
she could not make articulate even to herself. Having finished, she
would lean out into the night. The Colonel, his black figure cloaked
against the dew, would be pacing up and down the lawn, with his
good-night cigar, whose fiery spark she could just discern; and, beyond,
her ghostly dove-house; and, beyond, the river—flowing. Then she would
clasp herself close—afraid to stretch out her arms, lest she should be
seen.
Each morning she rose early, dressed, and slipped away to the village to
post her letter. From the woods across the river wild pigeons would be
calling—as though Love itself pleaded with her afresh each day. She was
back well before breakfast, to go up to her room and come down again as
if for the first time. The Colonel, meeting her on the stairs, or in the
hall, would say: “Ah, my dear! just beaten you! Slept well?” And, while
her lips touched his cheek, slanted at the proper angle for uncles, he
never dreamed that she had been three miles already through the dew.
Now that she was in the throes of an indecision, whose ending, one way
or the other, must be so tremendous, now that she was in the very swirl,
she let no sign at all escape her; the Colonel and even his wife were
deceived into thinking that after all no great harm had been done. It
was grateful to them to think so, because of that stewardship at Monte
Carlo, of which they could not render too good account. The warm sleepy
days, with a little croquet and a little paddling on the river, and much
sitting out of doors, when the Colonel would read aloud from Tennyson,
were very pleasant. To him—if not to Mrs. Ercott—it was especially jolly
to be out of Town 'this confounded crowded time of year.' And so the
days of early June went by, each finer than the last.
And then Cramier came down, without warning on a Friday evening. It
was hot in London...the session dull.... The Jubilee turning everything
upside down.... They were lucky to be out of Town!
A silent dinner—that!
Mrs. Ercott noticed that he drank wine like water, and for minutes at a
time fixed his eyes, that looked heavy as if he had not been sleeping,
not on his wife's face but on her neck. If Olive really disliked and
feared him—as John would have it—she disguised her feelings very well!
For so pale a woman she was looking brilliant that night. The sun had
caught her cheeks, perhaps. That black low-cut frock suited her, with
old Milanese-point lace matching her skin so well, and one carnation,
of darkest red, at her breast. Her eyes were really sometimes like black
velvet. It suited pale women to have those eyes, that looked so black
at night! She was talking, too, and laughing more than usual. One would
have said: A wife delighted to welcome her husband! And yet there was
something—something in the air, in the feel of things—the lowering
fixity of that man's eyes, or—thunder coming, after all this heat!
Surely the night was unnaturally still and dark, hardly a breath of air,
and so many moths out there, passing the beam of light, like little pale
spirits crossing a river! Mrs. Ercott smiled, pleased at that image.
Moths! Men were like moths; there were women from whom they could not
keep away. Yes, there was something about Olive that drew men to her.
Not meretricious—to do her justice, not that at all; but something soft,
and-fatal; like one of these candle-flames to the poor moths. John's
eyes were never quite as she knew them when he was looking at Olive; and
Robert Cramier's—what a queer, drugged look they had! As for that other
poor young fellow—she had never forgotten his face when they came on him
in the Park!
And when after dinner they sat on the veranda, they were all more silent
still, just watching, it seemed, the smoke of their cigarettes, rising
quite straight, as though wind had been withdrawn from the world. The
Colonel twice endeavoured to speak about the moon: It ought to be up by
now! It was going to be full.
And then Cramier said: “Put on that scarf thing, Olive, and come round
the garden with me.”
Mrs. Ercott admitted to herself now that what John said was true. Just
one gleam of eyes, turned quickly this way and that, as a bird looks
for escape; and then Olive had got up and quietly gone with him down the
path, till their silent figures were lost to sight.
Disturbed to the heart, Mrs. Ercott rose and went over to her husband's
chair. He was frowning, and staring at his evening shoe balanced on a
single toe. He looked up at her and put out his hand. Mrs. Ercott gave
it a squeeze; she wanted comfort.
The Colonel spoke:
“It's heavy to-night, Dolly. I don't like the feel of it.”
