THE GIFT
For some days Everest and Regina had no opportunity of meeting in the
enchanted garden. The family had the idea that their guest was to be
entertained and amused, and set themselves to their self-imposed task
with commendable thoroughness. He was driven out to afternoon teas,
escorted to flower-shows, taken to garden-parties; lawn-tennis was
arranged for the morning; rides in the wood or motorboat excursions
on the sea for the afternoon; and though Regina took no part in a
great many of these various diversions, still the same roof was
sheltering them both, they saw each other constantly, and almost always
at breakfast the conversation was entirely theirs. In this way the
passion between them grew and grew; all the more steadfastly as it was
impossible for them to gratify their strenuous wish to be alone in each
other's society, to know the joy again--the "divine joy," as Plato
describes it, "of the kiss and the touch."
Regina grew to admire him more and more as their talks together
revealed his views and opinions; his wonder at the logical clearness
of her mind, the extent of her reading, the leaping quickness of her
intellect, increased with each day, and as his passions had always a
large share of mentality in them this brilliance of her brain attracted
him as much as her soft colour or her waving hair. Every day as she
talked with him across the breakfast-table, or listened to him, with
wide, interested, reverent eyes, he longed to press those bright lips
and draw the dear clever head down on his shoulder.
At last, after some days of unintermittent social gaiety, he said to
the Rector, when they were alone: "Look here, John, I don't want you to
exert yourself to provide these sorts of amusements for me. I can have
all this in town. You know I came here to rest and be quiet and get rid
of the fever. I like it best when I can just stroll about in the woods
and have nothing to do."
"You're perfectly free to do just what suits you best," returned the
Rector, "don't let anyone worry you. The girls are going to some
garden-party this afternoon, I believe, but don't let them drag you
there if you don't care about it."
"I think I will really stay away this time," Everest answered. "I
should like to stroll somewhere in the country this afternoon and so
get some exercise."
It fell out accordingly that the feminine portion of the family,
exclusive of the youngest daughter, drove away to the garden-party
after luncheon, the Rector went to the village to inspect his schools
and Everest was left alone to walk down to the sea, to the enchanted
garden, to Regina.
She was there waiting for him under the blossom-laden trees, in
her prettiest of pale green dresses, and without any speech at all
they rushed into each other's arms, and kissed, driven by a wild
instinctive, self-preservative longing to make an exchange of that
electricity, that had been stored up in each of them for many days,
increasing every hour, and, since it was denied any outlet, burning
into their own heart and brain, and consuming their vitality.
Those sweet, glad kisses restored the balance of electricity between
them and seemed to fill them with new life and energy. It was such a
lovely day, where should they go, what should they do? And when Everest
suggested walking somewhere, the girl was ready with ideas and plans,
like an orderly laying the new route before the colonel.
"Let us walk if you like along the sands to the next village. There is
a dear little inn in the bay where we can have tea and then come round
by the wood home. Would you like that?" she asked, gazing up to his
handsome face, the skin of which looked so cool and clear in the green
light of the garden--green light which intensified the darkness of his
eyes in their downward gaze upon her.
"Very much," he answered simply; and so they started, descending from
the garden by a little gate in the porphyry balustrade, and a steep
flight of steps to the hard glistening sands, to walk to Heddington,
a small sunlit village lying far back in the bay. That walk, how it
remained always in the girl's memory!--that happy walk along those
glittering sands, at the border of the purple sea. How her dancing feet
carried her along beside him! She felt so joyously conscious of her
youth and health. She knew that the sloping sunbeams turned her hair
into gold beneath her straw hat, that the purple of the sea and the
blue of the sky got into her eyes, and that he was pleased with her
as his gaze met hers. And their talk; what a splendid thing it was;
its newness, its range over so many themes delighted her. The talk of
Stossop always stayed in Stossop, and wearied the girl to death by its
inane repetitions, but their talk wandered all over the world and took
them with it and up and down the centuries from Palæolithic times, and
sometimes it called up visions of Indian coral and they almost looked
to see it in the Devon sea, and sometimes it made a distant group of
black rocks seem like an ancient caveman fighting a bear. And yet
it was all so light and laughter-filled, with none of the pedagogic
solemnity of the half-educated person, trying to show the half of him
that knows and keep concealed the half which is ignorant.
Everest never talked like a schoolmaster, but as an artist--in
pictures; and Regina had nothing of the schoolmistress in her, only
that true, deep thirst for knowledge, that had carried her down into
the depths of the heaviest learning and from which she had emerged, her
brain brilliant and shining, her language full of beauty and supple and
keen.
To both, the moments seemed to race by like a golden stream. They
hardly seemed to have left the red steps of the garden before they
found themselves at Heddington, and Everest ordered tea for them to be
brought out on the creeper-covered terrace, that hung over the shining
sea.
When they first turned the angle of rock, and came into the small,
white-sanded bay and saw the inn just in front of them, in its bridal
veil of white roses, the girl sighed and stayed still.
"Oh, I am so sorry to think our walk is over!"
Everest came close to her, slipped his hand through her arm and pressed
it.
"Why should you be sorry, darling?" he asked. "We are not going to part
here. We shall still be together."
There was a tender accent, a stress of deep feeling in his voice. Her
eyes looked up to his face, her breath came and went quickly. She was
not to be sorry--and he was not--because they were still together.
So the great fact was voiced between them, and they became aware of the
pressing desire, the colossal wish, beside which everything else became
insignificant, the wild, passionate longing in each--to be together.
"I know," she said falteringly, after a pause, "but I am so sorry to
think that half the time is gone. We are that much nearer to it being
over," and from that minute she felt inclined to catch at each moment
going by; all of them were wonderful, precious moments, and they shone
in her memory afterwards, like golden stars, in the dark nights of her
future.
The moment when they entered the cramped dark hall of the inn, where
a mysterious blue light reigned, owing to the blue paper covering the
glass of the end window, and giving effectively, yet economically, the
idea of a stained-glass casement. This blue light, in its novelty,
called fresh pleasure to her mind, as she saw the reflection of her own
face in the hall mirror float mistily and lily-like in it.
The moment when, emerging on the terrace, they sat down under the
canopy of rose, looking out towards the sea, now calm, only slightly
tremulous, all pink and silver in the quiet bay, and she heard
Everest ordering tea for them, with every luxury imaginable added
for her, she knew for her, since he rarely took cakes and chocolates
and strawberries and cream; and the moment when they sat silent and
very near together, looking at each other over the empty tea-cups, and
drinking in the peace and sweetness, the calm of all about them.
What a pity to have to go back to the Rectory. Overhead a little
window, embowered in roses, looked out upon the sea. That window
belonged to a room that the voluble innkeeper had offered Everest if
they wanted to stay the night. What a pity that they couldn't stay at
the little inn and sit side by side on its terrace, looking out to a
pink and silver distance for ever and ever! Such thoughts were in their
minds, equally in the man's as in the girl's; with such little simple
pleasures does cunning Nature amuse her cleverest children, for these
little things, these tiny golden seconds, are bridges leading over to
the great, the greatest things in life.
And the walk back inland, through the great green woods, was a rapture
too, though pierced by pain, as each step brought them nearer home.
Their talk went on, bright, inspiring talk, never personal, never
petty, but always on the wide, open fields, in the broad plains of
thought and intellect; for these two were absolutely alike in their
abhorrence of the common and the commonplace, the mean, the small and
the trivial, and they were also very singularly akin in all emotions
and modes of thought, in their estimation of man, in their view of him
as the blot upon creation, as Nature's mistake, in their estimation
of his rapacity and cruelty, his infinite littleness and stupidity.
