A SHOCK AND A REVELATION
Into these sacred shades (quoth she)
How dar’st thou be so bold
To enter, consecrate to me,
Or touch this hallowed mould?
—MICHAEL DRAYTON (_Quest of Cynthia_).
Ellinor sat on the stone bench in the Herb-Garden, gazing disconsolately
at the flourishing bed of _Euphrosinum_—at the Star-of-Comfort—and
reviewing the events of the past days with a heavy and discomforted
heart.
It is but seldom now that she could find a few minutes of solitude, so
many were the claims upon her time. For, besides the household duties
and Master Simon’s unconscious tyranny, she was subjected to a kind of
persecution of admiration on the part of Bindon’s male guests. There
were times, indeed, when Colonel Harcourt’s shadowing attendance became
so embarrassing that she was glad to turn to the protection which the
boyish worship of Luke Herrick afforded.
With the former she felt instinctively that under an almost exaggerated
gentleness and deference there lurked a gathering danger; whereas the
youthful poet, however exuberant in his devotion, was not only a
harmless, but a sympathetic companion.
While she was far from realising the peril in which she stood where her
dearest hopes were concerned, she felt the difficulty of her position
increase at every turn. Forced by David’s wish into the society of his
visitors, she was there completely ostracised by the ladies after an art
only known to the feminine community. Thus she was thrown upon the
mercies of the gentlemen, and they were extended to her with but too
ready charity. It would not have been in human nature not to talk and
laugh with Luke Herrick when Miss Priscilla was going by, her little
nose in the air. It was impossible not to accept with a smiling grace
the chair, the footstool, the greeting offered to her with a mixture of
paternal and courtierlike solicitude, amid the icy silence and the
drawing away of skirts whenever she entered upon the circle.
Now and again, perhaps, her laugh may have been a little too loud, her
smile a shade too sweet; but she would not have been a woman had the
insulting attitude of the other women not led her to some reprisals.
Moreover there was a deep sore place in her soul which cried out that he
who should by rights be her protector held himself too scornfully aloof;
nay, that he actually included her now and again in the cold glance
which he swept round the table upon his unwelcome guests. To the end of
the chapter a woman will always seize the obvious weapon wherewith to
fight the indifference of the man she loves, and nine times out of ten
it is herself she wounds therewith.
The basket that was to hold the health of the village was still empty by
her side. Absently she fingered a sprig of wormwood—meet emblem, she
thought, of her present mood. Indeed, Ellinor’s thoughts were not often
so bitter. Not often was her brave spirit so dashed.
There came a light rapid step behind her, a burst of laughter; and, as
she turned, the triumphant face of Herrick met her glance at so slight a
distance from her own that she drew back in double indignation.
“Why have you followed me?” she exclaimed indignantly. “You know that no
one is allowed here!”
“How can I choose but love and follow her
Whose shadow smells like mild pomander?
How can I choose but——”
The gay voice broke off suddenly, and a flush—fellow to that of Ellinor,
yet one of engaging embarrassment, overspread the singer’s face.
“Well, sir?” she asked.
How stern, how stiff, how unapproachable, this woman whom nature had
made of such soft lovely stuff! Luke Herrick stooped, lifted a corner of
her muslin apron, and carried it humbly to his lips.
“How could I choose but kiss her! Whence does come
The storax, spikenard, myrrh and labdanum?”
he went on, dropping his recitative note for what was almost a whisper.
From his suppliant posture he looked up with eyes in which the man
pleaded, yet where the boy’s irrepressible, irresponsible
mischievousness still lurked. It was impossible not to feel that anger
was an absurd weapon against so frivolous a foe. Moreover she liked him.
There was something infectious in his mercurial humour, something
attractive in the honest boy nature that lay open for all to read. There
was something of a relief, also, to be obliged to jest and to laugh. To
be near him was like meeting a breeze from some lost, careless youth.
Why, after all, should she not try and forget her own troubles? What was
the Herb-Garden to him, to David, that, with a fond faithfulness she
should insist on keeping it consecrate to the memory of one dawn! He who
had begged for the key of it—what use had he made of the gift? How many
a golden morning, how many a pearly day-break, how many an amethyst
evening, had she haunted the scented enclosure—always alone!
“I’ll not say a single little word,” he urged. “I’ll be as mute as a
sundial, if you’ll only let me bask in your radiance! I’ll just hold
your basket and your scissors, and I’ll chew every single herb and tell
you whether its taste be sweet, sour or bitter, if you’ll only give me a
leaf between your white fingers. And then if I die——”
He thumped his ruffled shirt and languished.
“How did you get in?” she asked.
But though her tone was still rebuking, he laughed back into her blue
eyes. He made a gesture: she saw the traces of moss, of lichen and
crumbling mortar upon his kerseymere, the rent in his lace ruffle, the
tiny broken twig that had caught his crisp curl.
“Ah,” she cried, “you have found my old secret scaling place.... Did you
land in the balm bed?” she asked, laughing.
