LOVE.
Haskins, being genuinely Anglo-Saxon, had not the plotting instincts
of a conspirator, and was therefore somewhat rough and ready in
arranging for a secret meeting with Mavis. However, love sharped his
wits and he excused himself to the landlady of the Prince's Head for
being absent after midnight on the plea that he had to ride out and
see an old friend. In the ordinary course of things there was no
reason why he should explain at all; but to make matters entirely
safe, should Mr. Geary play the spy--which was just what the creature
would do--Haskins thus arranged for an explanation.
After dinner he called in Mrs. Jennings and ordered a horse, obtaining
at the same time the key of a side door, so that he could admit
himself when he returned, somewhere about one o'clock in the morning.
Then he gave orders that he was to be called in time for the early
morning train, and afterwards snatched forty winks, in order to
prepare himself thoroughly for the fatigues of the night.
Owing to the excessive heat of the weather Haskins usually wore loose
white flannels from morning until evening. But on this occasion, to
escape the possible watchfulness of Bellaria, he donned a dark-hued
riding-dress, with brown gaiters and a tweed cap. In this guise, and
when shielded by the semi-gloom of the summer night, he would
certainly avoid observation. And of course the chances were that the
woman, tormented by her fears, would not venture out of the house
after dark. Still, it was best to be on the safe side and dress as
inconspicuously as possible.
The animal supplied by the stables of the Prince's Head was not
exactly a Derby Winner. He proved to be a wary quadruped, remarkably
old and extraordinarily slow, but having the great merit of knowing
every inch of the surrounding country, no mean qualification
considering the rider's comparative ignorance. However, Gerald had a
fair idea of the five miles' route to Leegarth, and in due time the
horse got over the ground, although it must be admitted that he did
not hurry himself. Haskins reached the village shortly after ten
o'clock, and skirted round the houses, so that he should not be
observed. An unknown stranger, arriving in so secluded a hamlet, would
assuredly awaken the suspicions of the wary Geary, and news travels
fast in country districts. So Gerald kept well out of the way, and
after a somewhat circuitous route came to the banks of Mother Carey's
Peace Pool. Here he fastened his horse to the trunk of an ancient oak,
with permission to crop the lush grass, and launched his faithful
canoe. Shortly he was perched for the fourth or fifth time on the top
of the wall.
The night was perfect. A Romeo and Juliet night, warm and still, with
a cloudless sky, radiant with ivory moonlight. Gerald looked down on
the quaint peaceful quadrangle sleeping in the chill whiteness, at the
range of buildings with their fantastic architecture, and at the
darkly solemn trees which girdled this Enchanted Palace. Then he
became aware of a slight, white-clothed figure flitting across
the shaven lawns, like a ghost of dead-and-gone beauty. A musical
whisper stole through the warm stillness, and the adventurer, with a
fast-throbbing heart, flung himself on to the boughs of the copper
beech, to use it as a stair for descent. In a few minutes he found
himself standing in the shadow of the tree, clasping a cool slender
hand, and looking into two wonderful eyes which flashed like the stars
overhead.
"Oh, you are not in white, Prince," said Mavis, disappointed.
Gerald explained. "I thought it best to wear dark clothes, since
Bellaria might be on the watch."
"There is no chance of that. She is fast asleep, and would not leave
her bed unless the house went on fire."
"Then again," went on Gerald, pressing her hand, "I had to ride here
from Silbury. I could scarcely do that in flannels."
"Well," Mavis dragged him into the radiant moonlight and surveyed him
critically, "it doesn't matter. I like you in this suit of clothes.
You look so tall and straight and slim, and----"
"Oh, my dear," Gerald laughed, "you will make me vain."
"But you are vain already," she said naively. "Bellaria says that all
young men are vain."
"How can this particular young man be otherwise," questioned the
lover, "when the most charming girl in the world makes an appointment
with him in the realms of romance?"
"Am I charming, Gerald; am I? Oh," Mavis clapped her hands, "how
delightful to be told that. Say it again."
"You are charming, Mavis, and also rather reckless for laughing so
loud."
"Pooh! Everything is safe, for the gates are locked and Bellaria is
asleep. In all these wide gardens only you and I are awake, unless,"
added Mavis seriously, "you count the fairies."
"And the nightingales, and the crickets," ended Gerald, smiling.
Mavis smiled also, and they stood hand in hand like a couple of
schoolchildren out on a frolic. Then "Come," she cried, loosening her
grip, "you must catch me, catch me, my Prince;" and like an arrow from
the bow she shot across the turf towards the archway, followed rapidly
by her lover. Haskins was swift of foot, but Mavis ran like Atalanta,
and was flitting about the gardens on the other side of the archway
before he could range alongside.