They were alike too in their love for the animal world, for all the
gracious, sweet and lovely lives about us on this earth, that man, in
his stupendous imbecility, dares to say were created for him to trample
upon.
In this connection, the girl asked him suddenly if it were true that
he had shot much in Africa, and Everest replied: "I used to shoot a
good deal, but I never liked it, except as an exhibition of skill, and
as one gets older one sees more and more into the horror of taking
innocent and beautiful lives for one's own amusement." And Regina loved
him more than ever for this speech.
Their minds in their kinship were like two eagles, that, flying from
different quarters, had suddenly met and, happy in companionship, after
lonely travel, soared upwards to the blue zenith together.
The difference in age was hardly perceptible between them. Everest had
been at eighteen just like Regina now, and Regina at forty-six would be
like Everest now, and so they met and talked on equal ground, as a man
soliloquises with himself.
Everest did not seek to kiss her until they came to the border of the
home copse where they must part. There he drew her into a close, long
embrace and she threw her arms about his neck and kissed him back as
she had not ventured to do till now--their talk had drawn them so near
to each other. Then white and breathless she ran from him through the
mossy copse and so home and upstairs, and Everest later slowly crossed
the lawn to the Rectory and his own rooms, entering by the long French
windows.
For many days after this, they met in the enchanted garden, and Regina
lived in paradise.
Everest was supposed to need exercise, and every afternoon took a walk
to the sea unaccompanied. The two elder girls were not good walkers
enough to be able to go with him, and after a hint from their father
forbore to press their own or other society upon him, but, as he spent
the entire morning and evening in their company, left him undisturbed
in the afternoon, to sleep if he felt touches of fever returning on
him, or to walk where the fancy took him.
Though they did not know it, it always took him to the Chalet and
its garden. Every day the girl in her new-found emotions, in her joy
and pride and innocent happiness, grew more lovely. Her eyes shone
more brightly, her skin grew more exquisitely transparent; but it was
not the same with Everest; the sense of the Future gripped him too
strongly, and sleepless, troubled nights brought back the fever. Daily
his cheek grew paler, and except when talking, or under the influence
of some emotion, his face did not have the same animation, nor his eyes
the same brilliance, as when he came.
One afternoon when they met in the garden she saw at once that
something was oppressing him. His face was white, and the usually calm
lines of the brows were contracted with pain.
"My darling, I cannot stay here," he said, after their first long kiss.
"You must not ask me, sweetest one. It is killing me, and it is too
dangerous for you. This garden seems to alter everything.... When I am
here, I forget the world of men outside, in which, after all, vile as
it is, we have to live. I must go, Regina, before it is too late."
"It is too late," she answered, in a low voice. "Oh, Everest, if you
knew what I shall feel when you go. It is so dreadful, so impossible,
to give you up.... All the rest of my life must be wretched.... I have
only this time, these wonderful days, while you are here, to be happy
in.... Don't shorten them. Stay with me a little longer...!"
And in the still magic shade of the garden, Everest promised to stay,
because it seemed to him, too, that it was impossible to leave her, and
all the world, the hateful, ridiculous, jarring world, seemed far away,
non-existent, under those fragrant roses, where the nightingales sang
and Nature held full sway.
But that same night, at home, in his room, the idea came again very
sharply before him that his duty was either to go away or to offer to
marry Regina.
It was treacherous, cruel, dishonourable to stay any longer, unless he
did that; he had stayed too long as it was, he knew; but that was done
now. He could not help it, all he could do was to go at once, before
things were still worse. Mechanically, he began to put a few things
together that he always packed himself. Then he stopped, and sat down
again. Suppose he just followed his own desires, and did not trouble
about anything else?... Suppose he married Regina, and gave himself up
to golden weeks of wandering with her?... There was no reason why he
should not. He was free to marry if he chose. But the permanence of it,
the insane laws of the thing frightened him, as it had done all his
life.
He sat silent, looking down at the floor, thinking deeply; everything
grows so much more complicated and difficult to decide as one grows
older. One loses that saving narrowness of view that, in youth,
prevents one from seeing more of a project than the side presented
to one, and so simplifies one's course of conduct. In youth, too,
everything seems so permanent; that clears away another difficulty.
In love matters it makes everything remarkably easy.... We love, and
our passion is certain to last for ever and ever. Then, it is fairly
easy to arrange for it. But as we grow older we see that nothing is
permanent. Everything is moving, shifting, changing, and the whole
difficulty of man arises from the fact that he will shut his eyes to
this universal truth. He makes institutions and laws, which would
only be good and serviceable if our emotions, our passions, ourselves
were lasting and changeless instead of being the victims of constant
metamorphoses, and consequently man's life is a perpetual and fruitless
struggle to adapt these solid, permanent and unelastic inventions to
the restless varying of his life and his being.
Thus do we bid him build the solid rock house of marriage--where?--upon
the shifting sands of his passions and emotions.
Can we expect it to be a success?
Everest knew that he loved Regina now, that he passionately longed for
and desired her; and the feeling seemed so strong, so deeply rooted
that it might well last for the traditional "ever." ... But experience
told him that, of the many, many passions and loves he had felt before,
all had varied, and shifted, and changed, and in due course, from one
ailment or another, languished, sickened and died.
And on their death he had been free. But in this case he was
considering, when they died, he would be enveloped, shackled in the
chains of marriage! He thought of all his married friends.... There was
not one who did not envy him his freedom, and yet most of them must
have felt at some time that same stress of emotion for their wives as
he felt for Regina now. He sprang to his feet suddenly.
"No! No! I will not be so foolish as to be led into it! In town, in a
few weeks, I may have forgotten her altogether."
He recommenced collecting his letters and papers with feverish vigour.
He knew he must go, and he would do so the day after to-morrow. His
resolve was quite genuine, and he looked out the up-trains himself in
Miss Marlow's ready laid hand-book, and packed his writing-case and
small trunks.
But Nature, who doesn't mind in the least about marriage, but is very
keen on carrying out those matters which really concern her, is not to
be put off by a human being just packing his suit-case.
The following afternoon, when Everest started from the Rectory for his
walk seawards, as he left the grounds, he met the curate coming up from
the village, and as he greeted him the young man joined him.
"I'm going to visit a parishioner who lives in a little cottage on the
beach. Are you going that way? If so, we might walk down together."
Everest assented pleasantly, though on that particular day no man's
company was particularly welcome to him. His whole excitable nature was
now strung up to one painful and horrible duty: the wrenching himself
away from a woman that he loved with certainly the best and highest
passion he had ever felt in his life. His blood seemed all on fire,
and running the wrong way in his veins; his teeth seemed on edge; all
his nerves shaken. But he showed none of this: he looked to the curate
singularly calm, quiet and self-possessed.
For a few minutes they spoke on indifferent subjects, and then the
young man said suddenly:
"You are making quite a long stay in Devon?"
There was a sort of questioning note in his voice, and Everest, not
having spoken to anyone yet of his resolved departure, merely answered:
"Yes; it is very lovely here."
There was a silence, in which Everest felt sure the curate was
gathering strength to address him on some subject of special import,
and his mind went immediately to village schools, the poor and
subscriptions, but, to his amaze, when the curate spoke, it was
of--Regina!
"I expect you have great opportunities of talking with her, have you
not?"
To which Everest replied frankly, wondering what was coming:
"Yes, we have talked a great deal."
"Has she ever," the curate coughed nervously, "told you about me?" he
said at last.
Everest's surprise grew.
"Not beyond mentioning your name and your services to her father, I
think," he answered.