Colonel Harcourt, in search of Ellinor, looked in through the locked
gate and knocked once or twice, then called gently. But, though he could
hear bursts of laughter and the intermingling sounds of voices in gay
conversation, he could see nothing but the strange herb-beds and bushes,
intersected by narrow paths, overhung by swarmlets of humming bees and
other honey-seeking insects; and no one seemed to hear him.
As he stood, smiling to himself in good humoured cynicism, the tall
figure of his host, with bare head, came slowly out of the laurel walk
that led to the open plot before the gate. Sir David seemed absorbed in
thought. And it was not until he was within a pace or two of the other
man that he suddenly looked up.
“Good morning!” said the colonel genially. “A lovely day, is it not?
Queer place, that old garden of weeds—our friend, Master Simon’s
herbary, as I understand. The gate is locked, I find.”
As he spoke, Colonel Harcourt scanned the set, pallid face with a keen
curiosity. It required all a sick woman’s disordered fancy (he told
himself) to imagine that this cold-blooded student, this walking symbol
of abstractedness should be in danger of being led away into romantic
folly. The soldier’s full smiling lips parted still more broadly, as he
went on to reflect that, whatever designs the pretty widow might have
upon her cousin’s fortune, her warm splendid personality was scarce
likely to be attracted by “this long, thin, icy, fish of a fellow!”
Sir David had inclined his head gravely on the other’s greeting. When
the hearty voice had rattled off its speech, he answered that he
regretted that it was the rule to admit no visitors to the Herb-Garden.
And then drew a key from his pocket and slipped it into the lock, so
completely ignoring his guest’s persistent proximity, that the colonel,
as a man of breeding would have felt it incumbent upon him to retire,
had he not special reasons for standing his ground.
“Indeed!” said he. “Forbidden ground?”
“Yes, the plants are many of them deadly poison. It is a necessary
precaution.”
“No doubt—quite right. Very prudent. But—what about the charming Mrs.
Ellinor Marvel, the beauteous widow, the bewitching and amiable cousin,
whom you are fortunate to have as companion in this romantic house?”
David dropped his hand from the key, turned and fixed his grave eyes on
the speaker. Their expression was merely one of waiting for the next
remark. The colonel hardly felt quite as assured of his ground as
before, but he resumed in the same tone of banter:
“I saw her going there just now. Is it quite safe to let so precious a
being into such dangerous precincts?”
The remark ended with that laugh upon the hearty note of which so much
of his popularity rested. Most people found it impossible not to respond
to this breezy way of Colonel Harcourt’s. But there was not a flicker of
change upon Sir David’s countenance.
Yet, when he spoke, after coldly pausing till the other’s mirth should
have utterly ceased, and remarked that his cousin, Mrs. Marvel, was
associated with her father’s scientific investigations and therefore was
the only person, besides the speaker himself, whom he allowed to make
use of the garden, the colonel felt that his insinuation had been
understood and rebuked by a courtesy severer than anger. His resentment
suddenly rose. The easy contempt with which he had hitherto regarded the
uncongenial personality of his host, flamed on the instant into active
dislike; and he was glad to have a weapon in his hand which might find a
joint in this irritatingly impenetrable armour.
“Indeed!” cried he, ruffled out of his usual commanding urbanity.—Trying
to smile he found himself sneering. “Indeed? Aha, very good, I declare!
It is worth while living on a tower to be able to retain those confiding
views of life! It has never struck you, I suppose—the stars are
doubtless never in the least irregular in their courses, but young and
charming widows have little ways of their own—it has never struck you
that this forbidden wilderness might be an ideal spot for rendezvous?”
Sir David shot at the speaker a look very unlike that far-off
indifferent glance which was all he had hitherto vouchsafed him. This
sudden, steel-bright, concentrated gaze was like the baring of a blade.
Dim stories of the recluse’s romantic and violent youth began to stir in
Harcourt’s memory. He straightened his own sturdy figure and the
instinctive hot defiance of the fighter at the first hint of an opposing
spirit ran tingling to his stiffening muscles.
So, for a quick-breathing moment, they fixed each other. Then, through
the drowsy humming summer stillness rang from within the Herb-Garden the
note of Herrick’s singing voice:
“Go, lovely rose and, interwove
With other flowers, bind my love.
Tell her too, she must not be,
Longer flowing, longer free——”
The melody broke off. There was a burst of laughter; and then Ellinor’s
voice, with an unusual sound of young merriment in it, sprang up into
hearing as a crystal fountain springs into sight:
“Foolish boy, there are no roses here!”
Sir David started. His eyes remained fixed, but they no longer saw. In
yet another moment he had turned away and was gone, leaving Colonel
Harcourt staring after him.
“’Pon my life,” said the _roué_ to himself, “the woman was right—My God,
he’s mad for her!”
Upon a second and more composed thought, he began to chuckle and feel
his own personality resume its lost importance.
“The situation is becoming interesting,” he thought. His eye fell on the
key, forgotten in the lock and he broke into a short laugh. He then
unlocked the gate, slipped the key into his pocket and walked into the
garden.
“I had no idea,” he said, addressing the balm beds, as he passed them,
“that I could be such a useful friend to my Lady.”