THE FATE OF THE IDEAL
Rhoda’s week at the seashore was spoilt by uncertain weather. Only two
days of abiding sunshine; for the rest, mere fitful gleams across a sky
heaped with stormclouds. Over Wastdale hung a black canopy; from
Scawfell came mutterings of thunder; and on the last night of the
week—when Monica fled from her home in pelting rain—tempest broke
upon the mountains and the sea. Wakeful until early morning, and at
times watching the sky from her inland-looking window, Rhoda saw the
rocky heights that frown upon Wastwater illuminated by lightning-flare
of such intensity and duration that miles of distance were annihilated,
and it seemed but a step to those stern crags and precipices.
Sunday began with rain, but also with promise of better things; far
over the sea was a broad expanse of blue, and before long the foam of
the fallen tide glistened in strong, hopeful rays. Rhoda wandered about
the shore towards St. Bees Head. A broad stream flowing into the sea
stopped her progress before she had gone very far; the only way of
crossing it was to go up on to the line of railway, which here runs
along the edge of the sands. But she had little inclination to walk
farther. No house, no person within sight, she sat down to gaze at the
gulls fishing by the little river-mouth, their screams the only sound
that blended with that of the subdued breakers.
On the horizon lay a long, low shape that might have been mistaken for
cloud, though it resembled land. It was the Isle of Man. In an hour or
two the outline had grown much clearer; the heights and hollows were no
longer doubtful. In the north became visible another remote and hilly
tract; it was the coast of Scotland beyond Solway Firth.
These distant objects acted as incentives to Rhoda’s imagination. She
heard Everard Barfoot’s voice as he talked of travel—of the Orient
Express. That joy of freedom he had offered her. Perhaps he was now
very near her, anxious to repeat his offer. If he carried out the
project suggested at their last interview, she would see him to-day or
to-morrow morning—then she must make her choice. To have a day’s walk
with him among the mountains would be practically deciding. But for
what? If she rejected his proposal of a free union, was he prepared to
marry her in legal form? Yes; she had enough power over him for that.
But how would it affect his thought of her? Constraining him to legal
marriage, would she not lower herself in his estimation, and make the
endurance of his love less probable? Barfoot was not a man to accept
with genuine satisfaction even the appearance of bondage, and more
likely than not his love of her depended upon the belief that in her he
had found a woman capable of regarding life from his own point of
view—a woman who, when she once loved, would be scornful of the
formalities clung to by feeble minds. He would yield to her if she
demanded forms, but afterwards—when passion had subsided—.
A week had been none too long to ponder these considerations by
themselves; but they were complicated with doubts of a more disturbing
nature. Her mind could not free itself from the thought of Monica. That
Mrs. Widdowson was not always truthful with her husband she had
absolute proof; whether that supported her fear of an intimacy between
Monica and Everard she was unable to determine. The grounds of
suspicion seemed to her very grave; so grave, that during her first day
or two in Cumberland she had all but renounced the hopes long secretly
fostered. She knew herself well enough to understand how jealousy might
wreck her life—even if it were only retrospective. If she married
Barfoot (forms or none—that question in no way touched this other),
she would demand of him a flawless faith. Her pride revolted against
the thought of possessing only a share in his devotion; the moment that
any faithlessness came to her knowledge she would leave him, perforce,
inevitably—and what miseries were then before her!
Was flawless faith possible to Everard Barfoot? His cousin would
ridicule the hope of any such thing—or so Rhoda believed. A
conventional woman would of course see the completest evidence of his
untrustworthiness in his dislike of legal marriage; but Rhoda knew the
idleness of this argument. If love did not hold him, assuredly the
forms of marriage could be no restraint upon Everard; married ten times
over, he would still deem himself absolutely free from any obligation
save that of love. Yet how did he think of that obligation? He might
hold it perfectly compatible with the indulgence of casual impulse. And
this (which she suspected to be the view of every man) Rhoda had no
power of tolerating. It must be all or nothing, whole faith or none
whatever.
