THE STILE
That evening as supper was being eaten in the new dining-room at
Cloom--a merry supper enough, for all Annie's skeleton presence at one
end of the table--Archelaus walked in. It was the first time he had been
over to Cloom since the night of the bush-beating, and it was the first
time Ishmael had seen him since that glimpse in the light of a lantern
in the wood.
Ishmael looked at his brother, and all that affair seemed very long ago,
in a life when he had not been to London, mixed with men, or met
Blanche. He held out a hand to Archelaus, who for a stupid moment stood
staring at it; then he saw the stranger girl from London, Ishmael's
girl, of whom he had heard, watching him. Beyond her sat Phoebe. Some
train of thought was lit in Archelaus's mind, and burned there; the
second of hesitation during which his survey and the thought took place
within his mind was imperceptible as he awkwardly struck his big fist
into Ishmael's palm. Everyone present was aware, in greater or less
degree, according to the amount of his knowledge, of relief.
Archelaus drew out a chair and partook of supper, talking little; but
that little was good, racy, at times too much so, full of shrewd
observations and little flashing gleams of knowledge of men and things.
Ishmael was not abashed and silenced by it as he had been on the night
of his birthday; he too, as he sat there with his "girl" and his wider
experiences, felt that the ground over which Archelaus roamed was not
altogether untrodden by himself. Annie, by the incursion of her eldest
born, was changed, as always, from an acrid acquiescence to definite
enmity towards Ishmael and his concerns. She became so rude to Blanche
that it seemed the temper of a veritable angel still to be able to smile
and answer with politeness. For her sake Ishmael also kept his temper,
though inwardly he was ragingly angry--not so much with Annie for being
rude as with Archelaus for behaving so unwontedly well through it
all--hushing his mother up instead of encouraging her, and speaking
respectfully to Blanche himself.
After supper the young people drifted out of doors, and before the
girls, wrapping themselves against the dew, joined them, Archelaus
drifted in his cat-like way--odd for so big a man--to Ishmael's side.
"Will I wish 'ee joy, Ishmael?" he asked. "'Tes easy to see where your
heart be set. Does the maid feel she can love 'ee and Cloom Manor?"
The last words and some indefinable quality in the tone jarred on
Ishmael, disturbing the satisfaction he had felt glowing over him at the
supper-table.
"If you mean have I proposed to Miss Grey?" he said a little pompously
as youth will speak, "I have."
"And will she have 'ee, or has she given 'ee a clout in th' ear?"
Ishmael hated having to tell this barbarian anything about his lovely
Blanche; he turned sick when he thought that this would be Blanche's
brother ... free to call her by her name, to take her hand.... All he
could bring himself to say was that he believed Miss Grey was going to
become his wife, but that he would thank Archelaus not to go talking
about it, as nothing was to be made public as yet.
"There are other people to consider," he said: "her relations whom I
shall have to see, and a lot of things like that. It is not like
marrying a girl from the nearest village," he added tactlessly, but
without, in his self-absorption, meaning to wound.
Archelaus drew away through the night. He laughed a little.
"Not as if you was wedding Phoebe, who's only a miller's girl?" he
asked. Ishmael laughed too, though a little doubtfully, not sure of the
cordiality of Archelaus's chuckle.
"Of course it's not like. Phoebe's a dear little thing, but Miss Grey
is different, naturally."
In the passage Archelaus ran into Phoebe, emerging with the other
girls, and took from her with an air of gallantry the wrap she had upon
her arm.
"I'll put 'ee home," he told her: "best have this on; 'tes a bit cool on
cliff."
"Oh, but--" began Phoebe. She had no hopes, such as she had cherished,
against all reason, upon getting Ishmael's note that morning, of a
moonlit walk home with him, but something in her shrank from the walk
undertaken with Archelaus. He wrapped the shawl about her as she spoke.
Phoebe could no more have resisted a man who had his mind made up than
a frog can get away from a viper which has once sighted it, and she let
herself be swathed without further protest. Good-byes were said, with
careless affection on the part of Vassie, and kindliness from Judith and
a pressure of the hand and a deep look from Blanche.
