Shakespeare’s Romeo lost his reason in a night, and, however illogical
the intoxications of youth may seem, they are of finer gold than the
cold-tempered alloys of age.
Jeffray rode through the woods that evening, and heard the birds singing
in the thickets, and saw the gloom creeping up over the mysterious
hills, the gray sky cracking in the west to let through the red and
molten lava of the setting sun. Thrush challenged thrush on many a
glimmering spire, blackbirds piped it mellowly, linnets twittered in the
gorse. Soon the plaintive chiding of the wryneck would be heard amid the
meadows and the thickets. The wild woods seemed full of sound, of all
the joyous outpourings of life, the massed chantings of the forest
choristers. The gorse glimmered, wind-flowers shivered in the shade, the
cuckoo-flower was unfolding its finials of lilac and white. Overhead the
great trees breathed and murmured, tossing their hands to the setting
sun.
Jeffray’s whole soul was filled with melancholy delight. Was not this
black-haired Bess akin to all this beauty, this starting forth of
colors, this uprushing of sound? The light in her eyes, surely it had
set his soul on fire. And the sweet scent of her clothes, like hay on a
June morning, should he forget it to the day of his death?
He slept but little that night, tossing to and fro—and thinking of
Bess. Even when he slept he dreamed of her, and waking—seemed to catch
her face looking out at him from the gloom. Ever and again, with a
rallying of his loyalty to Jilian, he strove to put the thought of the
girl out of his head. It was but the old battle betwixt nature and the
sentimental but very jealous ordinances of civilization. On the one
hand, romance pleaded, on the other, prosaic proprieties of life
propounded the doctrine of peace and respectable monotony.
Richard came from his bedroom feeling feverish and heavy about the eyes
next morning. It was but a just judgment on the physical part of him, he
imagined, for the emotional debauch of yesterday. He ate his breakfast
in solitude, staring morosely out of the window, and watching the clouds
move across the sky. Depression had followed on exaltation, and he was
moved to regard the passion of yesterday in a somewhat more stern and
moral light. No, he would not meet Bess on Thursday. If she were in
trouble she could come to him at Rodenham and he would help her.
Heavens, if his escapade came to Miss Jilian’s ears there would be
excitement enough for him in the home of the Hardacres! He would go and
see Jilian that very morning. Her presence would chasten him and enable
him to realize more acutely the disloyalty of his attraction towards
poor Bess.
Probably Miss Hardacre was puzzled by her betrothed’s melancholy as they
walked on the terrace that day with Jilian’s two spaniels playing about
her feet. The lady’s quick wits were soon at work to discover the
meaning of her dear Richard’s moodiness. Had she been oversharp with him
concerning poor Mary Sugg? Jeffray smiled at her with genuine candor,
and confessed that the parson’s daughter had nothing to do with his
depression. He was vexed with a headache; so much Miss Hardacre could
cajole from him, and it was enough to enable her to be sympathetic.
“La, Richard,” she confessed, regarding him very gravely, “you look
quite feverish and ill. Would you like to lie down in the house? Quiet,
Tib! Down Tobe! your master has a headache. Drat the dogs; how noisy
they are, to be sure!”
Miss Hardacre flicked her handkerchief at the spaniels, who, imagining
that the lady was challenging them to a game, yapped and growled with
greater vigor.
“Deuce take the dogs!”
Richard had his hand to his head.
“Don’t vex yourself, Jilian,” he said, “it is nothing, I thank you.”
“You look very white, Richard.”
“It is the megrims—perhaps—”
Some sudden suspicion seemed to seize upon Miss Hardacre’s heart. She
looked at her betrothed keenly, with an anxious hardening of her eyes
and mouth.
“Richard?”
“Yes, dear—”
“Have you been in Rodenham village?”
Jeffray stared at her questioningly.
“Not for a week,” he said.
“Supposing it should be—Oh—horrible! My head is in a whirl.”
Jeffray flushed up as though Jilian had suddenly discovered all that was
in his heart.
“I do not understand you, Jilian,” he said.
Miss Hardacre had drawn a little apart from Jeffray, and was waving her
scented handkerchief under her nose.
“Supposing you are sickening for the small-pox, Richard,” she said.
“Jilian!”
“You look very feverish. No, please do not come too near me.”
“Am I so terrible to look at?”
“Oh, Richard, I am sure I am about to faint.”
Jeffray had grown pale of a sudden. Was there anything prophetic in Miss
Hardacre’s words, or was it his own fancy that made him feel chilly
about the heart? He drew away from his betrothed, put his hand to his
forehead, and felt that it was hot and moist.