XVII
They had passed without a single word spoken, down through the laurels
and guelder roses to the river bank; then he had turned to the right,
and gone along it under the dove-house, to the yew-trees. There he
had stopped, in the pitch darkness of that foliage. It seemed to her
dreadfully still; if only there had been the faintest breeze, the
faintest lisping of reeds on the water, one bird to make a sound; but
nothing, nothing save his breathing, deep, irregular, with a quiver in
it. What had he brought her here for? To show her how utterly she was
his? Was he never going to speak, never going to say whatever it was he
had in mind to say? If only he would not touch her!
Then he moved, and a stone dislodged fell with a splash into the water.
She could not help a little gasp. How black the river looked! But
slowly, beyond the dim shape of the giant poplar, a shiver of light
stole outwards across the blackness from the far bank—the moon, whose
rim she could now see rising, of a thick gold like a coin, above the
woods. Her heart went out to that warm light. At all events there was
one friendly inhabitant of this darkness.
Suddenly she felt his hands on her waist. She did not move, her heart
beat too furiously; but a sort of prayer fluttered up from it against
her lips. In the grip of those heavy hands was such quivering force!
His voice sounded very husky and strange: “Olive, this can't go on. I
suffer. My God! I suffer!”
A pang went through her, a sort of surprise. Suffer! She might wish him
dead, but she did not want him to suffer—God knew! And yet, gripped by
those hands, she could not say: I am sorry!
He made a sound that was almost a groan, and dropped on his knees.
Feeling herself held fast, she tried to push his forehead back from her
waist. It was fiery hot; and she heard him mutter: “Have mercy! Love me
a little!” But the clutch of his hands, never still on the thin silk of
her dress, turned her faint. She tried to writhe away, but could not;
stood still again, and at last found her voice.
“Mercy? Can I MAKE myself love? No one ever could since the world began.
Please, please get up. Let me go!”
But he was pulling her down to him so that she was forced on to her
knees on the grass, with her face close to his. A low moaning was coming
from him. It was horrible—so horrible! And he went on pleading, the
words all confused, not looking in her face. It seemed to her that it
would never end, that she would never get free of that grip, away from
that stammering, whispering voice. She stayed by instinct utterly still,
closing her eyes. Then she felt his gaze for the first time that evening
on her face, and realized that he had not dared to look until her eyes
were closed, for fear of reading what was in them. She said very gently:
“Please let me go. I think I'm going to faint.”
He relaxed the grip of his arms; she sank down and stayed unmoving on
the grass. After such utter stillness that she hardly knew whether he
were there or not, she felt his hot hand on her bare shoulder. Was
it all to begin again? She shrank down lower still, and a little moan
escaped her. He let her go suddenly, and, when at last she looked up,
was gone.
She got to her feet trembling, and moved quickly from under the
yew-trees. She tried to think—tried to understand exactly what this
portended for her, for him, for her lover. But she could not. There was
around her thoughts the same breathless darkness that brooded over this
night. Ah! but to the night had been given that pale-gold moon-ray, to
herself nothing, no faintest gleam; as well try to pierce below the dark
surface of that water!
She passed her hands over her face, and hair, and dress. How long had
it lasted? How long had they been out here? And she began slowly moving
back towards the house. Thank God! She had not yielded to fear or pity,
not uttered falsities, not pretended she could love him, and betrayed
her heart. That would have been the one unbearable thing to have been
left remembering! She stood long looking down, as if trying to see the
future in her dim flower-beds; then, bracing herself, hurried to the
house. No one was on the veranda, no one in the drawing-room. She
looked at the clock. Nearly eleven. Ringing for the servant to shut the
windows, she stole up to her room. Had her husband gone away as he had
come? Or would she presently again be face to face with that dread, the
nerve of which never stopped aching now, dread of the night when he was
near? She determined not to go to bed, and drawing a long chair to the
window, wrapped herself in a gown, and lay back.
The flower from her dress, miraculously uncrushed in those dark minutes
on the grass, she set in water beside her at the window—Mark's favourite
flower, he had once told her; it was a comfort, with its scent, and hue,
and memory of him.
