JUNE

When Pauline reached the Rectory dinner had already begun in the mixture

of candle-light and rosy dusk that seemed there more than anything to

mark Summer's instant approach, and as with flushed cheeks she took her

place at table she was conscious of an atmosphere that was half

disapproval, half anxiety; or was it that she, disapproving of herself,

expected criticism? Positively there was an emotion of being on her

defense; she felt propitiatory and apologetic; and for the first time

she was sharply aware of herself and her family as two distinct facts.

It was to dispel this uneasy sense of potential division that she took

up her violin with a faintly exaggerated willingness, and that, instead

of dreaming of Guy in a corner of the room, she played all the evening

in the same spirit of wanting to please.

Her mother asked if she had enjoyed her walk, and Pauline had positively

to fight with herself before she could answer lightly enough that the

walk had been perfect. Why was her heart beating like this, and why did

her sisters regard her so gravely? It must be her fancy, and almost

defiantly she continued:

"There was no harm in my going out with Guy, was there? We've not been

together at all lately."

"Why should there be any particular harm this evening?" Monica inquired.

"Of course not, Monica," and again her heart was beating furiously. "I

only asked because I thought you all seemed angry with me for being a

little late for dinner."

"I don't know why we should suddenly be sensitive about punctuality in

this house," said Margaret.

Pauline had never thought her own white fastness offered such relief and

shelter as to-night; and yet, she assured herself, nobody had really

been criticizing her. It must have been entirely her fancy, that air of

reproach, those insinuations of cold surprise. People in this house did

not understand what it meant to be as much in love as she. It was all

very well for Margaret and Monica to lay down laws for behavior,

Margaret who did not know whether she loved or not, Monica who

disapproved of anything more directly emotional than a Gregorian chant.

Yet they had not theorized to-night, nor had they propounded one rule of

behavior; it was she who was rushing to meet their postulates and

observations, arming herself with weapons of offense before the attack

had begun. Yet why had neither Monica nor Margaret, nor even her mother,

come to say good night to her? They did not understand about love, not

one of them, not one of them.

"Pauline?"

It was her mother's voice outside her door, who, coming in, seemed

perfectly herself.

"Not undressed yet? What's the matter, darling Pauline? You look quite

worried, sitting there in your chair."

"I'm not worried, Mother. Really, darling, I'm not worried. I thought

you were cross with me."

Now she was crying and being petted.

"I don't know why I'm crying. Oh, I'm so foolish! Why am I crying? Are

you cross with me?"

"Pauline, what is the matter? Have you had a quarrel with Guy?"

"Good gracious, no! What makes you ask that? We had an exquisite walk,

and the sunset was wonderful, oh, so wonderful! And we picked

ragged-robins--great bunches of them. Only I forgot to bring them home.

How stupid of me! Monica and Margaret aren't angry with me, are they?

They were so cold at dinner. Why were they? Mother, I do love you so.

You do understand me, don't you? You do sympathize with love? Mother, I

do love you so."

When Pauline was in bed her mother fetched Margaret and Monica, who both

came and kissed her good night and asked what could have given her the

idea that they were angry with her.

"You foolish little thing, go to sleep," said Monica.

"You mustn't let your being in love with Guy spoil the Rectory," said

Margaret. "Because, you know, the Rectory is so much, much better than

anything else in the world."

Her mother and sisters left her, going gently from the room as if she

were already asleep.

Pauline read for a while from Guy's green volume of Blake; then taking

from under her pillow the crystal ring, she put it on her third finger

and blew out the light.

Was he thinking of her at this moment? He must be, and how near they

brought him to her, these nights of thoughts, for then she seemed to be

floating out of her window to meet him half-way upon the May air. How

she loved him; and he had given her this ring of which no one knew

except themselves. It was strange to have been suddenly frightened in

that sunset, for now, as she lay here looking back upon it, this evening

was surely the most wonderful of her life. He had called her his burning

rose. His burning rose ... his burning rose? Why had she not brought

back a few of those ragged-robins to sit like confidantes beside her

bed? Flowers were such companions; the beautiful and silent flowers. How

far away sleep was still standing from her; and Pauline got out of bed

and leaned from the window with a sensation of resting upon the buoyant

darkness. The young May moon had already set, and not a sound could be

heard; so still, indeed, was the night that it seemed as if the stars

ought to be audible upon their twinkling. If now a nightingale would but

sing to say what she was wanting to say to the darkness! Nightingales,

however, were rare in the trees round Wychford, and the garden stayed

silent. Perhaps Guy was leaning from his window like this, and it was a

pity their lights could not shine across, each candle fluttering to the

other. If only Plashers Mead were within view, they would be able to sit

at their windows in the dark hours and sometimes signal to each other.