"She never mentioned, I suppose, that I ... I was anxious ... I
proposed to marry her?"
"No; certainly not. I never heard it," returned Everest promptly and
emphatically.
A wave of hot emotion, he could not tell exactly of what kind, but
certainly surprise and anger mixed in it, came over him as he heard
another man speak of Regina, and reveal his attitude towards her, speak
of marriage with her! She was his ... his ... his.... How dare the
curate talk of her!... She was wholly Everest's, his own property. She
belonged solely, utterly to him, and then the memory came: he was going
to leave her, _he_ was going away, he was leaving her to herself, to
Stossop, to the people here, to this ... curate!
In a whirl of anger he heard the next words:
"She refused me," uttered the young man faintly. "You see," he
continued, "she is so very young, I think perhaps she hardly knows her
own mind, and I, of course, have no chance of being very much with her
or pleading my cause. I thought it was just possible, since you are
with her so much, you could put in a word for me. A girl is so much
influenced sometimes by what an older man says. He has the weight of a
father, and yet more than the influence of a father, because he comes
from the outside. He's a stranger. Regina would listen, I think, to all
you said.... I want her to consider things a little, to consider how
lonely a woman's life is, unmarried...."
The curate's voice went on, but Everest lost what he was saying in the
angry maze and swirl of his own thoughts.
So this was what he was driving at! It was not flannel clubs, nor coal
tickets, nor choir classes now; it was not subscriptions this time. He
was being asked to persuade Regina--his Regina--to marry another man,
this man--this limited, narrow-minded, microscopic curate!
Then he became aware that the man was talking of Regina herself,
telling him how wonderful she was, so unlike the other sisters, so
unlike anyone he had ever known, and drawn on by Everest's quiet,
apparently sympathetic attention he began to dilate on his own love for
her, his ardent desire for her happiness.
"And do you think a girl like Regina Marlow would be happy as a
clergyman's wife?" interrupted Everest mildly.
Inwardly he was furious at the tone of proprietorship that
unconsciously crept into the curate's voice.
"I think she would when she had settled down," he answered. "I know
she is very original, and has all sorts of fancies, now, but that soon
disappears. When once a girl is married, and face to face with her
duties in life, her children, her home, her regular employment steady
and settle her."
A silent rage consumed Everest as he heard this speech, delivered
in the rather pompous tones that the curate, without meaning to be
offensive, generally slipped into.
That morning, when he had been thinking of that alternative to his
going--marrying Regina--deep in his heart had been the idea of
children. Never before in his life had he met a woman by whom he
would so gladly have had sons as by her. It was just that steel-like
sharpness of the brain, that clear, unclouded intellect, that swiftness
of motion, that agility of limb, that vital force of energy in body
and mind, that he would like to see in his sons--if he had them. That
soul of a lioness, that frank, brave, upright nature she had revealed
to him, is not a very modern type. It reminded him more of the old
Roman spirit that lived in Regulus and Lucretia, and this thought had
swayed him very near indeed to the idea of marriage. Only again, to his
sensitive, comprehensive brain, the thought of maternity brought the
idea of sacrifice, and it showed how deeply really his love for the
woman had gone, that he shrank from anything which would involve her
in suffering and danger. He felt he could not bear the thought of this
gay, beautiful, radiant creature, risking, and perhaps giving up, her
life, so full of powers for artistic creation, for his sake, through
the gratification of his passion in bearing children to satisfy his
ambitions.
And this had carried his mind away again from marriage; it made the
matter more complex still. If he married, it was essential for his
property that his wife should have children, but he saw suddenly now,
and for the first time, what an ordeal loomed before him in giving over
a woman, whom he loved as much as he loved Regina, to suffering and to
danger.
Perhaps the ancient Greeks were influenced by this same feeling when
they married women merely to have and rear their children, while giving
their love and devotion and life companionship to others.
And now, here, when he, Everest, whom the girl loved, and who had such
great compensations to give in return for all he asked from a woman,
hesitated and contemplated the extreme of sacrifice, that this sacred
life might be left undisturbed, while he was planning to leave her, to
tear himself from her, for her sake, this wretched man at his side was
quietly talking of her duties, the tasks she was to be forced into,
the quiet, humdrum, irksome life she was to be bound to, the risks
of maternity she was to face, to gratify him, that he might enjoy to
the full this lovely flower, which Everest held too sacred to gather
himself! It was no use to leave her! If he did, this man, or some other
like him, would force her into an odious existence, such as was here
sketched out.
His heart seemed to swell with fury, as he thought of it, dark mists of
rage rose over his brain, darkening his mental vision.
"I am sure I shall win her in time," the voice went on at his side.
"All that is wanted is persistence, determination.... That young
Markham, who shot himself in London, it was a wrong thing to do, of
course--and so foolish! If he had come back here, and persisted, he
might have won her, just as I firmly believe I shall win her."
And in answer to a question of Everest's, he was taken through the
history of Regina's refusal to Markham, and the tragedy which followed,
and the other histories of the refusals, and all this talk went to
Everest's brain like corroding fire. It awoke and inflamed all that
selfishness of his love which, with Regina, and for her sake, he had
kept suppressed, and controlled. It rose up now to its full power and
fought with his reason. It filled him with rage. He longed to take the
curate up by his neck, and throw him over the hedge.
At last the waving trees of the garden came in sight, and he was now
all impatience to get away from him, but he felt bound to accompany him
to the cottage, and see the door shut upon him, before turning to the
garden.
"A clergyman wants a wife for all this sort of thing," the latter
remarked plaintively, as they neared the dirty little hovel on the
beach; "these people must be visited, especially when they are sick,
and it's a woman's work: it takes too much of a man's time."
Everest ground his teeth silently. He would not trust himself to speak.
Another moment, and they were at the door.
A filthy woman, followed by a crowd of still filthier children, opened
it. The sound of coughing and a baby crying came from the dark interior.
"You won't come in?" said the curate.
Everest declined, the curate disappeared, and the door was shut.
Feeling mad, like one who has drunk vitriolised brandy, his nerves
exasperated and his control all gone, Everest turned and walked back
rapidly towards the garden, with the swift, eager step of the thirsting
wolf scenting water. He came to the gate and laid his hand on it. It
was locked. He called her name. There was no answer. Each little thing,
each resistance made his anger mount higher, augmented the state of
turmoil he was in. He drew back a little from the gate, then jumped
over it, feeling he could have leapt over one a hundred times higher,
and began to scour the silent, scented ways of the garden.
The birds called over his head, the fragrance came in clouds to meet
him, he noticed nothing.
Suddenly, as his quick feet carried him down one of the darkest rose
alleys, he came upon Regina. She was asleep on a little bank, in the
deep shade, almost invisible under the drooping boughs of a laburnum,
that poured its golden treasure to the ground.
With a single step he was beside her, he had caught her into his arms.
She awoke to find herself clasped to his breast, her face being covered
with wild, fierce kisses.
"You are mine. You cannot and shall not belong to anyone else ...!"
The garden held them--that magic garden that waved and bloomed in
quiet peace, far from the riot of the hard and noisy world. Far more
beautiful than any cathedral's were its green and shaded aisles; more
beautiful than the anthem's roll its exquisite melody of rejoicing
birds; more sweet its perfume than incense, and Nature breathed over
her children there a greater blessing than man can ever give.
Three hours later Everest came back to the Rectory; he went straight
up to his room, turned the key in his door, and threw himself face
downwards on his bed.
He knew he ought to feel regret, to wish his action undone, to feel
fear of future ill, but he could not; still less was any sense of
reaction, of revolt, familiar to him in similar situations, near him
now.
