The rebel spirit is quickly astir when a man’s in love, and so it was
with Jeffray after his sparring with Mr. Lot. That gentleman’s
red-visaged and swaggering hauteur had irritated Richard not a little,
and he was in no temper to be driven at the sword’s-point to the altar.
Already he was waxing world-wise enough to recognize the truth that Mr.
Lot was ready to presume upon his supposed timidity. The suspicion awoke
a sense of resistance in Jeffray, an instinctive feeling of antagonism
that was only human. Left to his own sensitive and generous impulses, he
would probably have found no great difficulty in bringing himself before
Miss Jilian’s feet. Her brother’s threatening interference checked the
free flow of pity, and made Richard Jeffray recoil and consider the
future for himself.
He was still in a fever about Bess, and unable to bear with any calmness
the thought of her sacrifice to the lewd cunning of her cousin. Jeffray
felt that his word had been pledged to the girl, pledged for her honor’s
sake, and that he had failed through circumstance to keep his pledge.
The bond was as real to him as his betrothal to Miss Hardacre, and far
more real in the matter of romance. On the one hand, he recognized a
perfunctory and half-pitying sense of duty; on the other, all the
passionate chivalry that had lain latent till now within his heart.
Why should he not desire to befriend the girl in her trouble? Was there
any dishonor in the desire, and need the world know how much tenderness
must needs be locked and hidden in his heart? He would not make love to
her or court her love in turn. And yet was it not possible that he might
succor her in her distress, comfort her, lighten her lot a little? He
might even protect her from Dan’s brutality, should that savage give him
a reasonable and an honorable excuse. Bess was married. So far there was
an impenetrable barrier between them. He could not break the gate of
fate, but he might touch her hands between the bars.
Nothing was more natural, therefore, to such philosophy than that
Jeffray should signalize his return to the saddle by a pilgrimage
through Pevensel in quest of Bess. The brisk delight of a canter over
the purpling moors was itself a joy to a man who had been three weeks
abed. How the larks sang, and how the broom flashed and glittered in the
wind! The cloud galleons bellied out their white sails over the crests
of the downs. The diverse greens, checkering the landscape, seemed
dusted with gold-dust by the daughters of the dawn. The day brought back
to him the warm, romantic splendor of the south, the memory of Sicilian
skies and the isles of Greece, a-dream in the blue Ægean.
Richard rode down to the weir-pool, and found no life there save a heron
standing in the shallows, the bird rising on its heavy wings and
flapping away above the trees. He crossed at the ford and rode in and
out among the ruins, scanning the ivied windows and searching behind the
crumbling piers that were bearded with ferns. No Bess was there, though
the very grasses seemed to smell of the sweet woodland odor of her
clothes. Jeffray came into the refectory that was rendered the more
mysterious by her dream, but found no red flower blooming, no swarthy
girl waiting to lift up her face to his.
He abandoned Holy Cross at last, but loitered at the pool a moment. The
water lay like glass above the curling cornice that thundered down into
the crackling foam below. The grass-land was ablaze with gold, deep,
dewy, the grass-land of a dream. Jeffray was wondering within himself
whether he should take the path that led up towards the hamlet, in the
hope that Bess might be coming to the ruins. Crossing the ford again, he
plunged upward into the woods, not guessing at the moment that his
heart’s desire was very near.
It was at the winding down of the path into a little dell in the midst
of a larch-wood that Richard, with a sudden leap of the heart, saw a
streak of color coming amid the trees. The tall, stiff trunks crowded
all around the dell that lay like a green bowl under the vaultings of
the boughs above. Wild hyacinths spread a blue mist over the lush, green
grass, and a few late wind-flowers were scattered like snow-flakes under
the trees.
Jeffray had reined in instinctively. Bess was coming down the path,
walking with her head bowed down, breaking a dead bough in pieces
between her hands. She wandered aimlessly from side to side, as though
life had little purpose for her now. A red scarf covered her shoulders
and was knotted over her bosom, her brown neck bare, the black masses of
her hair shining in the sunlight, an errant strand or two falling down
each cheek.
Jeffray’s black mare tossed her head, the rattling of the bit and bridle
causing Bess to start and look up rapidly. She had come to a place where
the knotted roots of a fir ran across the path, the ground falling away
on the farther side and making a species of rough dais. She stood
motionless, leaning forward slightly, her eyes fixed on Jeffray with
wondering steadfastness. For a moment they looked at each other, with no
sound to break the silence save the soughing of the wind in the
tree-tops overhead.