* * *
In the afternoon she suffered from impatient expectancy. If Barfoot
came to-day—she imagined him somewhere in the neighbourhood,
approaching Seascale as the time of his appointment drew near—would he
call at her lodgings? The address she had not given him, but doubtless
he had obtained it from his cousin. Perhaps he would prefer to meet her
unexpectedly—not a difficult thing in this little place, with its
handful of residents and visitors. Certain it was she desired his
arrival. Her heart leapt with joy in the thought that this very evening
might bring him. She wished to study him under new conditions,
and—possibly—to talk with him even more frankly than ever yet, for
there would be opportunity enough.
About six o’clock a train coming from the south stopped at the station,
which was visible from Rhoda’s sitting-room window. She had been
waiting for this moment. She could not go to the station, and did not
venture even to wait anywhere in sight of the exit. Whether any
passenger had alighted must remain uncertain. If Everard had arrived by
this train, doubtless he would go to the hotel, which stood only a few
yards from the line. He would take a meal and presently come forth.
Having allowed half an hour to elapse, she dressed and walked
shoreward. Seascale has no street, no shops; only two or three short
rows of houses irregularly placed on the rising ground above the beach.
To cross the intervening railway, Rhoda could either pass through the
little station, in which case she would also pass the hotel and be
observable from its chief windows, or descend by a longer road which
led under a bridge, and in this way avoid the hotel altogether. She
took the former route. On the sands were a few scattered people, and
some children subdued to Sunday decorum. The tide was rising. She went
down to the nearest tract of hard sand, and stood there for a long
time, a soft western breeze playing upon her face.
If Barfoot were here he would now be coming out to look for her. From a
distance he might not recognize her figure, clad as she was in a
costume such as he had never seen her wearing. She might venture now to
walk up towards the dry, white sandheaps, where the little convolvulus
grew in abundance, and other flowers of which she neither knew nor
cared to learn the names. Scarcely had she turned when she saw Everard
approaching, still far off, but unmistakable. He signalled by taking
off his hat, and quickly was beside her.
“Did you know me before I happened to look round?” she asked laughingly.
“Of course I did. Up there by the station I caught sight of you. Who
else bears herself as you do—with splendid disdain of common mortals?”
“Please don’t make me think that my movements are ridiculous.”
“They are superb. The sea has already touched your cheeks. But I am
afraid you have had abominable weather.”
“Yes, rather bad; but there’s hope to-day. Where do you come from?”
“By train, only from Carnforth. I left London yesterday morning, and
stopped at Morecambe—some people I know are there. As trains were
awkward to-day, I drove from Morecambe to Carnforth. Did you expect me?”
“I thought you might come, as you spoke of it.”
“How I have got through the week I couldn’t tell you. I should have
been here days ago, but I was afraid. Let us go nearer to the sea. I
was afraid of making you angry.”
“It’s better to keep one’s word.”
“Of course it is. And I am all the more delighted to be with you for
the miserable week of waiting. Have you bathed?”
“Once or twice.”
“I had a swim this morning before breakfast, in pouring rain. Now _you_
can’t swim.”
“No. I can’t. But why were you sure about it?”
“Only because it’s so rare for any girl to learn swimming. A man who
can’t swim is only half the man he might be, and to a woman I should
think it must be of even more benefit. As in everything else, women are
trammelled by their clothes; to be able to get rid of them, and to move
about with free and brave exertion of all the body, must tend to every
kind of health, physical, mental, and mortal.”
“Yes, I quite believe that,” said Rhoda, gazing at the sea.
“I spoke rather exultantly, didn’t I? I like to feel myself superior to
you in some things. You have so often pointed out to me what a paltry,
ineffectual creature I am.”
“I don’t remember ever using those words, or implying them.”
“How does the day stand with you?” asked Everard in the tone of perfect
comradeship. “Have you still to dine?”
“My dining is a very simple matter; it happens at one o’clock. About
nine I shall have supper.”
“Let us walk a little then. And may I smoke?”
“Why not?”
Everard lit a cigar, and, as the tide drove them back, they moved
eventually to the higher ground, whence there was a fine view of the
mountains, rich in evening colours.
“To-morrow you leave here?”
“Yes,” Rhoda answered. “I shall go by railway to Coniston, and walk
from there towards Helvellyn, as you suggested.”