"You are the Fairy Queen," panted Gerald, when he reached her. "I saw
you spread large white wings."
"Oh no," said Mavis seriously and prosaically, "I used my legs."
"The Queen of Spain has no legs," quoted Haskins, laughing.
"Oh, how dreadful--how very, very dreadful!"
And he laughed again to see that she took him seriously.
The gardens were very lovely, and much less orderly than the
quadrangle. Following Disraeli's dictum, they had been cultivated to
excess, and then Nature had been allowed to decivilize them. The
result was charming, and wonderfully artistic. There were beds of
brilliant flowers, wherein slim saplings grew at will; statues of god
and goddess wreathed in greenery; ponds of placid water rimmed with
stone, wherein white lilies slept on broad leaves, floating amidst
slender reeds. The façade of the house, with its Tudor battlements and
long ranges of latticed windows, rose picturesquely in the still, calm
light of the moon, which rendered all things ethereal and fairylike.
Before the mansion stretched a shallow terrace of gray stone, diapered
with lichens and emerald moss. A wide flight of steps descended from
this to meet a broad path, which melted imperceptibly into a jungle of
tall bushes and wiry grasses. And all around the trees sprang like
sentinels to guard this magic domain from the prose of the outside
world. Everything was bathed in a luminous white radiance--and in this
colorless world Mavis flitted here and there like a moth of snow.
"It is too lovely for mere words," murmured Gerald, gazing at all this
beauty, with his poetical feelings uppermost.
"Are you speaking of me?" asked Mavis joyfully.
He laughed. "In spite of your seclusion, my dear, you are a true
woman, for you will not allow even the landscape to be complimented
when you are present."
"Human beings are so much nicer than landscape," she pouted.
"One is, at least. I wonder who she can be."
"Me," said Mavis triumphantly.
"How clever of you to guess that, my angel."
Mavis flung up her arms with a silvery laugh. "I am a fairy to-night,
and no angel. They are stiff things with goose wings."
"Rhyme and reason both together," said Gerald, sitting down on a mossy
stone fronting a smooth greensward. "Well, then, you are Titania, and
I the rash mortal who has intruded on your privacy."
"Take care that I do not enchant you, poor mortal."
"You have done that already. Hark!" he raised a finger, "the wind is
rising, your Majesty."
"To play for my dancing."
Then Gerald saw a wonderful thing. While the wind played with viewless
fingers on the lyre of the surrounding woods, Mavis danced to the
rhythm in exact unison with the gentle breaths which came and went.
She bent her golden head to listen critically to the murmurings, and
swung and swayed and floated to the melody of Nature. Her feet and
arms scarcely moved, her slender body was almost still, yet by subtle
movements she contrived to interpret the meaning of the hour. A low,
low note from the tree-tops would send her floating across the grass:
a pause would bring her to a statue stillness, and a dying sigh, as
the wind lost heart, stirred her limbs to gentle movements, like the
tremblings of a flower on its stalk. Poised gracefully in the radiant
light, in her white garb, and with her mystical gestures timed to the
Nature sounds, she looked like a spirit of the woods. Gerald faintly
grasped for one fleeting moment the idea of the sacred dances of old,
when every gesture and every pose was a sign of power to draw down the
hierarchy of heaven to the physical plane.
Then the wind died away, and the golden notes of the nightingale
fluted through the trees. One bird trilled wild music, and another
replied with a scattering of liquid notes like falling rain. All the
marvelous enchantment of the night was in that speechless song, and
the young man's heart beat in measure with the pulse of Nature. He
rose abruptly to his feet, and when Mavis floated within the circle of
his arms they went round her passionately. Like a tamed bird she
rested on his heaving breast, and looked up smilingly into his brown
eyes. Mavis read therein all that the wind and the nightingale had
been trying to tell her, and when the man's lips were pressed ardently
to her own she felt as though she had stepped from the twilight of
unformed things into the glory of sunlight and song.
"Oh," she panted, nestling to his heart, "what does this mean?"
"Love!" he breathed, "love, which changes man into God," and again his
lips sought hers. With a thrill, she yielded to the first caress she
had ever known. And the nightingale sang triumphantly in the thicket.
But now the song was no longer wordless: she knew all that the bird
could tell. "Which is love, love, and love again," whispered the Fairy
Prince.
Then Mavis began to weep, with a natural fear of the unknown, and
Gerald consoled her, as a mother consoles a child. She clung to him in
the shadow of the tree, silent and wondering, and with something of
pain--the pain of the reborn, when the fire of love purifies the soul.
A veil had fallen from her eyes, and, beholding the secret shrine of
the god, she trembled, and wept, and joyed, all in a breath. "It is
wonderful, wonderful, terrible," she murmured. "Oh, Gerald, if you
leave me I shall die. You are part of me: your soul is blended with
mine. You love me: oh, say that you love me?"
