It was the last week in April, and Mr. Gatty's Easter holiday was near its
end. On the Monday, very early in the morning, the young clerk would leave
Queningford for town.
By Friday his manner had become, as Susie Purcell expressed it, "so
marked" that the most inexperienced young lady could have suffered no
doubt as to the nature of his affections. But no sooner had Aggie heard
that he was going than she had begun to doubt, and had kept on doubting
(horribly) up to Saturday morning. All Friday she had been bothering
Susie. Did Susie think there was any one in town whom he was in a hurry to
get back to? Did Susie think such a man as Mr. Gatty could think twice
about a girl like her? Did Susie think he only thought her a forward
little minx? Or did she think he really was beginning to care? And Susie
said: "You goose! How do I know, if you don't? He hasn't said anything to
me."
And on Saturday morning Aggie all but knew. For that day he asked
permission to take her for a drive, having borrowed a trap for the
purpose.
They drove up to a northern slope of the Cotswolds, by a road that took
them past High Farm; and there they found John Hurst superintending his
sheep-shearing. Aggie, regardless of his feelings, insisted on getting out
of the trap and looking on. John talked all the time to the shepherd,
while Arthur talked to Aggie, and Aggie, cruel little Aggie, made remarks
about the hard-heartedness of shearers.
Arthur ("that bald-faced young Cockney snob," as John called him) was
depressed by the dominating presence of his rival and his visible
efficiency. He looked long and thoughtfully at the sheep-shearing.
"Boni pastoris est," he observed, "tondere oves, non deglubere."
Aggie shook her pretty head, as much as to say Latin was beyond her; and
he was kind enough to translate. "It is the part of a good shepherd to
shear, not flay, the sheep."
"Is that from Virgil?" she asked, looking up into his face with a smile of
unstained intellectual innocence.
A terrific struggle arose in young Arthur's breast. If he said it was from
Virgil (it was a thousand to one against her knowing), he might leap into
her love at one high bound. If he said he didn't know where it came from
before it got into his Latin exercise, he would be exactly where he was
before, which, he reflected, dismally, was nowhere. Whereas, that fellow
Hurst was forever on the spot.
On the other hand, where would he be if--if--supposing that she ever found
him out?
A thousand to one against it. He who aims high must take high risks. He
took them.
"Yes," he said, "it's Virgil." And he added, to clinch the matter, "From
the 'Georgics.'"
The light in her believing eyes told him how inspired he had been.
The more he thought of it the more likely it seemed. A flash of
reminiscence from his school-days visited him; he remembered that Virgil
did write some things called "Georgics," and that Georgics were a kind of
pastoral, and that pastorals always had sheep in them, and shepherds. It
was a good risk, anyhow, and he could see that it was justified by
success. When his conscience reproached him for pretending he knew more
Latin than he did, he told it that he would soon know heaps. If all by
himself, in cold blood, and for no particular reason, he could keep
slogging away at a difficult language evening after evening, what couldn't
he do with Aggie's love as an incentive? Why, he could learn enough Latin
to read Virgil in two months, and to teach Aggie, too. And if any one had
asked him what good that would do either of them, he would have replied,
contemptuously, that some things were ends in themselves.
Still, he longed to prove his quality in some more honorable way. He
called at the Laurels again that evening after supper. And, while Mrs.
Purcell affected to doze, and Susie, as confidante, held Kate and Eliza
well in play, he found another moment. With a solemnity impaired by
extreme nervousness, he asked Miss Purcell if she would accept a copy of
_Browning's Poems_, which he had ventured to order for her from town. He
hadn't brought it with him, because he wished to multiply pretexts for
calling; besides, as he said, he didn't know whether she would really
care--
Aggie cared very much, indeed, and proved it by blushing as she said so.
She had no need now to ask Susie anything. She knew.
And yet, in spite of the Browning and the Virgil, it was surprising how
cool and unexcited she felt in the face of her knowledge, now she had it.