“I have something else to propose. A man I talked to in the train told
me of a fine walk in this neighbourhood. From Ravenglass, just below
here, there’s a little line runs up Eskdale to a terminus at the foot
of Scawfell, a place called Boot. From Boot one can walk either over
the top of Scawfell or by a lower track to Wastdale Head. It’s very
grand, wild country, especially the last part, the going down to
Wastwater, and not many miles in all. Suppose we have that walk
to-morrow? From Wastdale we could drive back to Seascale in the
evening, and then the next day—just as you like.”
“Are you quite sure about the distances?”
“Quite. I have the Ordnance map in my pocket. Let me show you.”
He spread the map on the top of a wall, and they stood side by side
inspecting it.
“We must take something to eat; I’ll provide for that. And at the
Wastdale Head hotel we can have dinner—about three or four, probably.
It would be enjoyable, wouldn’t it?”
“If it doesn’t rain.”
“We’ll hope it won’t. As we go back we can look out the trains at the
station. No doubt there’s one soon after breakfast.”
Their rambling, with talk in a strain of easy friendliness, brought
them back to Seascale half an hour after sunset, which was of a kind
that seemed to promise well for the morrow.
“Won’t you come out again after supper?” Barfoot asked.
“Not again to-night.”
“For a quarter of an hour,” he urged. “Just down to the sea and back.”
“I have been walking all day. I shall be glad to rest and read.”
“Very well. To-morrow morning.”
Having discovered the train which would take them to Ravenglass, and
connect with one on the Eskdale line, they agreed to meet at the
station. Barfoot was to bring with him such refreshment as would be
necessary.
Their hopes for the weather had complete fulfilment. The only fear was
lest the sun’s heat might be oppressive, but this anxiety could be
cheerfully borne. Slung over his shoulders Barfoot had a small
forage-bag, which gave him matter for talk on the railway journey; it
had been his companion in many parts of the world, and had held strange
kinds of food.
The journey up Eskdale, from Ravenglass to Boot, is by a miniature
railway, with the oddest little engine and a carriage or two of
primitive simplicity. At each station on the upward winding
track—stations represented only by a wooden shed like a
tool-house—the guard jumps down and acts as booking-clerk, if
passengers there be desirous of booking. In a few miles the scenery
changes from beauty to grandeur, and at the terminus no further
steaming would be possible, for the great flank of Scawfell bars the
way.
Everard and his companion began their climb through the pretty
straggling village of Boot. A mountain torrent roared by the wayside,
and the course they had marked upon the map showed that they must
follow this stream for some miles up to the tarn where it originated.
Houses, human beings, and even trodden paths they soon left behind,
coming out on to a vast moorland, with hill summits near and far.
Scawfell they could not hope to ascend; with the walk that lay before
them it was enough to make a way over one of his huge shoulders.
“If your strength fails,” said Everard merrily, when for an hour they
had been plodding through grey solitudes, “there is no human help. I
should have to choose between carrying you back to Boot or on to
Wastdale.”
“My strength is not likely to fail sooner than yours,” was the laughing
reply.
“I have chicken sandwiches, and wine that maketh glad the heart of man.
Tell me when hunger overcomes you. I should think we had better make
our halt at Burmoor Tarn.”
That, indeed, proved to be the convenient resting-place. A wild spot, a
hollow amid the rolling expanse of moorland, its little lake of black
water glistening under the midday sun. And here stood a shepherd’s
cottage, the only habitation they had seen since leaving Boot. Somewhat
uncertain about the course to be henceforth followed, they made inquiry
at this cottage, and a woman who appeared to be quite alone gave them
the needful direction. Thus at ease in mind they crossed the bridge at
the foot of the tarn, and just beyond it found a spot suitable for
repose. Everard brought forth his sandwiches and his flask of wine,
moreover a wine-glass, which was for Rhoda’s use. They ate and drank
festively.
“Now this is just what I have enjoyed in imagination for a year or
more,” said Barfoot, when the luncheon was over, and he lay propped
upon his elbow, gazing at Rhoda’s fine eyes and her sun-warmed cheeks.
“An ideal realized, for once in one’s life. A perfect moment.”
“Don’t you like the scent of burning peat from that cottage?”
“Yes. I like everything about us, in heaven and earth, and most of all
I like your companionship, Rhoda.”