He glanced at Jilian, who was walking unsteadily with her eyes half
closed, the spaniels still yapping at her heels.
“Certainly I feel feverish,” he confessed; “shall I give you my arm,
Jilian? No. Perhaps I had better keep away from you.”
Miss Hardacre’s face had gone an ashy yellow behind the blushes that
still bloomed upon her cheeks.
“Richard,” she said, “go home at once and send for Surgeon Stott, from
Rookhurst. It is not safe for you to remain near me.”
Jeffray was gazing at her searchingly, wondering how much she loved him
since her first thoughts seemed for herself.
“I think you are right,” he said, slowly.
Jilian still played with her handkerchief, and appeared tormented by the
conflicting emotions in her heart. It was proper for her to display some
tenderness towards her betrothed, yet she was in mortal fear of the
disease that might be lurking in his very breath.
“Richard, mon cher, if anything should happen, I—I will come and nurse
you.”
Jeffray reddened and looked somewhat ashamed.
“I could not let you imperil yourself,” he retorted, with much feeling.
Miss Hardacre wavered, and held out her hands to him pathetically. She
was sorry for the lad, and yet her terror overcame her pity.
“Go home, Richard,” she said. “No, you must not kiss me. It may be
nothing but a fear, but—I am afraid of you to-day.”
And Jeffray, feeling strangely humbled, bowed and left her on the
terrace.
The sense of feverishness increased on Richard as he rode homeward
through wild, alluring Pevensel. The blood was drumming in his brain;
his eyes were hot, his mouth parched and dry with the March wind and the
dust. Even the motion of his horse made him sweat, and there was a dull
ache across his loins. How different his mood from that which had
torched him through the wilds but yesterday!
The forest itself seemed to grow full of fantasies before him, like some
weird etching of Albrecht Durer’s. The trees towered, waxing grotesque
and even threatening as they poured down in places upon the road. The
mutterings of the wind were intensified in his ears, the lights and
shadows of the landscape exaggerated. Continually he fancied that he saw
a figure in a red cloak flitting amid the crowded trunks of the trees.
The feverish thought haunted him that Bess was flying to Rodenham for
fear of Dan. What if he had had the fever in his blood and had given it
to the girl in the abbey yesterday? The thought of her proud and
handsome face scarred by the ravages of disease made him shiver and feel
cold at the heart. Poor Jilian also might take it from him, nor did he
wonder that she had shrunk away in fear.
Coming to the lowlands, and seeing the pasture lands and fields russet
and green under the blue, he uncovered his head and let the wind play
about his forehead. The lodge gates were open, and even as Jeffray came
up the road at a walk, Dr. Sugg’s stout figure came out from the shadows
of the yews that hid the drive. Richard rallied himself and steadied his
wits as the rector halted in the road to speak to him. They had not met
since Jeffray had excused himself by letter from receiving Mary Sugg at
the priory.
“Good-day, Mr. Richard.”
“Good-day, sir, I want to speak with you.”
The parson was looking at Jeffray curiously, screwing up his eyes,
wrinkles running across his forehead.
“What news have you for me?”
“Bad, sir, bad. George Gogg’s wench has the small-pox to a certainty.
Gogg’s in bed himself. Old Sturtevant and two more have sickened.”
Jeffray winced perceptibly, and gazed with some uneasiness at the
rector.
“I am sorry about Mary,” he said.
“Don’t mention it, sir,” quoth Dr. Sugg, stolidly.
“The Lady Letitia is nervous, very nervous, sir, and, to be frank with
you, Miss Hardacre, my betrothed—”
The rector’s eyes twinkled as he broke in upon Jeffray’s apologies.
“Do not vex yourself, sir,” he said. “I understand the matter perfectly.
May I remark, Mr. Jeffray, that you look far from well yourself.”
Richard stared in Dr. Sugg’s red and kindly face.
“I—sir?”
“You look feverish—uncommon feverish. I hope you are not going to be
bedded, sir. How are you feeling, eh?”
Richard forced a smile and wiped his forehead.
“Rather hot in the head, Sugg, and stiff about the back.”
The rector’s air of concern deepened. He screwed up his eyes still more
and cocked his broad head seriously at Jeffray.
“Shall I tell Stott to ride up to the priory to-morrow, sir? He will be
in the village.”
“I am much obliged to you, doctor.”
“Forewarned—forearmed, Mr. Jeffray. I trust, though, it is nothing
serious with you. My girl Mary’s all right as yet. I’ll send Stott on to
you to-morrow.”