"As I love Truth and Beauty and Wisdom, and all things that make up
our conception of God."
There was silence for a few minutes, and the two human beings, who
were really one, felt that they were alone in this wonderful white
world--alone with God. "And this is love?" murmured Mavis dreamily.
"Part of love," said Gerald softly.
"What do you mean?"
"Dearest, the veil of love is beauty."
"Yes?"
"We must remove that veil: we must look behind it, to see what love
really means in the innermost."
"Can we?"
"We are about to," he drew her closer to his breast, "the inner
meaning of love is sacrifice."
"Sacrifice," said Mavis, puzzled.
"And that sacrifice we must make, if we would know the real and true
meaning of love."
"Do you mean that we must part?" she gasped, withdrawing herself.
"For a time," he assured her, "only for a time--say a week."
"Oh," Mavis stretched out her arms langorously, "how can I live
through seven days without you?"
"By knowing that sacrifice is the soul of love."
"But why must you go?" she entreated. "Oh, do not go, darling. Let us
be always together in this garden."
"I fear Bellaria will object," said Haskins, smiling.
"She will never know?"
"Oh yes. We cannot always meet by stealth. Bellaria is a woman, and
will sooner or later discover our secret. Then there is Geary, and
your guardian."
Mavis shivered. "I am afraid of Geary, with his big knife, but not of
Bellaria or my guardian. She will be a little angry, but when I tell
her how happy I am she will be glad. And my guardian is always kind.
Oh, Gerald, tell him that you love me, and wish me to be your wife.
Then he will stop Geary from coming here, and we can be happy."
Haskins hugged her to his breast and smiled grimly in the darkness. He
was very certain that, if he told Major Rebb, there would be no end of
trouble. In order to arrive at some conclusion it was necessary to
make inquiries as to why Rebb kept the girl in the Pixy's House. When
that was known, steps might be taken to release her, and when she was
released she could be presented to the world as Mrs. Gerald Haskins.
But to make inquiries it was necessary that he should go to London and
consult Tod, who was sharp enough in professional matters, and a visit
to London meant a seven days' separation from Mavis. "I don't think
that the Major will be overpleased at my wooing you by stealth," said
Gerald, choosing his words, so as not to alarm her. "You see, I should
have come openly and with his permission."
"He would not have given it until I was twenty-one," cried Mavis, "he
said that I was to see no one for the next ten months."
"Precisely! And that is why I have made love to you secretly,"
explained Haskins cheerily. "Now, darling heart, I wish you to be
brave and to help me."
"Only tell me what you wish me to do, and I'll do it," said Mavis,
with a little shudder. "Only I don't like pain!"
"To love truly we must suffer pain, my sweetheart. Pain and sacrifice
are the demands of love. Had we an eternity of pleasure, without any
disagreeables, even you and I should grow weary."
"Oh no, no!" She clung to him.
"Ah, my sweet," he said sadly, "we are but flesh and blood, and so may
grow weary of too perfect bliss. The flower that is always in the sun
wilts and dies. And, after all, the delights of life lie in contrast."
"What do you mean by that, Gerald?"
Haskins saw that he was speaking too highly for her comprehension, so
talked on a lower plane, for the night was passing, and he had to ride
back to Silbury. "My dear," he said slowly, "I should like to stay
here for ever with you, and then we would be as gods. But if we wish
to know the true meaning of love, as I explained, we must sacrifice
ourselves to the necessities of life. We must part for seven days. I
have to go to London, Mavis, and search out matters."
"What matters?"
But Haskins wisely declined to explain in detail, lest he should alarm
her, for she must never know the true character of Major Rebb. Gerald
did not know it himself at the moment, but he suspected that when the
past of Rebb was searched into there would be some things found which
would not bear the light of day. "I have to go on private business,"
he said evasively. "When I return you shall know what is necessary. In
the meantime, my own brave girl, you must hold fast our secret, and
not allow Bellaria to guess that we have even met, much less that we
are engaged."
Mavis stood up slim and strong with a brave light in her wonderful
eyes. "I promise!" she said simply, "I promise!"
"Sweetheart!" He rose also and kissed her, and then they walked slowly
up the path, through the archway, and stopped again under the beech.
"I shall return in seven days," said Gerald, anxious to go, yet loth
to depart, "only be silent. Live as you have hitherto lived, and----"
"I can never do that, my dearest," she said, flushing, "the world is
all changed. You are my world! you are my---- Oh!" she broke down.
Haskins folded her in his arms, and their lips met in one last long
kiss. Then he left her, silently. That was true wisdom, for a single
word might have detained him for ever in that enchanted garden.