There was a field of wheat not so far from The Weir. It was approached
by a stile from the roadway and a narrow path went through it to the
Clieve-don Woods as evenly as a canal divides a landscape. At the
further end there was another stile and a bank of low trees, with a
hollow and a slope overgrown with green grass and a myriad of wild
flowers beloved by bees. A grass meadow with a little stream creeping
through it, and here and there a tuft of rushes; behind all the long
high ridge of the woods--these are the details of which one becomes
aware when one has begun to recover from the vast wonder of the field of
wheat.
Josephine was not wearing a hat. She had merely picked up a crimson
sunshade after breakfast on the Monday, and had gone alone strolling
through the garden, a magazine under her arm. She had given her maid
instructions to be ready to start for town after lunch--the other
guests, with the exception of Pierce Winwood, had already taken their
departure, and Pierce Winwood had gone to Marlow with Lady Severn and
Amber. That was how Josephine came to be alone, and to be glad to be
alone. She had become aware of the fact that she had something to think
about, and she hoped that half an hour on the green shorn breadths of
grass with the river at her feet and the whisper of the weir in her ears
would be a relief to her.
She strolled down the lawn to the river, but a steamer with people
aboard drinking out of bottles and playing on banjos, when the sexes had
duly exchanged hats, was hooting for the lock-keeper, so she turned away
to the upper part of the garden. She found that she had more to think
about than the garden would contain, so she passed out by the little
gate to the silent road and stood for a moment looking along its dusty
curve to where it got lost in the dimness of overshadowing trees, and
then, in the other direction, where it twisted round by the boathouse at
the bridge. She began to walk in this direction, slowly and listlessly,
and when she came to the stile leading to the wheatfield, she mounted
it, and remained for some time on the topmost step gazing along the
surface of that yellow flaming plain lost in the marvel of it, when
there came a wind too light for her to feel upon her face, and fanned
the moveless breadth of flame into a thousand flickers, and the whole
wide field of a hundred acres became quickly alive, and full of the
whisperings of newly acquired vitality.
She felt that she had never seen anything so beautiful before. She
leaped down from the topmost step to the path, with all the delight of
the swimmer springing into the sea. The waving mass closed on her head
for a moment but when she recovered herself she was head and shoulders
above the grain. She strolled along the flat track by the side of the
little bank, with blue wild flowers on one hand and flaring poppies
on the other, breathing of the fresh warm sunlight that seemed to be
enclosed between the green bank and the serried lines of the ripe grain.
And then, where a space had been cleared by the reaping-machine, and the
bundles of grain lay at regular intervals along the ground, there arose
from under her very feet a flock of blue and white wood pigeons, and
flew for a few dozen yards ahead, then fell in an exquisite curve, the
sunlight gleaming for a moment upon every white feather in succession
until all had dropped at the brink of the field.
When she reached the farther stile with the woods at her back she
seated herself, feeling that she never wished to get back to the world
again,--that she had at last reached a spot where all the joy of life
was to be had. There was nothing better than this in all the world--this
breathing of warm air, this listening to the hum of insects, this
watching of the myriad butterflies, fluttering, and flitting and poising
over everything that was sweet smelling on the bank and in the grass,
this gazing on the rippling flames that burned yellow into the distance
where no ripple stirred. The beauty and the quietness of it all! The
satisfied sense of waiting without emotion for the heat of the noontide,
of waiting, without longing, for the poppy sunset--for the sounds of the
evening, the cooing of the wood pigeons, the cawing of the rooks, with
now and again the rich contralto of a blackbird’s note.
And then the warm silence of a night powdered with stars, as the soft
blue of the sky became dark, but without ceasing to be blue! Oh that
summer night!
The thought of it all as she could imagine it, meant rest.
That was what every one needed--rest; and she felt that she had wandered
away from man and into the very heart of the peace of God.
*****
The thought that she had a thought which was not one suggested by the
landscape irritated her. She felt that she had a good reason for being
irritated with Ernest Clifton who was responsible for her failure to
continue in this dream of perfect repose. She felt irritated with him
just as one is with a servant who blunders into the room where one is in
a sleep of divine tranquillity.
During the ten days that had passed since he had surprised her--for a
few moments--by giving her the release for which she had asked him, only
to impose upon her a much stronger obligation, she had been thinking
over his trickery--the word had been forced upon her; she felt quite
shocked at its persistent intrusion but that made no difference: the
word had come and the word remained with her until she was accustomed to
it.
But it was not until now that she asked herself the question:
“_How could I ever have fancied that I loved the man who could thus
juggle with me?_”
She knew that what she had told him on that Sunday at Ranelagh was quite
true: she had been greatly troubled for some months at the thought that
she was guilty of deception--a certain amount of deception--in respect
of her engagement to him. The deception of her father and mother had
become at last unendurable to her. She began to despise herself for
it all and to feel humiliated every time she was by the side of Ernest
Clifton when the eyes of people were watching her. She had to act as if
he was nothing to her, and this dissimulation had become unendurable,
so that she had sought for the opportunity of telling him that he must
release her.
She thought that she cared for him even then--she thought that the first
step apart from him was taken by her when she perceived that he did not
believe what she had said to him at that time. She knew that he did not
believe that it pained her to deceive her father and mother--she knew
that he was thinking “Who is the other man?” and then she was conscious
of taking the first step apart from him.
But it was not a mere step that she had taken away from him on that
evening on the Italian terrace of the Kensington garden when she had
recovered from her surprise at his generosity only to discover that he
had tricked her--that he had substituted a new bondage for the old from
which he had released her--it was not a mere step: she became conscious
of the fact that he and she were miles asunder--that she detested him so
much that she could scarcely realise that she had ever cared a jot for
him. And now----
Well now she was irritated that the thought that she had yet to free
herself entirely from him, came upon her shattering with a note of
discord her crystal dream of peace.