Jeffray dismounted, left the mare loose, and went slowly towards Bess.
Her eyes were still fixed steadily on his, yet she seemed to quail a
little and grow pale as he drew near to her. Richard could see her
trembling excitement, her hands opening and shutting spasmodically as
she stood above him in all the swarthy splendor of her loveliness.
“Bess.”
She gave a sudden, low cry, twisted away from him, and, throwing her
arms up against the trunk of the fir, leaned against it with her cheek
against the rough, brittle bark. Jeffray’s hands fell limp to his sides.
He stood looking at Bess helplessly, as though shocked and baffled by
her deep distress, knowing not for the moment what to do or say.
It was not long before she seemed to master herself, and, falling aside
from the trunk of the tree, turned a dull and almost sullen face to his.
“I did not think I should see you to-day,” she said, with monotonous
steadiness.
Richard, hot and cold by turns, watched her earnestly.
“I came to try and find you, Bess,” he answered.
“Find me!”
There was an indescribable ring of self-scorn in her voice, though she
carried her head more bravely and labored less with her breathing.
“Am I worth finding, Mr. Jeffray?”
“I have been much troubled for your sake, Bess.”
She flashed a wonderful look at him, her eyes lighting up like water in
the sun. It was sympathy she needed, and the flow of a friend’s words.
“Ah, you are very good to me,” she said.
“I gave you a promise; I failed to keep it, and I am sorry.”
Jeffray stood like a man confessing his dishonor, for the girl’s
self-shame had shaken him, and her eyes were fixed upon his face. She
stepped down with sudden noiselessness and stood close to Jeffray,
bending towards him a little.
“I know,” she said, hurriedly. “Yes, you were ill; you could not help
me; it was no fault of yours. You would have helped me, yes; I know
that, and—and I thank you.”
She hung her head again, and swung away from him with a look of
miserable and overpowering shame. Her eyes were dull and tearless, her
mouth bitter and very sullen. Jeffray stretched out his hand and touched
her arm.
“Bess.”
She turned her head and looked at him with longing, the color rising to
her face.
“Bess, I can’t bear it, this misery of yours. I heard all after I saw
you at Thorney Chapel. They tricked you, Dan and Isaac together. It
should have been otherwise had I not been in bed.”
A peculiar light kindled in the girl’s eyes. It seemed born of wonder,
of incredulity, and some subtle and uprushing joy. Was her shame bitter,
then, to this earnest-faced man, so bitter that it could make him
stammer, grow fierce, and look at her in a way that made her whole body
tingle? Warmth seemed to spread from her heart, up through her brown
neck, through all her flesh till she felt alive to the eyes that gazed
at hers.
“Mr. Richard—”
“Yes.”
She drooped a little towards him, her hands hanging passive, her lips
growing full and tender again, her eyes losing all their thick and
sullen thoughtfulness.
“I have been very miserable. I had one joy left to me—”
“Bess.”
“The hope that I might see—see you—again. Yes, every day, every day
when I could escape from Dan, I have come down through the woods to Holy
Cross.”
Jeffray was standing with his head thrown back, his eyes fixed on Bess’s
face. She moved still nearer to him, speaking hurriedly, passionately,
as though afraid that he might stay her words.
“Yes, they took me away. I fought, but they were too strong for me. Dan
had tried to bring me to shame, and I had run away—to you—to save me.
And then, and then—you can see—you can understand—”
She threw up her arm with a great catching of her breath and covered her
face. Jeffray, feeling like a man who has drunk of the wine of the
immortals, held out both his hands to her with a hoarse cry.
“Bess. Listen to me. Before God—I want to help you.”
She rocked to and fro a moment, then dropped her arm, and looked at him
with an almost childish trust.
“I must see you again, see you—soon.”
“Where?”
“Not at Holy Cross, no, it is too near. There is the Hermit’s Rock in
the yew valley—above Thorney Chapel—”
Jeffray had straightened up with the air of a man ready to march with a
forlorn hope.
“I know it,” he said.
“It is a wild place. I can fool Dan. I will be patient.”
She seemed to be plotting it all with all the passionate and ready ardor
of her heart. To Jeffray even this perilous and solemn complicity was
very sweet. His reason appeared to have been heated to white heat and
cooled again like a tempered sword to serve him.
She looked at him dearly, as though he held all the warmth and light
that life could give.
“I will ride to the yew valley every evening—till—”
“Till?”
“You can come.”
A great sigh escaped her. She drooped her face nearer to his, her lips
apart, her eyes shining.
“I shall come,” she said.