She could not resent this first use of her Christian name; it was so
natural, so inevitable; yet she moved her head as if with a slight
annoyance.
“Is mine as agreeable to you?” he added, stroking the back of her hand
with a spray of heather. “Or do you just tolerate me out of
good-nature?”
“I have liked your companionship all the way from Seascale. Don’t
disturb my enjoyment of it for the rest of the way.”
“That would be a misfortune indeed. The whole day shall be perfect. Not
a note of discord. But I must have liberty to say what comes into my
mind, and when you don’t choose to answer I shall respect your silence.”
“Wouldn’t you like to smoke a cigar before we start again?”
“Yes. But I like still better not to. The scent of peat is pleasanter
to you than that of tobacco.”
“Oblige me by lighting the cigar.”
“If you command—” He did her bidding. “The whole day shall be perfect.
A delightful dinner at the inn, a drive to Seascale, an hour or two of
rest, and then one more quiet talk by the sea at nightfall.”
“All but the last. I shall be too tired.”
“No. I must have that hour of talk by the sea. You are free to answer
me or not, but your presence you must grant me. We are in an ideal
world remember. We care nothing for all the sons and daughters of men.
You and I will spend this one day together between cloudless heaven and
silent earth—a memory for lifetime. At nightfall you will come out
again, and meet me down by the sea, where you stood when I first saw
you yesterday.”
Rhoda made no reply. She looked away from him at the black, deep water.
“What an opportunity,” he went on, raising his hand to point at the
cottage, “for saying the silliest of conceivable things!”
“What _might_ that be, I wonder?”
“Why, that to dwell there together for the rest of our lives would be
supreme felicity. You know the kind of man that would say that.”
“Not personally, thank goodness!”
“A week—a month, even—with weather such as this. Nay, with a storm
for variety; clouds from the top of Scawfell falling thick about us; a
fierce wind shrieking across the tarn; sheets and torrents and floods
of rain beating upon our roof; and you and I by the peat-fire. With a
good supply of books, old and new, I can picture it for three months,
for half a year!”
“Be on your guard. Remember “that kind of man”.”
“I am in no danger. There is a vast difference between six months and
all one’s life. When the half-year was over we would leave England.”
“By the Orient Express?”
They laughed together, Rhoda colouring, for the words that had escaped
her meant too much for mere jest.
“By the Orient Express. We would have a house by the Bosphorus for the
next half-year, and contrast our emotions with those we had known by
Burmoor Tarn. Think what a rich year of life that would make! How much
we should have learnt from nature and from each other!”
“And how dreadfully tired of each other we should be!”
Barfoot looked keenly at her. He could not with certainty read her
countenance.
“You mean that?” he asked.
“You know it is true.”
“Hush! The day is to be perfect. I won’t admit that we could ever tire
of each other with reasonable variety of circumstance. You to me are
infinitely interesting, and I believe that I might become so to you.”
He did not allow himself to vary from this tone of fanciful
speculation, suited to the idle hour. Rhoda said very little; her
remarks were generally a purposed interruption of Everard’s theme. When
the cigar was smoked out they rose and set forward again. This latter
half of their walk proved the most interesting, for they were expectant
of the view down upon Wastdale. A bold summit came in sight, dark,
desolate, which they judged to be Great Gabel; and when they had
pressed on eagerly for another mile, the valley opened beneath them
with such striking suddenness that they stopped on the instant and
glanced at each other in silence. From a noble height they looked down
upon Wastwater, sternest and blackest of the lakes, on the fields and
copses of the valley head with its winding stream, and the rugged
gorges which lie beyond in mountain shadow.
The descent was by a path which in winter becomes the bed of a torrent,
steep and stony, zigzagging through a thick wood. Here, and when they
had reached the level road leading into the village, their talk was in
the same natural, light-hearted strain as before they rested. So at the
inn where they dined, and during their drive homewards—by the dark
lake with its woods and precipices, out into the country of green
hills, and thence through Gosforth on the long road descending seaward.
Since their early departure scarcely a cloud had passed over the sun—a
perfect day.
They alighted before reaching Seascale. Barfoot discharged his debt to
the driver—who went on to bait at the hotel—and walked with Rhoda for
the last quarter of a mile. This was his own idea; Rhoda made no
remark, but approved his discretion.