Or would that be what Margaret called "cheapening" herself? Had she

cheapened herself this evening when she had kissed him for the gift of

this ring? Yet could she cheapen herself to Guy? He loved her as much as

she loved him; and always she and he must be equal in their love. She

could never be very much reserved with Guy; she did not want to be. She

loved him, and this evening for the first time she had kissed him in the

way that often in solitude she had longed to kiss him.

"I only want to live for love," she whispered.

Naturally Margaret did not know what love like hers meant; and perhaps

it was as well, for it was sad enough to be parted from Guy for two

days, when there was always the chance of seeing him in the hours

between; but to be separated from him by oceans for two years, as

Richard and Margaret were separated, that would be unbearable.

"I suppose Margaret would call it 'cheapening' myself to be standing at

my window like this. Good night, dearest Guy, good night. Your Pauline

is thinking of you to the very last moment of being the smallest bit

awake."

Her voice set out to Plashers Mead, no louder than a moth's wing; and,

turning away from the warm May night, Pauline went back to bed and fell

asleep on the happy contemplation of a love that between them was

exactly equal.

The floods went down rapidly during the week; green Summer flung her

wreaths before her; the cuckoo sang out of tune, and other birds more

rarely; chestnut-blossoms powdered the grass; and the pinks were

breaking all along the Rectory borders. These were days when not to idle

down the river would have been a slight upon the season. So Pauline and

Guy, with their two afternoons a week, which were not long in becoming

four, spent all their time in the canoe. The Rectory punt could only be

used on the mill-stream; and Pauline rejoiced, if somewhat guiltily,

that they could not invite either of her sisters to accompany them. She

and Guy had now so much to say to each other, every day more, it seemed,

that it was impossible any longer not to wish to be alone.

"Margaret says we are becoming selfish. Are we?" she asked, dragging her

fingers through the water and perceiving the world through ranks of

fleurs-de-lys.

Guy, from where in the stern he sat hunched over his paddle, asked in

what way they were supposed to be selfish.

"Well, it is true that I'm dreadfully absent-minded all the time. You

know, I can't think about anything but you. Then, you see, we used

always to invite Margaret to be with us, and now we hurry away in the

canoe from everybody."

"One would think we spent all our time together," said Guy, "instead of

barely four hours a week."

"Oh, Guy darling, it's more than that. This is the fourth afternoon

running that we've been together; and we weren't back yesterday till

dinner-time."

Guy put a finger to his mouth.

"Hush! We're coming to the bend in the river that flows round the place

we first met," he whispered. "Hush! if we talk about other people it

will be disenchanted."

He swung the canoe under the bushes, tied it to a hawthorn bough, and

declared triumphantly, as they climbed ashore up the steep bank, that

here was practically a desert island. Then they went to the narrow

entrance and gazed over the meadows, which in this sacred time of

growing grass really were impassable as the sea.

"Not even a cow in sight," Guy commented in well-satisfied tones. "I

shall be sorry when the hay is cut, and people and cattle can come here

again."

"People and cattle! How naughty you are, Guy! As if they were just the

same!"

"Well, practically, you know, as far as we're concerned, there isn't

very much difference."

For a long while they sat by the edge of the stream in their fragrant

seclusion.

"Dearest," Pauline sighed, "why can I listen to you all day, and yet

whenever anybody else talks to me why do I feel as if I were only half

awake?"

"Because even when you're not with me," said Guy, "you're still really

with me. That's why. You see, you're still listening to me."

This was a pleasant explanation; but Pauline was anxious to be reassured

about what Margaret had hinted was a deterioration in her character

lately.

"Perhaps we are a little selfish. But we won't be, when we're married."

Guy had been scribbling on an envelope which he now handed to her; and

she read:

Mrs. Guy Hazlewood

Plashers Mead

Wychford

Oxon.

"Oh, Guy, you know I love to see it written; but isn't it unlucky to

write it?"

"I don't think you ought to be so superstitious," he scoffed.

She wished he were not obviously despising the weakness of her beliefs.