Strange that in her life, with all the faces seen, and people known, she
had not loved one till she had met Lennan! She had even been sure that
love would never come to her; had not wanted it—very much; had thought
to go on well enough, and pass out at the end, never having known, or
much cared to know, full summer. Love had taken its revenge on her now
for all slighted love offered her in the past; for the one hated love
that had to-night been on its knees to her. They said it must always
come once to every man and woman—this witchery, this dark sweet feeling,
springing up, who knew how or why? She had not believed, but now she
knew. And whatever might be coming, she would not have this different.
Since all things changed, she must change and get old and be no longer
pretty for him to look at, but this in her heart could not change. She
felt sure of that. It was as if something said: This is for ever, beyond
life, beyond death, this is for ever! He will be dust, and you dust, but
your love will live! Somewhere—in the woods, among the flowers, or down
in the dark water, it will haunt! For it only you have lived!... Then
she noticed that a slender silvery-winged thing, unlike any moth she had
ever seen, had settled on her gown, close to her neck. It seemed to be
sleeping, so delicate and drowsy, having come in from the breathless
dark, thinking, perhaps, that her whiteness was a light. What dim memory
did it rouse; something of HIM, something HE had done—in darkness, on a
night like this. Ah, yes! that evening after Gorbio, the little owl-moth
on her knee! He had touched her when he took that cosy wan velvet-eyed
thing off her!
She leaned out for air. What a night!—whose stars were hiding in the
sheer heavy warmth; whose small, round, golden moon had no transparency!
A night like a black pansy with a little gold heart. And silent! For,
of the trees, that whispered so much at night, not even the aspens had
voice. The unstirring air had a dream-solidity against her cheeks. But
in all the stillness, what sentiency, what passion—as in her heart!
Could she not draw HIM to her from those woods, from that dark gleaming
river, draw him from the flowers and trees and the passion-mood of
the sky—draw him up to her waiting here, so that she was no more this
craving creature, but one with him and the night! And she let her head
droop down on her hands.
All night long she stayed there at the window. Sometimes dozing in the
chair; once waking with a start, fancying that her husband was bending
over her. Had he been—and stolen away? And the dawn came; dew-grey,
filmy and wistful, woven round each black tree, and round the white
dove-cot, and falling scarf-like along the river. And the chirrupings of
birds stirred among leaves as yet invisible.
She slept then.
XVIII
When she awoke once more, in daylight, smiling, Cramier was standing
beside her chair. His face, all dark and bitter, had the sodden look of
a man very tired.
“So!” he said: “Sleeping this way doesn't spoil your dreams. Don't let
me disturb them. I am just going back to Town.”
Like a frightened bird, she stayed, not stirring, gazing at his back as
he leaned in the window, till, turning round on her again, he said:
“But remember this: What I can't have, no one else shall! Do you
understand? No one else!” And he bent down close, repeating: “Do you
understand—you bad wife!”
Four years' submission to a touch she shrank from; one long effort not
to shrink! Bad wife! Not if he killed her would she answer now!
“Do you hear?” he said once more: “Make up your mind to that. I mean
it.”
He had gripped the arms of her chair, till she could feel it quiver
beneath her. Would he drive his fist into her face that she managed to
keep still smiling? But there only passed into his eyes an expression
which she could not read.
“Well,” he said, “you know!” and walked heavily towards the door.
The moment he had gone she sprang up: Yes, she was a bad wife! A wife
who had reached the end of her tether. A wife who hated instead of
loving. A wife in prison! Bad wife! Martyrdom, then, for the sake of a
faith in her that was lost already, could be but folly. If she seemed
bad and false to him, there was no longer reason to pretend to be
otherwise. No longer would she, in the words of the old song:—'sit and
sigh—pulling bracken, pulling bracken.' No more would she starve for
want of love, and watch the nights throb and ache, as last night had
throbbed and ached, with the passion that she might not satisfy.
And while she was dressing she wondered why she did not look tired. To
get out quickly! To send her lover word at once to hasten to her while
it was safe—that she might tell him she was coming to him out of prison!
She would telegraph for him to come that evening with a boat, opposite
the tall poplar. She and her Aunt and Uncle were to go to dinner at
the Rectory, but she would plead headache at the last minute. When the
Ercotts had gone she would slip out, and he and she would row over to
the wood, and be together for two hours of happiness. And they must make
a clear plan, too—for to-morrow they would begin their life together.