From head to foot, one great pulse of elation, satisfaction, joy and
triumph beat through him. She was his, and those moments had been
his--moments unequalled before in all his life of varied success with
women. He recalled the scene with wondering ecstasy: the beauty of the
garden, the transfigured face of the girl, the pure, unclouded rapture
of those lustrous eyes, as she yielded to his arms, the radiant glory
of all the air about them, its intoxicating, fragrant stillness. Was
the garden really enchanted, as she called it. What was she, this girl?
Was she a goddess who had descended to his embrace? In the proud joy of
her self-surrender, in the ecstatic passion of her kiss, in the glamour
of poetry and beauty she threw over every action which with other women
was so commonplace, she seemed to be.
Of their act she had made a thing akin with beauty, with radiance, with
light, and he could only feel glorified, as he saw she did.
Innocently, grandly, full of a fervent delight in him as she had in
beauty, she had given herself to him, as Venus might have given herself
to Anchises; he could think of no other simile.
And to the tender love he had felt invade his soul for her in those
after moments which to some are so bitter, he could find no parallel in
all his former existence.
His one desire was to hold her again in his arms, though he had so
lately left her, to feel the tender bosom strain against his, to gaze
into the wonderful light and fire of those eyes.
This ecstatic state, this empire of mere nature, which knows nothing of
convention, nor the ways and laws of the world, over him; this delight
of the senses, the afterglow, as it were, of passion, remained with
him all the night, and then with the white light of the dawn came a
horrible sense of dismay.
What had he done? He had allowed the torrent of his own wishes,
his own desire, to sweep him over the brink of disaster, and he had
dragged this innocent, loving creature with him. Some men, in similar
circumstances, blame the woman; Everest only cursed himself, as he
sprang from his bed to face the coming day.
This bright, young life, so full of wonderful talent, this beautiful,
fresh flower, only just opened to the sunlight of life, he had
sacrificed to himself, to his passion and pleasure of an hour. It
seemed incredible to him, as he thought of it, that he could have been
so selfish, so weak, so vile.
What was there in that maddening garden that stole away all sense of
the outside world, and seemed to whisper that man was not the trained
puppet of the wretched, artificial sphere he has created, but the free,
natural, joyous creature Nature intended him to be?
Man must always remember that _he is_ a puppet, and a slave, and that
the laws of Nature now exist no longer for him. He in his blindness has
made other and contrary laws, which he has to obey.
Regina? What of her? What of this waking hour for her? She had not
appeared at dinner the previous night. He had not seen her since
leaving her in the garden. Was she suffering as he was? He longed to
see her, to speak to her.... Were those glorious eyes clouded by tears?
Was that sweet, smiling face convulsed in misery? It was like iron
twisting in his heart to think of it.
He felt as if he had taken a swift, joyous swallow, just rising to the
sun, and broken both its wings, and thrown it to the ground, to die.
He loathed himself.
He dressed rapidly, made himself some tea with his own lamp, and then
sat down by the window, thinking. The girl was just above him; if he
could only go to her, see her, find out what she was thinking, feeling.
Other episodes with women had affected him differently. In nearly all
it had been possible to compensate the woman in some way, or else she
was in some invulnerable position of safety, where their deeds would
not react upon her. But Regina? He foresaw every possible kind of
suffering for her in the future, and no reparation could be offered
her--except--marriage....
Yes, the thought came whirling into his disordered brain with stunning
force. He had the power to change everything for her. If she were in
tears, he could dry them instantly; if her heart was beating with fear,
he could allay all its terror. He could not undo what he had done, but
he could go farther and, as far as she was concerned, give her complete
protection and happiness. As he thought of her, as she had been last
evening, in the soft shades of the garden, as her image came before
him, radiant, inspiring, irresistible, in those moments of ecstasy, he
thought he would do that. It was not what he had thought of, wished or
desired, when he had come there; but neither was this. To enter his
friend's home welcomed by all, and then to steal the fairest ornament
there, to leave misery and wretchedness where he had found joyous
innocence, unquestioning love and trust....
No, he could not do this. A sense of being dishonoured, if he did, came
over him. Never in his life yet had he done a mean or cruel action, and
somehow, looked at in all its lights, this seemed to be both.
Well, he would do that; he would give up all other views and thoughts
for his future, and he would marry Regina.
This resolve came rolling into his mind on the flood-tide of his
troubled thoughts, and found a harbour there.
It was easier for it to do so, because of the very real passion he had
for her. Of all the women he had known, none had given him a greater
joy than she had, and the idea of possessing her, and her love and
youth, and all her passionate impulses, chaining them to himself only,
had its seduction.
Everest had reached the meridian of his years, and already, through the
green woods of his life, was stealing the cold whisper of the coming
winter of age, but with Regina he forgot it; she seemed to enwrap him
in her eighteen years, to hold the cup of elixir of eternal youth
to his lips. With her warm arms about him, her fresh, joyful heart
beating on his, it seemed the spring of life must always stay with
him. He could not part with her, he would keep her, and know again and
again with her those happy hours that were worth all the world could
give. Full of the new determination, he rose, and going over to the
mantelpiece he closed the open velvet case that contained the perfect
face, the delicate, cameo-like features of his cousin, and laid it away
amongst other cases, books and papers. That idea was over; that matter
was of the past.
He found his writing materials and wrote a few lines to Regina.
He did not see her till she came in at the last moment before luncheon,
and took her place at the table. He felt afraid to look much at her,
lest his eyes should in any way betray him to the others, but one
glance at her face told him that she looked pale, and as if she had not
slept much the previous night.
Time seemed a blank until the hour arrived when he could start for his
afternoon walk, and then he hastened his steps as much as possible,
dreading some interruption, some hindrance to seeing her. He felt he
could not exist longer, unless he could have speech with her. When he
came in sight of the garden he saw the door stood open, and beyond
it, against the deep green within, her white lace dress was visible.
He hurried forward, and in another moment the gate was shut upon them
and their embrace. She had come to meet him. She was not, as he had
tortured himself by imagining, tear-stained, broken and drooping, full
of sadness and reproaches. She was smiling, fresh, radiant, as usual,
with her face full now of rose and pearl, lifted to his, and her soft
arms tightly twined round his neck.
They walked a few steps farther, into the deepest recesses of the
place, and he told her all he had suffered, and how he hated himself
for his selfishness, and how his only thought now was to efface it all
from her mind by their marriage as soon as possible.
"I think we will go up to town together, and we will marry there. What
do you say?"
His face was very pale as he spoke the decisive words--words that
had never passed his lips to any woman before, and that he had
always thought vaguely he would say some day in such different
circumstances--circumstances where they would mean linking himself to
brilliant, worldly prospects, to landed possessions, to high lineage,
to a family old as his own; and now they were being said to this simple
girl, who had none of these, and not even that surprising beauty which
sometimes outweighs them all.
She had conquered him where other women all his life long had tried and
tried in vain. Why was it? Unless this ground on which they walked were
indeed enchanted. As is the case with so many men, love and marriage
stood widely separated in his mind. Love was a wonderful, passionate
pleasure, which had been his companion all his life. Marriage was a
stupid business arrangement, that he might have to make some time,
because certain practical advantages went with it.
He had immense property to leave behind him, and as he entertained the
usual family dislike of all his brothers and sisters, he would have
preferred to have a legitimate son to whom it would go, but it had been
urged upon him, ever since he could remember, that to marry was "his
duty," and as he had always found the "duties" discovered for him by
others were extremely disagreeable, he had come naturally to have a
very real distaste for it. No one had suggested to him that marriage
meant, or could or ought to mean, pleasure.