“It is six o’clock,” said Everard, after a short silence. “You remember
your arrangement. At eight, down on the shore.”
“I should be much more comfortable in the armchair with a book.”
“Oh, you have had enough of books. It’s time to live.”
“It’s time to rest.”
“Are you so very tired? Poor girl! The day has been rather too much for
you.”
Rhoda laughed.
“I could walk back again to Wastwater if it were necessary.”
“Of course; I knew that. You are magnificent. At eight o’clock then—”
Nothing more was said on the subject. When in sight of Rhoda’s lodgings
they parted without hand-shaking.
Before eight Everard was straying about the beach, watching the sun go
down in splendour. He smiled to himself frequently. The hour had come
for his last trial of Rhoda, and he felt some confidence as to the
result. If her mettle endured his test, if she declared herself willing
not only to abandon her avowed ideal of life, but to defy the world’s
opinion by becoming his wife without forms of mutual bondage—she was
the woman he had imagined, and by her side he would go cheerfully on
his way as a married man. Legally married; the proposal of free union
was to be a test only. Loving her as he had never thought to love,
there still remained with him so much of the temper in which he first
wooed her that he could be satisfied with nothing short of
unconditional surrender. Delighting in her independence of mind, he
still desired to see her in complete subjugation to him, to inspire her
with unreflecting passion. Tame consent to matrimony was an everyday
experience. Agnes Brissenden, he felt sure, would marry him whenever he
chose to ask her—and would make one of the best wives conceivable. But
of Rhoda Nunn he expected and demanded more than this. She must rise
far above the level of ordinary intelligent women. She must manifest an
absolute confidence in him—that was the true significance of his
present motives. The censures and suspicions which she had not scrupled
to confess in plain words must linger in no corner of her mind.
His heart throbbed with impatience for her coming. Come she would; it
was not in Rhoda’s nature to play tricks; if she had not meant to meet
him she would have said so resolutely, as last night.
At a few minutes past the hour he looked landward, and saw her figure
against the golden sky. She came down from the sandbank very slowly,
with careless, loitering steps. He moved but a little way to meet her,
and then stood still. He had done his part; it was now hers to forego
female privileges, to obey the constraint of love. The western
afterglow touched her features, heightening the beauty Everard had
learnt to see in them. Still she loitered, stooping to pick up a piece
of seaweed; but still he kept his place, motionless, and she came
nearer.
“Did you see the light of sunset on the mountains?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“There has been no such evening since I came.”
“And you wanted to sit at home with a book. That was no close for a
perfect day.”
“I found a letter from your cousin. She was with her friends the
Goodalls yesterday.”
“The Goodalls—I used to know them.”
“Yes.”
The word was uttered with significance. Everard understood the
allusion, but did not care to show that he did.
“How does Mary get on without you?”
“There’s no difficulty.”
“Has she any one capable of taking your place?”
“Yes. Miss Vesper can do all that’s necessary.”
“Even to inspiring the girls with zeal for an independent life?”
“Perhaps even that.”
They went along by the waves, in the warm-coloured twilight, until the
houses of Seascale were hidden. Then Everard stopped.
“To-morrow we go to Coniston?” he said, smiling as he stood before her.
“You are going?”
“Do you think I can leave you?”
Rhoda’s eyes fell. She held the long strip of seaweed with both hands
and tightened it.
“Do you _wish_ me to leave you?” he added.
“You mean that we are to go through the lakes together—as we have been
to-day?”
“No. I don’t mean that.”
Rhoda took a few steps onward, so that he remained standing behind.
Another moment and his arms had folded about her, his lips were on
hers. She did not resist. His embrace grew stronger, and he pressed
kiss after kiss upon her mouth. With exquisite delight he saw the deep
crimson flush that transfigured her countenance; saw her look for one
instant into his eyes, and was conscious of the triumphant gleam she
met there.
“Do you remember my saying in the letter how I hungered to taste your
lips? I don’t know how I have refrained so long—”
“What is your love worth?” asked Rhoda, speaking with a great effort.
She had dropped the seaweed, and one of her hands rested upon his
shoulder, with a slight repelling pressure.
