"Rather perfect? I should just think it was," cries Olive, gazing
around. "Confess now, you hardened cynic, that in all your wanderings
you never saw anything so perfectly lovely as this."
"I'll own up readily enough. I never did," is her companion's reply.
"But--you are not looking at it," turning to find that his glance has
been fixed upon herself while he spoke, and colouring softly at the
discovery.
"Oh, yes, I am. I repeat, I never saw anything so perfectly lovely as
this. What a distrustful little article it is, to require so much
reassuring!" and his hand, which has been toying with her small fingers,
closes upon them with a fond pressure, as looking straight into her eyes
he repeats her words.
From their heathery resting-place on the summit of Minchkil Beacon, they
gaze idly upon the glories of the panorama unfolded beneath and around.
The great slopes of the downs are gorgeous with flaming gorse and
crimson heather. A rich summer haze lying over the landscape adds
distance to meadow and woodland, alternating in many an undulating
roll--the latter just perceptibly assuming its first autumnal tints; and
cosy homesteads, nestling among their sheltering trees, look doubly snug
and prosperous as contrasted with their counterparts of the upland
farms, whose corn-ricks and a few stunted firs form the only shade.
Villages, too, and tiny hamlets, dropped about, as it were. Frondesham,
beyond the lofty steeple of Wandsborough Church, which latter rises
above that long, grassy ridge as if refusing to be hidden, and on the
further side of the valley, the hamlets of Cranston and Ardleigh; the
mile and a half of straight, dusty road connecting them looking like a
mere streak of whitewash--and, higher up, Cranston Hall, half hidden in
its noble park.
And turning to seaward--space. The broad expanse of limitless sea, far
down, four hundred feet beneath--blue and placid as the firmament
overhead. Two or three brown specks--fishing boats lying with listless
sails--are the only signs of life upon its motionless waters. Not even
a gull is on the wing, and the wavelets have forgotten to break on the
shingly beach. The sun drives on his flaming chariot, slowly, slowly
towards the west, and the great cliffs of the bold coastline reflect his
lengthening rays in many a ruddy gleam--Hadden's Slide, and beyond,
Smugglers' Ladder, a black fissure, rending the whole face of the cliff
from brow to base. Then on the other side The Skegs, tranquil, and
forgetting to look grim and dour, as they start sleepily from their
setting of still, blue water--and above them the lofty headland where
looms the grey tower of Durnley Castle--a mouldering ruin. Farther and
farther recedes the outline of the rugged coast, in rocky bay and bold
promontory, with here a strip of shingle, there a line of
seaweed-covered reefs, till it loses itself in a faint confusion of
distant blue.
It is golden August now--rich, glowing, sensuous, lovely August--when
summer, as if suddenly awaking to a sense of opportunities neglected and
to the consciousness that her days are nearly numbered, would fain crowd
all her accumulated glories into the few yet remaining to her, pouring
out her choicest gifts with a lavish hand, as though anxious that we
should think kindly of her when she is no more, by virtue of her sudden
repentance and amendment at the eleventh hour.
Should you, while taking your walks abroad some fine summer's day,
chance, unexpectedly, and in a secluded spot, to light upon about six
foot of Young England taking it remarkably easy in a reclining attitude
among the soft and fragrant heather; and should you, moreover, descry
seated in very close juxtaposition to Young England aforesaid, a sweetly
pretty girl, occupied mainly in dividing the shelter of her sunshade
with the male and recumbent head, while listening attentively to words
of wisdom--or the reverse--emanating from the male lips; you would, we
trow, if of a kindly disposition, retire as you came, leaving the
idyllic pair undisturbed. If of a cynical turn you would, we trow,
chuckle, as you went, over one more instance of human fatuity. But
whatever your nature you would decide that affairs between this
particular couple had gone tolerably far.
Well--and so they had.
There are, we take it, about three ways which lead to what the
provincial reporter delights to term "the hymeneal altar." The first is
the ordinary "proposal," wherein John is conventionally supposed to sue
humbly for the privilege of maintaining Mary for the term of her natural
life, eke Mary's prospective lineal descendants in any number--not
exceeding seventeen--peradventure with a mother-in-law thrown in, and to
count life as not worth living, in the event of these multifold
advantages--we will not call them liabilities--being denied him. The
second may be termed the extraordinary "proposal," wherein the overtures
are precisely the other way about, barring, it may be, the maintenance
condition and the mother-in-law; and this, by the bye, is not so
uncommon as Mrs Grundy affects to believe. The third differs _in toto_
from the other two, in that it does not deal with "proposals" at all,
but is the result of evolution--taking rise in a tacit and intangible
understanding, and culminating in an arrangement neither more nor less
definite than any _entente a deux_ can be said ever to be. This way, on
the face of it, is the most risky of the three, but it has its
advantages.
Whatever its risks, however, just such an understanding exists between
the pair whom we find alone here on the summit of Minchkil Beacon. Roy,
curled up there among the heather and apparently asleep, will take good
care that the intruding steps of any afternoon wayfarer shall not
approach unsignalled--and meanwhile to all purposes these two have the
world to themselves.
"Am I distrustful?" says Olive softly, in comment on her companion's
last remark.
"No, you're not," is the vehement reply, "but I am. I thought you were
never coming back, and was very nearly going up to Town myself. Now
look here. I can't let you go again!"
"But I must go again," she objected demurely, but with a flash of mirth
in her dark eyes. "I shall have to go soon, too."
"You shan't." His hand closes, on hers, as if the prohibition was to be
put in force at that moment and by physical agency.