Pleasure and sin were always jumbled together, and held before his
eyes, through his childhood and youth, in his severe Scottish home, and
marriage was associated with duty, with constraint, with bondage, with
monetary considerations, and nothing else; with everything that he most
hated.
And the result of this training had been far from what his stern
family would have wished. The Oriental youth, who leads a cleaner
life than English youths, and is a stranger to dissipation, is taught
differently. Marriage to him is not represented as a holy penance,
involving renunciation and sacrifice, but as the only gate to supreme
delight. In all Eastern languages the word for marriage is identical
with the word for pleasure.
Does it not seem a wiser method?
So that, considering his upbringing, it was no wonder that Everest's
face paled and his heart sank as he pronounced the dismal word "marry,"
which had always seemed to him to mean the end of everything, the
termination of freedom, the finishing of pleasure, the dismissal of
love, only to be compensated for by great worldly gain. And here there
was no gain. His feet had somehow got entangled in the horrid mesh at
last. Yet, as he glanced at the girl beside him, so bright, with her
springing step, her rose-like face and her wide, innocent eyes, he
could not feel that she had spread it for him, as others had done in
vain. No, he had courted disaster, and himself pulled it down upon his
head.
Regina stopped in her walk, and looked up at him.
What loveliness in those blue eyes, full of the sky and heaven's own
light.
"No, Everest, I am not going to marry you."
The man could never recall exactly what his feelings were as he heard
her. Amaze was certainly the first, then a sort of relief, then
disappointment, and then, so strange is humanity, a nascent desire that
they _should_ marry after all.
"But, my darling, why not?"
"Because you don't really wish it; you ask me because you think it
is your duty, after what has happened. But I have given you my love
and myself as free gifts, not at a price that you must pay. I have no
price. No one can buy me, either by marriage or anything else. Most
women have; the women of the town bargain for so many shillings before
they give themselves; the women of our class bargain for marriage and
settlements, for a home, for fixed income, for the chained servitude
to them, for all his life, of the man they say they love; but I feel
differently, Everest." And she turned to him suddenly, stopping under
the branch of the swaying palm; her eyes were alight, her form seemed
to expand and heighten, red shafts of the sunlight sought out her
hair and rested there, crowning her with light. "I have _given_ you
what I have given. There is _nothing_ I want from you. I have given
you myself, and you have given me passion and intense, overwhelming
happiness. I do not want, and I will not accept, anything more."
Everest looked back at her and could not take his eyes away. As in the
first hour of their passion, she seemed less to him like a woman than
a goddess, an immortal. To talk of worldly things to her, to think of
them in her presence, seemed suddenly absurd. In his own room, while
thinking of her, she had seemed a helpless girl, whom he had injured,
and was bound in honour to protect. Face to face with her now, in the
garden, she seemed an all-powerful divinity, who had bestowed upon him
gifts that had no earthly price. The vivid sky above them enveloped
her with light, turning her white clothing into gold, and her fair
hair into flame, the red glow of it fell across the smooth pallor of
her face and shone in the wide-open eyes, regarding him with proud,
fearless confidence.
He felt silenced, abashed, confused, with a still more violent passion
waking within him for her, now that she seemed to hold herself aloof
from him full of conscious power, self-reliant, seeking and asking
nothing from him. Like most men, Everest felt a sort of instinctive
intolerance of women who clung to him, pursued him. He was kind to
them, for that was his nature, but his own passion and desire began to
wane the moment its object seemed to be clinging dependently to him.
The wild spring towards liberty, the elastic rebound of the captive
in his arms, were what stirred the fiercest fires within him, nerved
him to the greatest efforts to hold her to him. Now, looking at the
passionate, beautiful form of the woman before him, and understanding
that she neither wished to curtail his freedom nor give up her own, he
really felt he would like to lead her to church, and there bind her to
him fast, by all the laws that man and God could devise. He advanced
towards her with one of those quick, easy movements that always wrapped
her in delight when she saw them, and brought the red deer of Exmoor to
her mind.
He took her arms above the elbows; through the muslin she was wearing
he could feel their soft firmness, their satin surface. How the touch
thrilled him, and her also! The electric shock of joy in the contact
was so great to them both that neither could speak or move for the
moment, but each stood motionless, gazing into the other's transfigured
face.
"But, Regina, I wish it! I want you to marry me!"
"Then you should have asked me before, when you first said you loved
me, and I would have consented, to obtain the joy of giving myself to
you. Now it is too much like paying a price, too much as if you felt
obliged to offer me some reparation, too much as if I had led you into
accepting gifts from me, knowing that you would feel bound in honour to
pay for them afterwards. Marriage was not in your mind when you came
here, not when you saw me, not when you desired me. You wished to go
away and I persuaded you to stay. Yes, but not to obtain anything from
you, Everest, only to give.... To give to you.... And, if you knew what
supreme delight you have given me, what these hours in this garden have
been to me, you would know there is no debt, no need for reparation....
If I have to pay with my life for them, which is quite possible, I am
ready to pay."
Everest drew her close up to his breast, and held her there tightly.
"My sweet, don't say such things. As long as I am in the world, nothing
shall ever hurt you. Say you will come up to town now, and marry me....
It will make me much happier."
He looked down on the radiant, light-crowned head pressed against
his breast and thought again of the mortal Anchises when the goddess
stooped to his kiss.
"Of course I will do anything you wish, if you continue to wish it, a
little later, but not now. You shall not feel that, like Medea, I have
thrown enchantment over you, and made you do what you never planned."
Everest was silent, lost in a maze of wondering thought. He saw he
had been right in his estimation of Regina. She had not the ordinary
modern mind, which measures everything by the standards of the world
and of convention. She chose to do what she thought was right, and
as it did not seem to her right to accept him she would not do so,
overwhelming as the advantage to herself would be, horrible in its
risks and dangers, its ruin, according to all worldly ideas, as her
position without it now was. She had, as he had thought, just the soul
of Regulus, who gave himself up to the Carthaginian tortures rather
than speak a few words of false advice to Rome. How he admired her,
loved her! He realised the greatness of her feelings towards him. She
had perfect, absolute trust in him, as she had shown from the first.
She was willing to pay the highest price herself for his love, and yet
shield him from paying in the smallest coin. How different, how utterly
different from all the women he had ever known! There was not one among
those who had not fought and scrambled and clutched for self-advantage,
self-gain--not one who, in spite of her love for him, would not have
willingly sacrificed him to herself.
Regina, like her name, had come to him from Latin times.
He put his arm round her, and they sat down together, very close,
sheltered by the laburnum, and the doves flew down, and walked, cooing,
on the velvet moss at their feet. They talked of their plans, and
Everest got her to promise this much, that if, when he had been away
from her some time, living his own life, amongst his own people, if he
then asked her again, perhaps she would consent to marry him.
"You see, my very dearest," she said, in that soft voice of hers, which
always stirred his senses, "if you still wish it we will do it, but, if
you do change, how much better for you not to have married me now!"
"And better for you too?" he asked.
"No, no, no! You know, just for myself, there would be nothing in the
world better for me than to marry you," she returned passionately.
"Everest, there is no need for me to tell you that, surely? You
must see how it all appears to me.... You are so wonderful, so
exceptional!... I feel you ought to have the very best and loveliest
woman who ever existed...."
"Have I not got her here?" returned Everest, with equal passion,
leaning over her, and kissing her on the mouth and eyes, so that she
could neither breathe nor see. "You try to make me the most conceited
man in the world, but I have sense enough left to know I am not half
worthy of you."