But it would not be safe to send that message from the village; she must
go down and over the bridge to the post-office on the other side, where
they did not know her. It was too late now before breakfast. Better
after, when she could slip away, knowing for certain that her husband
had gone. It would still not be too late for her telegram—Lennan never
left his rooms till the midday post which brought her letters.
She finished dressing, and knowing that she must show no trace of her
excitement, sat quite still for several minutes, forcing herself into
languor. Then she went down. Her husband had breakfasted and gone. At
everything she did, and every word she spoke, she was now smiling with
a sort of wonder, as if she were watching a self, that she had abandoned
like an old garment, perform for her amusement. It even gave her no
feeling of remorse to think she was going to do what would be so painful
to the good Colonel. He was dear to her—but it did not matter. She was
past all that. Nothing mattered—nothing in the world! It amused her to
believe that her Uncle and Aunt misread her last night's walk in the
dark garden, misread her languor and serenity. And at the first moment
possible she flew out, and slipped away under cover of the yew-trees
towards the river. Passing the spot where her husband had dragged her
down to him on her knees in the grass, she felt a sort of surprise that
she could ever have been so terrified. What was he? The past—nothing!
And she flew on. She noted carefully the river bank opposite the tall
poplar. It would be quite easy to get down from there into a boat. But
they would not stay in that dark backwater. They would go over to the
far side into those woods from which last night the moon had risen,
those woods from which the pigeons mocked her every morning, those woods
so full of summer. Coming back, no one would see her landing; for it
would be pitch dark in the backwater. And, while she hurried, she looked
back across her shoulder, marking where the water, entering, ceased to
be bright. A dragon-fly brushed her cheek; she saw it vanish where the
sunlight failed. How suddenly its happy flight was quenched in that
dark shade, as a candle flame blown out. The tree growth there was too
thick—the queer stumps and snags had uncanny shapes, as of monstrous
creatures, whose eyes seemed to peer out at you. She shivered. She had
seen those monsters with their peering eyes somewhere. Ah! In her dream
at Monte Carlo of that bull-face staring from the banks, while she
drifted by, unable to cry out. No! The backwater was not a happy
place—they would not stay there a single minute. And more swiftly than
ever she flew on along the path. Soon she had crossed the bridge, sent
off her message, and returned. But there were ten hours to get through
before eight o'clock, and she did not hurry now. She wanted this day of
summer to herself alone, a day of dreaming till he came; this day for
which all her life till now had been shaping her—the day of love. Fate
was very wonderful! If she had ever loved before; if she had known joy
in her marriage—she could never have been feeling what she was feeling
now, what she well knew she would never feel again. She crossed a
new-mown hayfield, and finding a bank, threw herself down on her back
among its uncut grasses. Far away at the other end men were scything.
It was all very beautiful—the soft clouds floating, the clover-stalks
pushing themselves against her palms, and stems of the tall couch grass
cool to her cheeks; little blue butterflies; a lark, invisible; the
scent of the ripe hay; and the gold-fairy arrows of the sun on her face
and limbs. To grow and reach the hour of summer; all must do that! That
was the meaning of Life! She had no more doubts and fears. She had no
more dread, no bitterness, and no remorse for what she was going to
do. She was doing it because she must.... As well might grass stay its
ripening because it shall be cut down! She had, instead, a sense of
something blessed and uplifting. Whatever Power had made her heart, had
placed within it this love. Whatever it was, whoever it was, could not
be angry with her!
A wild bee settled on her arm, and she held it up between her and the
sun, so that she might enjoy its dusky glamour. It would not sting
her—not to-day! The little blue butterflies, too, kept alighting on her,
who lay there so still. And the love-songs of the wood-pigeons never
ceased, nor the faint swish of scything.
At last she rose to make her way home. A telegram had come saying
simply: “Yes.” She read it with an unmoved face, having resorted again
to her mask of languor. Toward tea-time she confessed to headache, and
said she would lie down. Up there in her room she spent those three
hours writing—writing as best she could all she had passed through in
thought and feeling, before making her decision. It seemed to her that
she owed it to herself to tell her lover how she had come to what
she had never thought to come to. She put what she had written in an
envelope and sealed it. She would give it to him, that he might read and
understand, when she had shown him with all of her how she loved him. It
would pass the time for him, until to-morrow—until they set out on
their new life together. For to-night they would make their plans, and
to-morrow start.