"Good-night, little girl! You're going to be very happy, too, you know,"
said Blanche, who knew nothing about it, but felt it was a good thing to
say. Phoebe and Archelaus, both tongue-tied now they were alone, set
off through the moonlight and the soft air to the cliff path.
It was a long time now since she had met Archelaus out of doors, as he
had several times half-coaxed, half-bullied her into doing. Now she felt
a constraint with him she had not previously, as though there were some
portent in the simple act of seeing her home there had never been
before. She had, of course, flirted with him in a very innocent way, if
her methods had been a little cruder than Blanche's would have under the
same circumstances. The repartee had been simple and the caresses
nothing more than a slight touch on waist or arm, repulsed by her with
more alarm than prudery. Phoebe was fonder far of Ishmael than of
Archelaus; she told herself that she admired Ishmael more--he was so
much the gentleman.... What she did not know was that a rebel thing in
her, the thing for which poor facile, soft little Phoebe had been as
much created as though she had been a field-mouse, responded to
Archelaus because it felt he was so much the male. Phoebe had been
safeguarded all her short life by her notions of gentility and by her
fear, the fear, not of consequences, but, less base than that, the fear
of actual passion, which is often implanted in very passionate girls as
though to guard them till the time comes.
When they reached the first stile Phoebe lifted her skirts and
pattered up to it, stood poised upon its crest, and then, with a little
gasp, yielded to Archelaus's strong arms as he seized her and swung her
down bodily.
"Such a lil' bit of a thing as you be," said Archelaus; "like a lil' cat
in my arms, so soft and all."
They went on, he leading and brushing away the tendrils of bramble and
the tougher branches of furze across the narrow cliff-path. At each
stile he lifted her, only now he picked her up as they approached and
carried her right over them. At the last stile he held her instead of
putting her down when they reached the further side.
"Put me down, Archelaus," she whispered. He still held her, his hands
beneath her armpits, so that they cupped the curve of her breast, her
face just beneath his, her feet dangling.
"I'll have a kiss afore putten 'ee down, then. I've never kissed 'ee
since you was a lil' maid to school."
"No!" said Phoebe; "no!" She did not know why she protested; she had
been kissed with the awkward shy kisses of youth often enough for her
years, but she turned her mouth this way and that to escape his. He went
on holding her in air, though his arms were beginning to tremble a
little with the strain, and simply followed her mouth with his, brushing
it lightly. Suddenly she felt she could bear no longer that easy
mastery, those following lips that passed and repassed over hers and
could so easily have settled if they chose. Why didn't they? She turned
like a little animal, and instead of evading any longer, sank her lips
into his.
She hung there then, helpless indeed; for his mouth, no longer making a
play of hers, held it, bore it down. When he released her he dropped her
on to her feet at the same time. Phoebe turned from him and ran
towards the mill. He followed leisurely, sure of her next action as only
his experience of women could have made him sure, and found her, for all
her flight, waiting for him in the shadow of the door.
"You shouldn't," she murmured. "I had to wait and tell you you
shouldn't. 'Tesn't right or fitty to kiss that way. It frightens me,
Archelaus."
"Why edn' it right?"
"Because--because we aren't wed," faltered Phoebe.
"Wed!..." In his voice was light laughter and a kindly scorn. "What's
wed but a word? We're men and women on this earth; that's all that
matters to my way of thinken!"
Phoebe was vaguely hurt and insulted, which did duty for being shocked
very well. She opened the door and passed into the passage.
"I'd best be going," she said, still half-wishful to linger--anxious
not to make herself cheap, yet wishing he would start some conversation
which would make it possible to stay without seeming to want to over
much.
"When'll you be out again?" asked Archelaus, his foot in the door.
"I don't know."
"I do. Good-night, lil' thing!" And he withdrew the foot and was off
through the darkness under the elms. Phoebe was left with her awakened
heart-beats.