Regina yielded herself up to his caresses, nestling close against his
breast, her lips on the warm brown of his neck, above his collar.
"Listen," she whispered, "I want you to listen to me. I have just this
one quality that is good: I love you so intensely, so absorbingly, that
myself is nothing to me beside you. It is very difficult to put the
absolute extremes of emotion into words, but I love you so much that
when I think of you my own life, my own happiness means nothing to me,
beside yours. You must be happy, that's all that matters. Nothing
else is of any account at all. If I can in any way make you happy that
would be my greatest delight, as it has been already; but I am not sure
I should be really doing that by marrying you, and until I am sure, I
won't do it. I am after all only a country rector's daughter, without
any special birth, position or beauty.... No--hush," she said, putting
her hand over his mouth, as he tried to interrupt her. "I am only
beautiful just now, because I am young and in love with you--blazing
with love for you in every vein. That fire lights up my eyes and paints
my cheeks and lips, and makes me look beautiful, but that is your
gift," she interrupted herself passionately, kissing him on his black
hair, above the ear, "you have given me that beauty.... It is not the
stone-cut massive regularity that the world calls beauty, and so, when
your friends saw me as your wife they would say: 'Why has he married
her? He must have been trapped in some way--she is only this; she is
only that--she has no this, and no that,' and perhaps, after a time,
you might get to feel so too. And it would kill me, simply, nothing
else, to see you regretted marrying me. You came here as our guest,
and we all, as hosts, have a sacred duty towards you. I want you to go
away as absolutely free and untied as when you came, free to marry,
if you wish, some rich great, wonderful person, your equal, who has
magnificent beauty and everything else to offer you."
"Do you think that I could do that now, after yesterday? Marry another
woman and put her in the place that belongs to you? I feel now I shall
never care to take another woman in my arms again. You were so sweet to
me, so unquestioning, so trusting, and I acted so badly, I shall never
forgive myself! It is not you that tie me, my own action binds me."
Regina raised herself with a quick spring in his clasp.
"Whatever obligation there was, if there were any," she said in a low
tone, "is paid in full now by your offer and my refusal. Yesterday was
a gift to you, a gift, a gift, a gift," she repeated, with hot kisses
on his hand at each word, "just as I would give my life itself to you,
if you wanted it."
"There must be many days like yesterday, and you can give me something
else, which no other woman can, when we are married, for we will marry
whatever you say."
"What could I give you?" she asked, with a swift, eager note in her
voice.
"A son," returned Everest, kissing her questioning lips, "just like
yourself, all courage and fire, and strength, in body and mind. Would
you like that, my sweet?"
She clasped her arms tightly round his neck.
"Anything done for you would be my greatest, my supreme delight! Do you
wish for children, Everest?"
"No, not personally, but there is the property. I must have a
legitimate son or let it all go to my brother. I should hate to have a
weak, mindless, feeble child, which could never happen if Regina were
its mother! So if, when my visit here ends, I go away to Scotland for
some weeks, as I must do to look after my place, when I come back, you
will marry me, will you not?"
"If you wish it--yes," she murmured.
"The suffering, the sacrifices, the danger of maternity, that does not
frighten you?"
"No, I am not afraid of anything, Everest."
He looked into her eyes, and in their blue depths he saw that
cool, serene courage that he loved, that made his heart throb with
admiration, with some sentiment which it was new for him to feel for a
woman.
He wanted to tell her this, but he could not at the moment find words
in which to define and express it; so in silence he kissed her again,
where the sun darting through the leaves lighted up the pink down of
her cheek, and, as is the way with lovers, all their talk melted into
caresses, and their arguments became kisses, and every thought and
emotion were soon merged into mere overwhelming delight in each other.
The golden hours went by, and nothing came to disturb them in their
solitude until the evening light, a most gentle messenger, stole
through the blossoms in a rosy glow, warning them that they must part.
Everest rose after one last strenuous passionate embrace, and as she
saw him standing above her, his brilliant face flushed and smiling,
his dark eyes kindling with elation, she felt that this life had given
her her due, if it gave no more. When he had gone she lay still for a
little while longer in the shadow.
"I was right to refuse to marry him. I am sure I was right. If he loves
me he will still wish it. If not, it is I who will suffer, not he,
and he will know--he must know now--that I only care about him, that
I would die for his happiness," she thought vaguely, mistily, for
she was tired and would have liked to stay there, half waking, half
dreaming of him.
It was with a great effort that she got up a little later and walked
slowly back to the Rectory.
With dressing for dinner and appearing reasonably conversational at the
meal, Everest had not much time for quiet thought until late that night
when he was going to bed. Then, as his mind reverted to the afternoon,
the stupendous unselfishness of Regina's attitude came before him. If
a girl refused such a marriage with a man to whom she was indifferent,
the refusal would be remarkable for its negation of so much worldly
good; but for one filled with intense and passionate desire for the
man who offered it, such a refusal must need the most heroic courage,
the greatest steadfastness of purpose, the highest fortitude, the acme
of devotion. He sat in his room, absorbed in the contemplation of it,
unable to go to bed, unable to sleep, feeling compelled to study this
new light on a woman's love.
It was worth while conquering and winning and possessing a woman like
that. All his blood glowed within him as he thought of the greatness
of that character, the largeness and the splendour of that soul that
had yielded to his influence, that had submitted so unquestioningly to
him. He had been accustomed to view women somewhat as soft and pretty
kittens, liable to scratch and bite sometimes in their little tempers,
but, on the whole, caressable and lovable, charming to indulge and to
fondle; but he had often thought vaguely how differently he could feel
for another type, how glad he would be if a wild lioness, full of her
splendid strength and mettle and independence, sprang across his path
and became gentle and tame to him. Caressing a lioness he would like
much better than stroking a kitten. And this now had actually happened!
He knew that in Regina, under her soft and beautiful exterior, lay
just those same wild, brave impulses, that contempt for the dangers of
life, that enthusiasm for great things and emotions that burned within
himself. The realisation that now he had made this soul his own, that,
grand though it was, it now virtually knew no law except his will and
his pleasure, seemed to send waves of fire through his whole being.
When he at last went to bed that night, it was only to dream of her as
she had stood crowned with ruddy light in the garden.
The golden days of June slipped by swiftly, silently, vanishing into
the past like radiant dreams, and while the rest of the household,
in the sleepy, creeper-covered Rectory, led their ordinary, bovine
existence of feeding and sleeping, varied by their unbovine petty
quarrelling, these two at least lived a life of which every hour flew
off to Eternity on gilded, flame-coloured wings. When two such deep and
strong natures as Everest's and Regina's come together and mingle, the
education to each, the interchange and interplay of emotion and feeling
are very great. And as each lovely day of sunshine, or gentle silver
rain, or turbulent grey cloud wrought imperceptible changes in the
nature round them, added different notes to the nightingales' songs,
unclosed new roses and ripened fresh blossom on the lime and chestnuts,
ardently leading onward and upward to the glorious perfection of
midsummer, so did each day work mysteriously and enchantingly on
the passion and intimacy of these two, unfolding fresh impulses, new
thoughts, striking hidden chords, unveiling deep recesses.