“Worth your whole life!” he answered, with a low, glad laugh.
“That is what I doubt. Convince me of that.”
“Convince you? With more kisses? But what is _your_ love worth?”
“Perhaps more than you yet understand. Perhaps more than you _can_
understand.”
“I will believe that, Rhoda. I know, at all events, that it is
something of inestimable price. The knowledge has grown in me for a
year and more.”
“Let me stand away from you again. There is something more to be said
before—No, let me be quite apart from you.”
He released her after one more kiss.
“Will you answer me a question with perfect truthfulness?”
Her voice was not quite steady, but she succeeded in looking at him
with unflinching eyes.
“Yes. I will answer you _any_ question.”
“That is spoken like a man. Tell me then—is there at this moment any
woman living who has a claim upon you—a moral claim?”
“No such woman exists.”
“But—do we speak the same language?”
“Surely,” he answered with great earnestness. “There is no woman to
whom I am bound by any kind of obligation.”
A long wave rolled up, broke, and retreated, whilst Rhoda stood in
silent uncertainty.
“I must put the question in another way. During the past month—the
past three months—have you made profession of love—have you even
pretended love—to any woman?”
“To no woman whatever,” he answered firmly.
“That satisfies me.”
“If I knew what is in your mind!” exclaimed Everard, laughing. “What
sort of life have you imagined for me? Is this the result of Mary’s
talk?”
“Not immediately.”
“Still, she planted the suspicion. Believe me, you have been altogether
mistaken. I never was the kind of man Mary thought me. Some day you
shall understand more about it—in the meantime my word must be enough.
I have no thought of love for any woman but you. Did I frighten you
with those joking confessions in my letters? I wrote them purposely—as
you must have seen. The mean, paltry jealousies of women such as one
meets every day are so hateful to me. They argue such a lack of brains.
If I were so unfortunate as to love a woman who looked sour when I
praised a beautiful face, I would snap the bond between us like a bit
of thread. But you are not one of those poor creatures.”
He looked at her with some gravity.
“Should you think me a poor creature if I resented any kind of
unfaithfulness?—whether love, in any noble sense, had part in it or
not?”
“No. That is the reasonable understanding between man and wife. If I
exact fidelity from you, and certainly I should, I must consider myself
under the same obligation.”
“You say “man and wife.” Do you say it with the ordinary meaning?”
“Not as it applies to us. You know what I mean when I ask you to be my
wife. If we cannot trust each other without legal bonds, any union
between us would be unjustified.”
Suppressing the agitation which he felt, he awaited her answer. They
could still read each other’s faces perfectly in a pale yellow light
from across the sea. Rhoda’s manifested an intense conflict.
“After all, you doubt of your love for me?” said Barfoot quietly.
That was not her doubt. She loved with passion, allowing herself to
indulge the luxurious emotion as never yet. She longed once more to
feel his arms about her. But even thus she could consider the vast
issues of the step to which she was urged. The temptation to yield was
very strong, for it seemed to her an easier and a nobler thing to
proclaim her emancipation from social statutes than to announce before
her friends the simple news that she was about to marry. That
announcement would excite something more than surprise. Mary Barfoot
could not but smile with gentle irony; other women would laugh among
themselves; the girls would feel a shock, as at the fall of one who had
made heroic pretences. A sure way of averting this ridicule was by
furnishing occasion for much graver astonishment. If it became known
that she had taken a step such as few women would have dared to
take—deliberately setting an example of new liberty—her position in
the eyes of all who knew her remained one of proud independence.
Rhoda’s character was specially exposed to the temptation of such a
motive. For months this argument had been in her mind, again and again
she decided that the sensational step was preferable to a commonplace
renunciation of all she had so vehemently preached. And now that the
moment of actual choice had come she felt able to dare everything—as
far as the danger concerned herself; but she perceived more strongly
than hitherto that not only her own future was involved. How would such
practical heresy affect Everard’s position?
She uttered this thought.
“Are you willing, for the sake of this idea, to abandon all society but
that of the very few people who would approve or tolerate what you have
done?”
“I look upon the thing in this way. We are not called upon to declare
our principles wherever we go. If we regard each other as married, why,
we _are_ married. I am no Quixote, hoping to convert the world. It is
between you and me—our own sense of what is reasonable and dignified.”