This was the mood in which she seemed farthest away from him; when she

felt afraid of his cleverness; and when what had been simple became

maddeningly twisted up like an object in a nightmare.

Yet worries that were so faint as scarcely to have a definite shape

could still be bought off with kisses; and always when she kissed Guy

they receded out of sight again, temporarily appeased.

June, which had come upon them unawares, drifted on towards Midsummer,

and the indolent and lovely month mirrored herself in the stream with

lush growth of sedges and grasses, with yellow water-lilies budding,

with starry crowfoot and with spongy reeds and weeds that kept the canoe

to a slow progress in accord with the season. At this time, mostly, they

launched their craft in the mill-stream, whence they glided under

Wychford bridge to the pool of an abandoned mill on the farther side.

Here they would float immotionable on the black water, surrounded by

tumble-down buildings that rose from the vivid and exuberant growth of

the thick-leaved vegetation flourishing against these cold and decayed

foundations. Pauline was always relieved when Guy with soundless paddle

steered the canoe away from these deeps. The mill-pool affected her with

the merely physical fear of being overturned and plunged into those

glooms haunted by shadowy fish, there far down to be strangled by weeds

the upper tentacles of which could be seen undulating finely to the

least quiver upon the face of the water. Yet more subtly than by

physical terrors did these deeps affect her, for the fathomless

mill-pool always seemed, as they hung upon it, to ask a question. With

such an air of horrible invitation it asked her where she was going with

Guy, that no amount of self-reproach for a morbid fancy could drive away

the fact of the question's being always asked, however firmly she might

fortify herself against paying attention. The moment they passed out of

reach of that smooth and cruel countenance, Pauline was always ashamed

of the terror and never confided in Guy what a mixture of emotions the

mill-pool could conjecture for her. Their journey across it was in this

sunny weather the prelude to a cool time on the stream that flowed along

the foot of the Abbey grounds. During May they had been wont to paddle

directly up the smaller main stream, exploring far along the western

valley; but on these June afternoons such a course involved too much

energy. So they used to disembark from the canoe, pulling it over a

narrow strip of grass to be launched again on the Abbey stream, which

had been dammed up to flow with the greater width and solemnity that

suited the grand house shimmering in eternal ghostliness at the top of

the dark plantation. Pauline had no dread of Wychford Abbey at this

distance, and she was fond of gliding down this stream into which the

great beeches dipped their tresses, shading it from the heat of the sun.

Every hour they spent on the river made them long to spend more hours

together, and Pauline began to tell herself she was more deeply in love

than any one she had ever known. Everything except love was floating

away from her like the landscape astern of the canoe. She began to

neglect various people in Wychford over whom she had hitherto watched

with maternal solicitude; even Miss Verney was not often visited,

because she and Guy could not go together, the one original rule to

which Mrs. Grey still clung being a prohibition of walking together

through the town. And with the people went her music. She did not

entirely give up playing, but she always played so badly that Monica

declared once she would rather such playing were given up. In years gone

by Pauline had kept white fantail pigeons; but now they no longer

interested her and she gave them away in pairs. Birdwood declared that

the small bee-garden, which from earliest childhood had belonged to her

guardianship, was a "proper disgrace." Her tambour-frame showed nothing

but half-fledged birds from which since Winter had hung unkempt shreds

of blue and red wool. And even her mother's vague talks about the poor

people in Wychford had no longer an audience, because Margaret and

Monica never had listened, and now Pauline was as inattentive as her

sisters. Nothing was worth while except to be with Guy. Not one moment

of this June must be wasted, and Pauline managed to set up a precedent

for going out on the river with him after tea, when in the cool

afternoon they would float down behind Guy's house under willows, under

hawthorns, past the golden fleurs-de-lys, past the scented flags, past

the early meadowsweet and the flowering rush, past comfrey and

watermint, figwort, forget-me-not, and blue crane's-bill that shimmered

in the sun like steely mail.

On Midsummer Day about five o'clock Pauline and Guy set out on one of

these expeditions that they had stolen from regularity, and found all

their favorite fields occupied by haymakers whose labor they resented as

an intrusion upon the country they had come to regard as their own.

"Oh, I wish I had money!" Guy exclaimed. "I'd like to buy all this land

and keep it for you and me. Why must all these wretched people come and

disturb the peace of it?"

"I used to love haymaking," said Pauline, feeling a little wistful for

some of those simple joys that now seemed uncapturable again.