At half-past seven she sent word that her headache was too bad to allow
her to go out. This brought a visit from Mrs. Ercott: The Colonel and
she were so distressed; but perhaps Olive was wise not to exert herself!
And presently the Colonel himself spoke, lugubriously through the door:
Not well enough to come? No fun without her! But she mustn't on any
account strain herself! No, no!
Her heart smote her at that. He was always so good to her.
At last, watching from the corridor, she saw them sally forth down
the drive—the Colonel a little in advance, carrying his wife's evening
shoes. How nice he looked—with his brown face, and his grey moustache;
so upright, and concerned with what he had in hand!
There was no languor in her now. She had dressed in white, and now she
took a blue silk cloak with a hood, and caught up the flower that had so
miraculously survived last night's wearing and pinned it at her breast.
Then making sure no servant was about, she slipped downstairs and out.
It was just eight, and the sun still glistened on the dove-cot. She
kept away from that lest the birds should come fluttering about her,
and betray her by cooing. When she had nearly reached the tow-path, she
stopped affrighted. Surely something had moved, something heavy, with
a sound of broken branches. Was it the memory of last night come on her
again; or, indeed, someone there? She walked back a few steps. Foolish
alarm! In the meadow beyond a cow was brushing against the hedge. And,
stealing along the grass, out on to the tow-path, she went swiftly
towards the poplar.
XIX
A hundred times in these days of her absence Lennan had been on the
point of going down, against her orders, just to pass the house, just
to feel himself within reach, to catch a glimpse of her, perhaps, from
afar. If his body haunted London, his spirit had passed down on to
that river where he had drifted once already, reconnoitring. A hundred
times—by day in fancy, and by night in dreams—pulling himself along by
the boughs, he stole down that dim backwater, till the dark yews and the
white dove-cot came into view.
For he thought now only of fulfilment. She was wasting cruelly away! Why
should he leave her where she was? Leave her to profane herself and all
womanhood in the arms of a man she hated?
And on that day of mid-June, when he received her telegram, it was as if
he had been handed the key of Paradise.
Would she—could she mean to come away with him that very night? He
would prepare for that at all events. He had so often in mind faced this
crisis in his affairs, that now it only meant translating into action
what had been carefully thought out. He packed, supplied himself
liberally with money, and wrote a long letter to his guardian. It
would hurt the old man—Gordy was over seventy now—but that could not be
helped. He would not post it till he knew for certain.
After telling how it had all come about, he went on thus: “I know that
to many people, and perhaps to you, Gordy, it will seem very wrong, but
it does not to me, and that is the simple truth. Everybody has his
own views on such things, I suppose; and as I would not—on my honour,
Gordy—ever have held or wished to hold, or ever will hold in marriage or
out of marriage, any woman who does not love me, so I do not think it
is acting as I would resent others acting towards me, to take away from
such unhappiness this lady for whom I would die at any minute. I do not
mean to say that pity has anything to do with it—I thought so at first,
but I know now that it is all swallowed up in the most mighty feeling I
have ever had or ever shall have. I am not a bit afraid of conscience.
If God is Universal Truth, He cannot look hardly upon us for being true
to ourselves. And as to people, we shall just hold up our heads; I think
that they generally take you at your own valuation. But, anyway, Society
does not much matter. We shan't want those who don't want us—you may be
sure. I hope he will divorce her quickly—there is nobody much to be
hurt by that except you and Cis; but if he doesn't—it can't be helped.
I don't think she has anything; but with my six hundred, and what I can
make, even if we have to live abroad, we shall be all right for money.
You have been awfully good to me always, Gordy, and I am very grieved to
hurt you, and still more sorry if you think I am being ungrateful;
but when one feels as I do—body and soul and spirit—there isn't any
question; there wouldn't be if death itself stood in the way. If you
receive this, we shall be gone together; I will write to you from
wherever we pitch our tent, and, of course, I shall write to Cicely.