“But you would not make it a mere deception?”
“Mary would of course be told, and any one else you like.”
She believed him entirely serious. Another woman might have suspected
that he was merely trying her courage, either to assure himself of her
love or to gratify his vanity. But Rhoda’s idealism enabled her to take
him literally. She herself had for years maintained an exaggerated
standard of duty and merit; desirous of seeing Everard in a nobler
light than hitherto, she endeavoured to regard his scruple against
formal wedlock as worthy of all respect.
“I can’t answer you at once,” she said, half turning away.
“You must. Here and at once.”
The one word of assent would have satisfied him. This he obstinately
required. He believed that it would confirm his love beyond any other
satisfaction she could render him. He must be able to regard her as
magnanimous, a woman who had proved herself worth living or dying for.
And he must have the joy of subduing her to his will.
“No,” said Rhoda firmly. “I can’t answer you to-night. I can’t decide so
suddenly.”
This was disingenuous, and she felt humiliated by her subterfuge.
Anything but a sudden decision was asked of her. Before leaving Chelsea
she had foreseen this moment, and had made preparations for the
possibility of never returning to Miss Barfoot’s house—knowing the
nature of the proposal that would be offered to her. But the practical
resolve needed a greater effort than she had imagined. Above all, she
feared an ignominious failure of purpose after her word was given;
_that_ would belittle her in Everard’s eyes, and so shame her in her
own that all hope of happiness in marriage must be at an end.
“You are still doubtful of me, Rhoda?”
He took her hand, and again drew her close. But she refused her lips.
“Or are you doubtful of your own love?”
“No. If I understand what love means, I love you.”
“Then give me the kiss I am waiting for. You have not kissed me yet.”
“I can’t—until I am sure of myself—of my readiness—”
Her broken words betrayed the passion with which she was struggling.
Everard felt her tremble against his side.
“Give me your hand,” he whispered. “The left hand.”
Before she could guess his purpose he had slipped a ring upon her
finger, a marriage ring. Rhoda started away from him, and at once drew
off the perilous symbol.
“No—that proves to me I can’t! What should we gain? You see, you dare
not be quite consistent. It’s only deceiving the people who don’t know
us.”
“But I have explained to you. The consistency is in ourselves, our own
minds—”
“Take it back. Custom is too strong for us. We should only play at
defying it. Take it back—or I shall drop it on the sand.”
Profoundly mortified, Everard restored the gold circlet to its
hiding-place and stood gazing at the dim horizon. Some moments passed,
then he heard his name murmured. He did not look round.
“Everard, dearest—”
Was that Rhoda’s voice, so low, tender, caressing? It thrilled him, and
with a silent laugh of scorn at his own folly, he turned to her, every
thought burnt up in passion.
“Will you kiss me?”
For an answer she laid her hands on his shoulders and gazed at him.
Barfoot understood. He smiled constrainedly, and said in a low voice,—
“You wish for that old, idle form—?”
“Not the religious form, which has no meaning for either of us. But—”
“You have been living here seven or eight days. Stay till the
fifteenth, then we can get a licence from the registrar of the
district. Does that please you?”
Her eyes made reply.
“Do you love me any the less, Everard?”
“Kiss me.”
She did, and consciousness was lost for them as their mouths clung
together and their hearts throbbed like one.
“Isn’t it better?” Rhoda asked, as they walked back in the darkness.
“Won’t it make our life so much simpler and happier?”
“Perhaps.”
“You know it will.” She laughed joyously, trying to meet his look.
“Perhaps you are right.”
“I shall let no one hear of it until—. Then let us go abroad.”
“You dare not face Mary?”
“I dare, if you wish it. Of course she will laugh at me. They will all
laugh at me.”
“Why, you may laugh as well.”
“But you have spoilt my life, you know. Such a grand life it might have
been. Why did you come and interfere with me? And you have been so
terribly obstinate.”
“Of course; that’s my nature. But after all I have been weak.”
“Yielding in one point that didn’t matter to you at all? It was the
only way of making sure that you loved me.”
Barfoot laughed slightingly.
“And what if I needed the other proof that you loved _me_.”