This period for them was different in its gentle and subtle teaching,
in its gradual drawing away of the sacred veil that floats before
the face of passion, from the conventional honeymoon with its abrupt
and violent candour, its sudden wrenching down of all the delicate
curtains of mystery, of idealism, of poetical fancy which fall round
the shrine of love. In a honeymoon the two lovers are flung suddenly
into incessant contact, absolute isolation with each other, from which
they cannot escape, as one might push a couple of prisoners into a
cell. Every obstacle, every bar between them that has till now raised
their passion to divine heights is removed. Every duty, every work from
which either has been accustomed to receive moral stimulus and support,
is laid aside, every diversion, every amusement and occupation taken
away. Night and day, without change, without rest, they are thrust into
each other's arms. Is it surprising that when the moon is past so few
have anything but utter satiety to show for it?--that the wonderful
flame of love that lives on excitement, danger, privation, romance,
difficulties, should for ever be quenched and put out?--leaving the
travellers to wander on down the narrow lane of marriage without its
sparkling, radiant light to guide them in its dark places.
Everest and Regina could never meet except by the overcoming of
difficulties, by planning, by suffering, between periods of eager
waiting, and when they met the parting was never far off, the
possibility of discovery, of interruption always present. So the
wild pleasure of their first embrace lived in all the others, and
their passion for each other increased, as a fire blazes all the more
fiercely for a little water thrown on to it and other futile attempts
to extinguish it. For the girl, life had suddenly turned into the mazes
of a glorious dream. Her ordinary existence of hard work, of study,
stood still. She mixed with the rest of the family and did such tasks
and duties as were required of her, exactly as a well-regulated machine
would have done, her real life for herself began and ended only in the
garden. She was glad that she had always spent so much time there, in
solitude and away from the others: it made her absences from home now
less noticeable.
She would start for the garden the moment after luncheon, and walk with
the books, that were never opened, clasped to her as usual, through
the hot, silent noonday slowly towards the sea. She loved to reach
the garden and be there before Everest, so that she might have time
to think and dream there, of him alone. At this scorching hour there
was such a deep silence in the thick green shades. The birds were
quiet, taking their noontime rest after their ceaseless labours since
the first grey light of dawn; the doves even sat puffed and voiceless
in and about their cotes; her own light step on the sandy paths was
the only sound. How lovely it was to go on, past the lilac bushes,
of which the blossom was now over, but the leaves were still fair in
their smooth, neat green, between the round and bunchy may-trees,
most of them still laden with their pink and white snow and under the
hanging veils of gold of the laburnum, until she reached the green
turf beneath the palm, where the roses, so luxuriant in their June
growth, no longer stood, as in the winter, like girls waiting for their
partners, but joined hands with each other and danced merrily, nodding
a thousand blooms as the light breath of summer passed over them.
Here she would sit quietly, feeling her heart beating tumultuously at
the thought that he was coming to find her there, that she would see
the foliage part and the roses give way as the slim, beautiful figure
came towards her, the green shade and gold light alternately falling
on him. She was never quite sure that he would come. There was always
that breathless uncertainty about it that is so painful and yet so
delicious. Anything might occur at home that would make it impossible
for him to insist on going out alone, and very often it did happen
that he was kept and delayed at the last moment, and Regina waited and
waited, trembling under the roses, her cheek flushing and paling, her
bosom broken up by her heart-beats, until the intensity of longing and
hoping and fearing became such that when he did appear she would fall
into his arms in a passion of weeping from relief and delight.
But the moments before he came and before she began to fear that he
would not come, while the hour was still early, and she sat there
awaiting him in her pretty fresh dress, knowing that she was lovely
as the flowers themselves in the tender light beneath the trees, were
very dear to her. She lost herself in golden, glowing dreams of the
future: she would be with him; they would wander together in those
wonderful places where he loved to go; she would be beside him, and
perhaps danger would come upon him and she would be able to protect
him, save him; perhaps she would have the supreme privilege of dying
for him. She would give up her life, oh, how gladly, in shielding him
from pain or hurt; but what spoiled the happiness of this dream was the
knowledge that Everest must suffer by her death, and yet that idea was
delicious too, and she saw into his nature so well, she knew that he
too would think nothing of his life if called upon to give it for her.
Fortunately, dreams are not exacting, they do not make demands upon our
logic. They lull us, soothe us and shut us in with rosy mists and lead
us gently along soft, golden ways.
Sometimes all night she could not sleep for the joy of thinking of the
morrow, and all the morning she could not read, nor paint, nor play for
thinking of the afternoon and looking forward to the moment when she
might take her way through the sleepy Rectory garden to the highroad
and the sea.
Love is always wonderful, and to a woman always beautiful and
entrancing, no matter what the guise in which it comes, or what the
time or circumstances. If it comes to her late, when her face has lines
in it which cause her agony lest her lover should perceive them, if her
lover himself is a very imperfect specimen of humanity, that even her
blinded eyes are offended by, even then love still gives her pleasure;
but in Regina's case all of her love's setting and circumstance
was as lovely as love itself and her joy was unclouded, exquisite,
complete. Radiant in her eighteen years, she had no burden of deceit
or cares or fears; she could lift her face to Everest and know there
was nothing there, nor in her heart, that she dreaded him to find,
and in his countenance bending over her there was that beauty, that
perfection that gives rapture to the eyes as a melody does to the ears.
Often returning from the garden, through the sweet-scented meadows in
the long, light evenings, those calm evenings of the English summer
which seem to carry madness to the blood of youth, after a long and
happy afternoon spent with him, it seemed to her as if her head was
light with joy, as if her brain or heart must burst with the excited
happiness of loving and being loved by such a man as this.
In the soft violet dark that gathers under the limes, she would stand
still, drinking in the fragrance of all the grasses rising from the
cooling earth and listening to the triumphant laugh of the cuckoo
when he found at last his mate in the thorn thicket beside her, and
the call of the nightingale and all the hundred lesser voices of the
wood, each summoning its mate, and would realise slowly in awed wonder
that she too now was sharing in the great universal joy of the world.
Sometimes also when she was with the others, and should have kept her
mind free from all private thought, irresistibly the memory of some
hour in the sheltered garden would come over her with such force that
it absolutely shut her brain and senses to surrounding things. Once
at the luncheon-table her father addressed her as she sat towards the
other end and her ears were so sealed that she did not hear his voice,
her eyes so fixed on the vision they saw that the figures round her,
the wonder growing on all their faces as she sat immovable, like one
suddenly deaf and blind, did not exist for her. It was only the sense
of touch that remained true to its post, guarding the body, whence for
the moment the mind, on Memory's wings, had fled. When her sister
Violet tugged at her arm to rouse her she started, and came back to
herself to find the whole table gazing upon her with various degrees
of amusement and surprise. She flushed scarlet, to herself the blood
seemed to get into her very eyes and burn.
"Father has spoken to you three times," remarked Violet, "you seem
quite deaf." Regina apologised, beneath her drooping lashes over her
burning cheeks her eyes took a glance at Everest opposite her. He was
smiling too. He could well guess where her thoughts had been.
After that she tried hard never to think of all this wonderful inner
life she was living, except when alone, but Love was sometimes
insistent and far stronger than she, and she could not always shut the
door of her thoughts upon him. So one day when she was obliged to go
to the village on a mission for her mother, instead of to the garden,
she lost her purse, and the eighteen shillings in it, and could never
remember where it slipped from her hand, though she had never lost or
forgotten it in her life before.
And to Everest, also, this time was very full of emotion, charged with
an intensity of feeling that was new to him, although he kept his wits
about him at luncheon and did not lose his purse. There were times for
him, too, when he could think of nothing but Regina, when the image of
the girl came before him with an insistence that would not be denied,
and swept whatever he was doing aside and claimed him for its own.
He longed to have her with him and for himself; he hated the long
separations that now intervened often between their meetings, though
they were in reality very good for him and helped to make the supreme
delight of those moments in the garden.