"Yes. I should like haymaking," Guy assented, "if we were married. It's

the fact that haymakers are at this moment preventing us being alone

which makes me cry out against them. How can I kiss you here?"

A wain loaded high with hay and laughing children was actually standing

close against the ingress to their own peninsula. The mellow sun of

afternoon was lending a richer quality of color to nut-brown cheeks and

arms; was throwing long shadows across the shorn grass; was gilding the

pitchforks and sparkling the gnats that danced above the patient horses.

It was a scene that should have made Pauline dream with joy of her

England; yet, with Guy's discontent brooding over it, she did not care

for these jocund haymakers who were working through the lustered

afternoon.

"Hopeless," Guy protested. "It's like Piccadilly Circus."

"Oh, Guy dear, you are absurd. It's not a bit like Piccadilly Circus."

"I don't see the use of living in the country if it's always going to be

alive with people," Guy went on. "We may as well turn round. The

afternoon is ruined."

When they reached the confines of Plashers Mead he exclaimed in deeper

despair:

"Pauline! I must kiss you; and, look, actually the churchyard now is

crammed with people, all hovering about over the graves like ghouls. Why

does everybody want to come out this afternoon?"

They landed in the orchard behind the house, and Pauline was getting

ready to help Guy push the canoe across to the mill-stream, when he

vowed she must come and kiss him good night indoors.

"Of course I will; though I mustn't stay more than a minute, because I

promised Mother to be back by seven."

"I don't deserve you," said Guy, standing still and looking down at her.

"I've done nothing but grumble all the afternoon, and you've been an

angel. Ah, but it's only because I long to kiss you."

"I long to kiss you," she murmured.

"Do you? Do you?" he whispered. "Oh, with those ghouls in the churchyard

I can't even take your hand."

They crossed the bridge from the orchard and came round to the front of

the house into full sunlight, and thence out of the dazzle into Guy's

hall that was filled with water melodies and the green light of their

own pastoral world. Close they kissed, close and closer in the coolness

and stillness.

"Pauline! I shall go mad for love of you."

"I love you. I love you," she sighed, nestling to his arms' inclosure.

"Pauline!"

"Guy!"

Each called to the other as if over an abyss of years and time.

Then Pauline said she must go back, but Guy reminded her of a book she

had promised to read, and begged her just to come with him to the

library.

"I do want to talk to you once alone in my own room," he said. "The

evenings won't seem so empty when I can think of you there."

She could not disappoint him, and they went up-stairs and into his green

room that smelt of tobacco smoke and meadowsweet. They stood by the

window looking out over their territory, and Guy told for the hundredth

time how, as it were, straight from this window he had plunged to meet

her that September night.

"Hullo!" he exclaimed, suddenly, reading on the pane that was scrabbled

with mottoes cut by himself in idle moments with the glazier's pencil:

The fresh green lap of fair King Richard's land.

Michael Fane. _June 24_.

"That's to-day! Then Michael must be here. What an extraordinary thing!"

Guy looked round the room for any sign of his friend; but there was

nothing except the Shakespearian record of his presence. Pauline felt

hurt that he should be so much interested in a friend when but a moment

ago he had brought her here as if her presence were the only thing that

counted for his evening's pleasure.

"I must find out where he is," exclaimed Guy.

Now he wanted to be rid of her, thought Pauline, and for the first time,

when he had kissed her, she kissed him coldly in response. More bitter

still was the thought that he did not remonstrate; he had not noticed.

Pauline said she must hurry away, and Guy did not persuade her to stop.

Oh, how she hated this friend of his! She had no one in whom she would

be even mildly interested when she was with Guy. He took her home in the

canoe, speculating all the way about Michael Fane's whereabouts; and as

Pauline went across the Rectory paddock there were tears of

mortification in her eyes that sometimes burnt as hotly even as with

jealousy's rage.

Her mother was on the lawn when she got back, and Pauline blinked her

eyes a good deal to throw the blame of tears upon the sun.

"Ah, you're back. Let's take a little walk round the garden," said Mrs.

Grey in the nervous manner that told of something on her mind.

They went into the larger wall-garden and walked along the wide

herbaceous borders through a blaze of snapdragons that here all day had

been swallowing the sunshine.

"Where did you go with Guy?" her mother asked.

"We went down the river, and they're cutting the grass in the big

meadow, and then afterwards...."

"Oh, Pauline, afterwards you went into Guy's house with him?"