She felt--she wouldn't have owned it--but she felt something remarkably
like indifference. She wondered whether she had seemed indifferent to him
(the thought gave her a pang that she had not experienced when John Hurst
laid his heart out to be trampled on). She wondered whether she _were_
indifferent, really. How could you tell when you really loved a man? She
had looked for great joy and glory and uplifting. And they hadn't come. It
was as if she had held her heart in her hand and looked at it, and,
because she felt no fluttering, had argued that love had never touched it;
for she did not yet know that love's deepest dwelling-place is in the
quiet heart. Aggie had never loved before, and she thought that she was in
the sanctuary on Saturday, when she was only standing on the threshold,
waiting for her hour.
It came, all of a sudden, on the Sunday.
Aggie's memory retained every detail of that blessed day--a day of spring
sunshine, warm with the breath of wall-flowers and violets. Arthur,
walking in the garden with her, was so mixed up with those delicious
scents that Aggie could never smell them afterwards without thinking of
him. A day that was not only all wall-flowers and violets, but all Arthur.
For Arthur called first thing before breakfast to bring her the Browning,
and first thing after breakfast to go with her to church, and first thing
after dinner to take her for a walk.
They went into the low-lying Queningford fields beside the river. They
took the Browning with them; Arthur carried it under his arm. In his
loose, gray overcoat and soft hat he looked like a poet himself, or a
Socialist, or Something. He always looked like Something. As for Aggie,
she had never looked prettier than she looked that day. He had never known
before how big and blue her eyes were, nor that her fawn-colored hair had
soft webs of gold all over it. She, in her clean new clothes, was like a
young Spring herself, all blue and white and green, dawn-rose and radiant
gold. The heart of the young man was quick with love of her.
They found a sheltered place for Aggie to sit in, while Arthur lay at her
feet and read aloud to her. He read "Abt Vogler," "Prospice," selections
from "The Death in the Desert" (the day being Sunday); and then, with a
pause and a shy turning of the leaves, and a great break in his voice,
"Oh, Lyric Love, Half Angel and Half Bird," through to the end.
Their hearts beat very fast in the silence afterwards.
He turned to the fly-leaf where he had inscribed her name.
"I should like to have written something more. May I?"
"Oh yes. Please write anything you like."
And now the awful question for young Arthur was: Whatever should he write?
"With warmest regards" was too warm; "kind regards" were too cold; "good
wishes" sounded like Christmas or a birthday; "remembrances" implied that
things were at an end instead of a beginning. All these shades, the
warmth, the reticence, the inspired audacity, might be indicated under the
veil of verse. If he dared--
"I wish," said Aggie, "you'd write me something of your own." (She knew he
did it.)
What more could he want than that she should divine him thus?
For twenty minutes (he thought they were only seconds), young Arthur lay
flat on his stomach and brooded over the Browning. Aggie sat quiet as a
mouse, lest the rustle of her gown should break the divine enchantment. At
last it came.
"Dear, since you loved this book, it is your own--" That was how it began.
Long afterwards Arthur would turn pale when he thought of how it went on;
for it was wonderful how bad it was, especially the lines that _had_ to
rhyme.
He did not know it when he gave her back the book.
She read it over and over again, seeing how bad it was, and not caring.
For her the beginning, middle, and end of that delicate lyric were in the
one word "Dear."
"Do you mind?" He had risen and was standing over her as she read.
"Mind?"
"What I've called you?"
She looked up suddenly. His face met hers, and before she knew it Aggie's
initiation came.
"Ah," said Arthur, rising solemn from the consecration of the primal kiss,
and drawing himself up like a man for the first time aware of his full
stature, "that makes _that_ seem pretty poor stuff, doesn't it?"
Young Arthur had just looked upon Love himself, and for that moment his
vision was purged of vanity.
"Not Browning?" asked Aggie, a little anxiously.
"No--Not Browning. Me. Browning could write poetry. I can't. I know that
now."
And she knew it, too; but that made no difference. It was not for his
poetry she loved him.
"And so," said her mother, after Arthur had stayed for tea and supper, and
said his good-bye and gone--"so that's the man you've been waiting for all
this time?"
"Yes, that's the man I've been waiting for," said Aggie.
Three days later Queningford knew that Aggie was going to marry Arthur
Gatty, and that John Hurst was going to marry Susie.
Susie was not pretty, but she had eyes like Aggie's.