The day of his departure came at length and his face grew pale and
his heart beat painfully when he awoke at dawn and realised he had to
leave her. It was arranged that the Rector and the two elder girls
should drive him over to Stossop station in the landau, Regina being
left out, as usual, of any general programme. She did not mind--their
real good-byes had been exchanged yesterday under the whispering trees
of the garden. An exceptionally lovely day, it was like the centre
jewel on Summer's forehead in her diadem of wondrous days and nights.
Warm and golden, without wind or cloud, it seemed to bless the lovers
as they met in the deep hush of the sheltered spot and walked slowly,
side by side, down the little narrow winding paths covered in by aloe
and tamarisk and climbing giant rose towards the balustrade above the
sea. How vital and life-giving was its warm salt breath as it met their
faces, stealing up through the thickets, talking to them of its cool,
seaweed-filled caves, of its still green pools teeming with infinite
life; and at last they came in sight of it, calm and deeply purple,
swaying and heaving gently as a maiden's bosom, under a rosy golden
haze, softly, very softly, traced in delicate lilac against the evening
sky lay the outlines of the hills across the bay; colour and light were
jewel-like in their transparency. They approached the porphyry railing;
but Regina could not look at the soft loveliness of the scene, she
could only gaze up at him, so soon to be taken from her. Oh, the ache
of that parting now it had come so near. She could have gone with him,
claimed him openly, spared herself all pain. He had wished it, offered
it. With a single word now she could be free from suffering, she could
keep by his side. For a moment it seemed to her she must speak that
word; but no, she held to her strength with both hands. Better to let
him go free, better to prove to him the quality, the selflessness of
her love, better to leave her fate in his hands. So she was silent,
and only continued to gaze and gaze on the outline of his head, dark
against the glowing sky. They leant there silent, each thinking of the
first day when they had stood there, before their pact was made for
meeting in solitude, before the influence of the garden had made them
each other's and its own. But there was no bitterness, no regret in the
thought of either. Their union had been full of magic beauty, of divine
rapture, as if it had been in the Elysian fields, and they would not
either of them have wished it in any way different.
When he drew her gently from the balustrade, and they turned inward
again to the dark, close-roofed-in, leafy recesses of the garden, they
were talking earnestly with beating hearts of the life that might
spring from those dear glad hours there, and in a tiny glade, where
the turf was like velvet and the great tamarisk-trees twisting and
intertwining their thick branches overhead made a perfect roof, and the
may-trees stood so thickly round that the nightingales were already
singing there in the soft green dusk, he pressed her close to him and
said one sentence that burnt into her brain and remained there as if
stamped in with fire.
"If you know it when I am away from you, do not feel frightened or
oppressed, dear one. I should hate you to feel that; write to me at
once, that I may arrange for you to come to me, and for our marriage,
and remember, it is my dearest wish."
Regina listened, pale, her bosom fluttering with emotion, a little
overawed, but the next moment she was clinging to him passionately,
trying to tell him how deep, how infinite her love for him was, and
nothing could frighten her: she would only be intensely, wildly glad
when she knew. The hour passed golden-edged, full of tumultuous
happiness, and when at last Everest left her and walked away down the
silent green road, full now of ruby light, he realized that, crowded as
his life had been with experience, adventure, emotion, yet here in this
garden behind him the greatest thing of all had happened to him: he had
seen Divinity itself. Eros with his rainbow wings had descended to him
there. To-day he was going. A subdued sadness was visible in the whole
party. Only Violet, the middle sister, seemed indifferent. The Rector
was kind and genial as usual, but Mrs. Marlow and Jane were notably
pale and silent.
Regina stood at the Rectory door beside her mother to see the carriage
start. His luggage had been sent to the station previously. Jane and
Violet, in their delicate dresses, their large and shady hats, got in,
and Regina thought how lovely they looked--like flowers themselves in
the bright sunshine. Then he came out of the house and shook hands with
her mother, and said how much he had enjoyed his visit. He was in the
travelling suit she had first seen him in. He was holding his hat, and
the sun poured down on his thick, dark hair and the clear pale bronze
of the perfectly modelled face. He was quite calm and natural in his
bearing, and Regina knew it was due to them both that she should appear
so too; as he turned to her and held out his hand she felt all the
blood surge violently to her heart; she was as pale as white stone,
otherwise not a tremor passed over her face as she gave a little smile
and said good-bye, laying her hand in his. His firm warm fingers closed
over it instantly, and the quick, close, iron pressure of it told her
many things, and seemed to give her nerve-force and courage. He was in
the carriage. Then the Rector entered, and in a few moments more the
white dust of the road was rising in a cloud as the carriage rolled out
on it from the Rectory garden.
Mrs. Marlow and Regina turned slowly back into the house. It seemed
very still and quiet, the very air seemed to hang more heavily and with
less movement now the essentially vital personality of Everest had
gone. The doors of his rooms stood open as they passed by--the scent of
the roses that he had always had on his table came out to them.
They passed on to Mrs. Marlow's sitting-room, which lay at the back of
the Rectory, with a bow window looking out on to the garden.
"Are you going out, mother?" asked Regina, "or shall we have tea
together?"
"No; I have no engagements this afternoon. Come in, and we'll have tea
here. It will be late before the others get back."
Tea was brought in, and Regina, seated in the deep bay of the window,
watched her mother pour it out.
"I am very sorry Mr. Lanark did not take a fancy to either of the
girls," she remarked; "it would have been a splendid match for them."
"Perhaps he would if they had been more clever," hazarded Regina, in a
low tone.
"Beauty is always supposed to be the great thing in a woman."
"Yes, the beauty attracts, but it does not rivet the chain it throws
round the beholder. It is something else, mind or talent, that does
that. In all the histories of the _grandes passions_ of the world
the woman has had a certain amount of beauty, of course, but she has
_always_ been clever too."
Mrs. Marlow looked up, surprised. Regina stirred her tea absently,
gazing out into the sunlit garden.
"Well, he ought to have proposed to marry you, then," Mrs. Marlow said
smilingly, without for an instant dreaming that was just what Everest
had done. "You are clever enough and very pretty too."
Regina flushed rose-red and laughed. But when tea was over and she
slipped away, her face was very sad again. She passed Everest's rooms
on her way to her own and went in there. They stood in perfect order,
just as they had been while he was in them. She took all the roses
from the vases, the flowers she knew he had gathered and looked after
himself, and took them away with her and went up slowly to her room.
There she stood at the window looking out. It was the last day of
June. He had been with them not quite a month. Three weeks she had had
of absolute, unclouded happiness. There are a few human beings who
can claim that much out of the whole of their life. Now, whatever the
result, whatever the price she had to pay, she would never regret,
never wish one moment of that perfect time obliterated.
Day after day passed slowly by, and to the girl, after that tremendous
expenditure of energy, that intense excitement, it seemed as if her
life literally stood still. In the soft, sombre quiet of the monotonous
Rectory days she seemed to herself to have been wrapped up in cotton
wool and buried. Was it possible that people like her sleepy sister
Violet, and all the other twenty-eight unmarried ladies of Stossop,
could go on existing like this, twenty--thirty--forty years, their
whole life? Like flashes of hot light shot from a distant furnace came
Everest's letters to her; they seemed to illumine the twilight of
her quiet tomb. She went to the garden whenever it was fine, and sat
there and dreamed of him beneath the waving trees, or hung over the
balustrade looking down on to the sea, listening to its vital whispers
and picturing his image in its deep purple mirrors. Her brain felt too
tired to read or to learn, she neither played nor painted any more.
For the time he became her life.