"Diddums teasums then!" says the girl in tones of mock soothing, passing
her little hand over his forehead and hair caressingly. "You know,
dear, I like sometimes to arouse the savage in your composition. It
amuses me, because I can send him back into his shell in a minute. But
it's all very well. You had a very good time of it while I was away.
At Ardleigh, for instance!"
For all answer he laughs--quietly, almost inarticulately, as a man will
laugh over some proposition manifestly, absurdly preposterous.
"That's all very well, but I hear the Nevilles are very delightful
people, and--"
"Broomsticks."
"--And Clara and Maud, you know, were very sweet to you, and Isabel
Pagnell--"
"--And Mother Frewen, and Miss Munch and Mrs Bunch. Go on. Run
through the whole list--of broomsticks."
"And then you used to have snug talks with Margaret over the fire on wet
afternoons, and I don't believe poor little me was missed a bit.
Margaret can be very entertaining when she likes."
"A broomstick!"
"Mr Dorrien! That's rude."
"Excessively. But in evoking the latent barbarian, for whom you just
now expressed--er--a flattering partiality--you have once more provided
yourself with further amusement."
Her only answer is a merry laugh, and for a few minutes neither speak.
The whirr of a reaping machine--for the early harvest has already
begun--and the sound of reapers' voices is borne up from the valley,
with now and then the barking of a farmhouse dog. The rallying note of
a covey of scattered partridges, the distant cawing of rooks, and the
hum of bees gathering their stores from the cells of the blossoming
heather, all blend into a luxurious harmony, well in keeping with the
still witchery of the waning afternoon. They are outside the world, for
the time being, these two--away in a cloudland of their own, bounded by
the purple heather around and the sapphire sea below, the ordinary
considerations of mere prosaic, everyday life as far removed as the
distant sights and sounds in the valley beneath. Stay, though. One of
them cannot altogether shut out these obtrusive considerations. Roland,
cool and cynical beyond his years, cannot forget that the brightest
picture has its reverse side, and that there will be a morrow to this
cloudless day of radiance and of love.
He has striven to cherish a vague and desperate hope that something may
occur tending to smooth matters--yet it is hardly likely. That unlucky
stay at Ardleigh--how far back it looked now--seemed somehow to have
committed him to the fulfilment of his father's wish; in the latter's
eyes, that is, for he stood committed in nobody else's. Moreover, as
General Dorrien's hints on the subject grew plainer, so did his
animosity towards the Ingelows increase, and this to such a pitch that
more than once a terrible rupture was imminent, as Roland found himself
compelled to listen to his father's violent and unreasoning tirades.
Still, he managed to conceal his feelings. But every hour confirmed him
in the certainty that the day he decisively announced his intention of
running counter to his father's cherished scheme, that day would see him
disinherited.
And now a sweet, serious look has come over Olive's face, and it seems
as if the bright, merry-hearted girl had been changed, all in a minute,
into a tender, thoughtful, loving woman, who knew the world and its
sorrows well.
"Darling?" she exclaims softly. "There is something I want to say to
you, and I don't quite know how to say it; however, I must try. I have
been thinking so much lately whether you are not making a great
mistake--whether I have any right to let you risk your future, whether
it would not have been much better for you had we never met. Wait--
don't interrupt--let me say all, it's difficult enough, Heaven knows.
Why should you imperil your interests and perhaps be for ever separated
from others you love--and all for me? Why should I bring sorrow upon
you? Roland, darling, think well of what I say. Remember it is not too
late now. The day may come when you will look back upon this sweet--
this beautiful time"--a quiver in her voice--"with nothing but
bitterness. What then?"
Has her love for him at its climax given her a sudden and magical
insight into the future? Is the time coming when he will remember her
prophetic words--but their fulfilment, it may be, in a different sense
to that in which they are uttered?
"What then?" is the vehement reply. "Only this, that--that"--(the
strong, cool-headed man finds himself helplessly stuttering)--"that this
understanding of ours--delicious as it is to have it all to ourselves--
must become public property to-morrow. You must never be in a position
to say such things to me again."
"Oh, my darling! I am only thinking of you and your happiness." Then,
with a warm rush of feeling: "Can such a day as this ever come again in
a lifetime? It is very foolish of me, but I have a presentiment that
there is trouble before us, and that even now it would be better for you
had we never met. I want you to do nothing in a hurry. Better to
wait--to go on as we are--than to risk your prospects for me."
He finds no great difficulty in reassuring her as they sit there in
their golden lotus-dream, with all the glories of earth and air
spreading around them. The busy world lies far beneath; here, silence
and the evensong of birds, and the flood of dazzling sheen on the purple
sea, as the sun dips down nearer and nearer to his liquid bed. Just
then, in silvery chimes, distant yet clear, the bells of Wandsborough
steeple ring out the Angelus.
Then they descend the heather-clad slope, and make their way through the
dewy, silent fields. And now a great orb of fire touches the farther
edge of the glowing sea, tingeing it blood-red, and the horizon is all
aflame. A passing gleam, as a ray from an enchanted world, strikes
broadly over hill and lea, then fades, leaving the earth in shadow, and
the fragrant breaths of gathering night fall thickly around. There is a
scent as of crushed roses in the air, and the grass is already wet with
dew. The distant bark of a sheep-dog from an upland farm, the lowing of
kine wending their way to the milking yard, the whistle of the reapers
leaving their labour--only these sounds breaking musically now and again
upon this stillness of rural peace.
So ends the day. But what of the morrow?