But will you please tell Mrs. Doone and Sylvia, and give them my love
if they still care to have it. Good-bye, dear Gordy. I believe you would
have done the same, if you had been I. Always your affectionate—MARK.”
In all those preparations he forgot nothing, employing every minute of
the few hours in a sort of methodic exaltation. The last thing before
setting out he took the damp cloths off his 'bull-man.' Into the face of
the monster there had come of late a hungry, yearning look. The artist
in him had done his work that unconscious justice; against his will
had set down the truth. And, wondering whether he would ever work at it
again, he redamped the cloths and wrapped it carefully.
He did not go to her village, but to one five or six miles down the
river—it was safer, and the row would steady him. Hiring a skiff, he
pulled up stream. He travelled very slowly to kill time, keeping under
the far bank. And as he pulled, his very heart seemed parched with
nervousness. Was it real that he was going to her, or only some
fantastic trick of Fate, a dream from which he would wake to find
himself alone again? He passed the dove-cot at last, and kept on till he
could round into the backwater and steal up under cover to the poplar.
He arrived a few minutes before eight o'clock, turned the boat round,
and waited close beneath the bank, holding to a branch, and standing so
that he could see the path. If a man could die from longing and anxiety,
surely Lennan must have died then!
All wind had failed, and the day was fallen into a wonderful still
evening. Gnats were dancing in the sparse strips of sunlight that
slanted across the dark water, now that the sun was low. From the
fields, bereft of workers, came the scent of hay and the heavy scent of
meadow-sweet; the musky odour of the backwater was confused with them
into one brooding perfume. No one passed. And sounds were few and far to
that wistful listener, for birds did not sing just there. How still and
warm was the air, yet seemed to vibrate against his cheeks as though
about to break into flame. That fancy came to him vividly while he stood
waiting—a vision of heat simmering in little pale red flames. On the
thick reeds some large, slow, dusky flies were still feeding, and now
and then a moorhen a few yards away splashed a little, or uttered a
sharp, shrill note. When she came—if she did come!—they would not stay
here, in this dark earthy backwater; he would take her over to the other
side, away to the woods! But the minutes passed, and his heart sank.
Then it leaped up. Someone was coming—in white, with bare head, and
something blue or black flung across her arm. It was she! No one else
walked like that! She came very quickly. And he noticed that her hair
looked like little wings on either side of her brow, as if her face
were a white bird with dark wings, flying to love! Now she was close, so
close that he could see her lips parted, and her eyes love-lighted—like
nothing in the world but darkness wild with dew and starlight. He
reached up and lifted her down into the boat, and the scent of some
flower pressed against his face seemed to pierce into him and reach his
very heart, awakening the memory of something past, forgotten. Then,
seizing the branches, snapping them in his haste, he dragged the skiff
along through the sluggish water, the gnats dancing in his face. She
seemed to know where he was taking her, and neither of them spoke a
single word, while he pulled out into the open, and over to the far
bank.
There was but one field between them and the wood—a field of young
wheat, with a hedge of thorn and alder. And close to that hedge they
set out, their hands clasped. They had nothing to say yet—like children
saving up. She had put on her cloak to hide her dress, and its silk
swished against the silvery blades of the wheat. What had moved her to
put on this blue cloak? Blue of the sky, and flowers, of birds' wings,
and the black-burning blue of the night! The hue of all holy things! And
how still it was in the late gleam of the sun! Not one little sound of
beast or bird or tree; not one bee humming! And not much colour—only
the starry white hemlocks and globe-campion flowers, and the low-flying
glamour of the last warm light on the wheat.
XX
. . . Now over wood and river the evening drew in fast. And first the
swallows, that had looked as if they would never stay their hunting,
ceased; and the light, that had seemed fastened above the world, for all
its last brightenings, slowly fell wingless and dusky.
The moon would not rise till ten! And all things waited. The creatures
of night were slow to come forth after that long bright summer's day,
watching for the shades of the trees to sink deeper and deeper into the
now chalk-white water; watching for the chalk-white face of the sky to
be masked with velvet. The very black-plumed trees themselves seemed to
wait in suspense for the grape-bloom of night. All things stared, wan in
that hour of passing day—all things had eyes wistful and unblessed.