She would write to him--no, she would see him face to face before
another day had passed, and tell him that she perceived how he had
juggled with her, and that she declined to be bound to him by any tie.
It was a comfort to her to reflect that she had need only to tell him to
go to her father and ask his consent to her promising to marry him, and
her separation from him would be complete, for she knew something of
the ambition of her father, and that he had other views respecting her
future than to marry her to a man who though perhaps possessing some
power as the wire puller--the stage manager, as it were--of a political
party, was far from being a match for the daughter of a man who hoped
for a peerage. Mr. Clifton himself had been well aware of this fact,
or he would not have imposed upon her that bondage of secrecy which had
become so irksome to her.
Yes, she would tell him that unless her father gave his consent, she
would consider herself bound in no way to him--not even by that subtle
silken cord of mutual faith, “mutual confidence holds us together,” was
the phrase that he had employed.
She laughed at the thought of it.
“_Does it--does it?_” she thought, through her laugh. “_Well,
perhaps--but----_”
And then she started, hearing through the hum of the wild bees about the
sweet briar of the grassy bank, the sound of a step on the track leading
from the stile through the woods. She started and then her face flamed
like the poppies at her feet, though she must have seen in a moment that
the man who had vaulted over the rails of the stile was no stranger but
only Pierce Winwood.
And then he too started and his face--but his face being already the
colour of a copper-beech was not susceptible of any poppy tint, although
there is an inward blushing, just as there is an inward bleeding--far
more fatal than the other.
Then they both laughed, with their heads thrown back, after the manner
of people who give themselves over to a laugh.
It seemed that she was under the impression that an apology for her
presence there was necessary, for there was more than an explanatory
note in her voice while she said:
“I had no idea that--why, I thought that you had gone to Marlow--I was
in the garden but there was a horribly crowded steamer with a terrible
Hampsteading crowd aboard and a whistle. I came out on the road and
was amazed to find that I had never heard that a wheatfield is the most
beautiful thing in the world. How is it that the people here have been
talking on any other subject during the past few days? What else is
there worth talking about in comparison with this?”
She made a motion with her sunshade to include all the landscape. He did
not look at the landscape: he was too busy looking at her.
“I wondered what it could be compared to,” she resumed with great
rapidity. She did not show her disappointment at his disregard of the
glory of mellow growth which he had taken the trouble to indicate. “Oh,
what is worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as this?... But how
did you come here from that direction?”
“I crossed the river by the bridge and took a stroll through the woods,”
said he. “I was not sure that I should find a path through this field,
but when I saw the stile I had hopes.”
“That is how people come upon the best things that life has in store for
them--by the merest fluke,” said she, and she made a movement as if she
understood that they were to walk together to The Weir.
“Don’t let us go away for another minute,” said he, without moving.
She turned her head only, with the sunshade over it. An enquiry was on
her face.
“Don’t go away,” he repeated. “I was going to put those words of yours
to the test.”
“What words? Did I say anything? Oh, the beauty of the wheatfield? I
will not have it analysed by any canon of criticism. If you say that it
is too yellow I shall never speak to you again.”
“I will not say that, and yet perhaps you will never speak to me again.”
The smile faded away from her face at the tone of his voice.
“I will listen to you,” she said resolutely.
He looked into her face for a few moments and then he took a step or two
away from her, actually turning round to do so. His eyes were fixed on
the ground.
“You said that people come upon the best things in life as--as I came
here--to you, and I am going to find out whether I have come upon the
best or the worst thing that life has to offer me, for I am going to
tell you that I love you and to ask you if you can give me any hope that
you will one day think of me as loving you.”
He was now standing face to face with her. He spoke in a low voice
but not in even tones, until she gave a little cry--it sounded like
a sob--when he was half way through his sentences, making a motion of
protest with one hand; then his voice became quite steady--steady almost
to a point of coldness.
She did not answer him at once. But there came a silence, through which
they could both hear the hum of the wild bees on the green bank.
Two sulphur butterflies danced above them in the air.
She watched the butterflies, and then glanced at the bank.
“There is sweet briar about here I am sure,” she said, as if they had
been discussing the herbarium.
He thought he appreciated her mood of the moment.
“Yes,” he said; “I think there must be sweet briar somewhere.”
He did not stir hand or foot. His hands were in the pocket of his
jacket.
She took a few steps to the bank; then her sunshade slipped from her
shoulder and fell awkwardly on the ground behind her; for she had no
hand to hold it; she was holding both her hands to her face sobbing in
them.
He made no move. He did not even recover her sunshade, sprawling there
a mighty crimson thing among the crimson poppies and the pink. He could
not understand her tears; he only felt that she could not be indifferent
to him. There are only two sorts of tears; they never come from
indifference.
And then she seated herself on the bank and wiped her tears away with
her handkerchief. He saw how the sunlight was snared among the strands
of her hair. He had never known that it had that reddish gold tinge
among its masses of rich brown. It maddened him with its beauty; but
still he could not move. He had a feeling that it would be fatal for him
to make the least movement.
He had ample time to admire this newly-discovered charm of her hair,
for she did not look at him nor did she speak until several minutes had
passed.
Then she tossed from her the handkerchief that she had rolled into a
round mass, as a child flings its ball away, and the recklessness that
the act suggested was prolonged in her voice, as she said:
“What a fool I am! Why should I cry because I know that you love me
when I too know that I love you, and that whatever happens I shall marry
you--you--you--and not the man whom I promised to marry? What a fool!”