In those moments glamour was so dead that it was as if meaning had
abandoned the earth. But not for long. Winged with darkness, it stole
back; not the soul of meaning that had gone, but a witch-like and
brooding spirit harbouring in the black trees, in the high dark spears
of the rushes, and on the grim-snouted snags that lurked along the river
bank. Then the owls came out, and night-flying things. And in the wood
there began a cruel bird-tragedy—some dark pursuit in the twilight above
the bracken; the piercing shrieks of a creature into whom talons have
again and again gone home; and mingled with them, hoarse raging cries
of triumph. Many minutes they lasted, those noises of the night,
sound-emblems of all the cruelty in the heart of Nature; till at
last death appeased that savagery. And any soul abroad, that pitied
fugitives, might once more listen, and not weep....
Then a nightingale began to give forth its long liquid gurgling; and a
corn-crake churred in the young wheat. Again the night brooded, in the
silent tops of the trees, in the more silent depths of the water. It
sent out at long intervals a sigh or murmur, a tiny scuttling splash, an
owl's hunting cry. And its breath was still hot and charged with heavy
odour, for no dew was falling....
XXI
It was past ten when they came out from the wood. She had wanted to wait
for the moon to rise; not a gold coin of a moon as last night, but ivory
pale, and with a gleaming radiance level over the fern, and covering the
lower boughs, as it were, with a drift of white blossom.
Through the wicket gate they passed once more beside the moon-coloured
wheat, which seemed of a different world from that world in which they
had walked but an hour and a half ago.
And in Lennan's heart was a feeling such as a man's heart can only know
once in all his life—such humble gratitude, and praise, and adoration of
her who had given him her all. There should be nothing for her now
but joy—like the joy of this last hour. She should never know less
happiness! And kneeling down before her at the water's edge he kissed
her dress, and hands, and feet, which to-morrow would be his forever.
Then they got into the boat.
The smile of the moonlight glided over each ripple, and reed, and
closing water-lily; over her face, where the hood had fallen back from
her loosened hair; over one hand trailing the water, and the other
touching the flower at her breast; and, just above her breath, she said:
“Row, my dear love; it's late!”
Dipping his sculls, he shot the skiff into the darkness of the
backwater....
What happened then he never knew, never clearly—in all those after
years. A vision of her white form risen to its feet, bending forward
like a creature caught, that cannot tell which way to spring; a crashing
shock, his head striking something hard! Nothingness! And then—an awful,
awful struggle with roots and weeds and slime, a desperate agony of
groping in that pitchy blackness, among tree-stumps, in dead water that
seemed to have no bottom—he and that other, who had leaped at them in
the dark with his boat, like a murdering beast; a nightmare search more
horrible than words could tell, till in a patch of moonlight on the bank
they laid her, who for all their efforts never stirred.... There she
lay all white, and they two crouched at her head and feet—like dark
creatures of the woods and waters over that which with their hunting
they had slain.
How long they stayed there, not once looking at each other, not once
speaking, not once ceasing to touch with their hands that dead thing—he
never knew. How long in the summer night, with its moonlight and its
shadows quivering round them, and the night wind talking in the reeds!
And then the most enduring of all sentient things had moved in him
again; so that he once more felt.... Never again to see those eyes
that had loved him with their light! Never again to kiss her lips!
Frozen—like moonlight to the earth, with the flower still clinging at
her breast. Thrown out on the bank like a plucked water-lily! Dead? No,
no! Not dead! Alive in the night—alive to him—somewhere! Not on this dim
bank, in this hideous backwater, with that dark dumb creature who
had destroyed her! Out there on the river—in the wood of their
happiness—somewhere alive!... And, staggering up past Cramier, who never
moved, he got into his boat, and like one demented pulled out into the
stream.
But once there in the tide, he fell huddled forward, motionless above
his oars....
And the moonlight flooded his dark skiff drifting down. And the
moonlight effaced the ripples on the water that had stolen away her
spirit. Her spirit mingled now with the white beauty and the shadows,
for ever part of the stillness and the passion of a summer night;
hovering, floating, listening to the rustle of the reeds, and the
whispering of the woods; one with the endless dream—that spirit passing
out, as all might wish to pass, in the hour of happiness.