AN UNPLEASANT ENCOUNTER
Rochester and Pauline were driving through the country lanes in a
small, old-fashioned pony carriage. Westward, the clouds were still
stained by a brilliant sunset. The air was clear and brisk, chill with
the invigorating freshness of the autumn evening. Already the
stillness had come, the stillness which is the herald of night. The
laborers had deserted the fields, the wind had dropped, a pleasant
smell of burning weeds from a bonfire by the side of the road crept
into the air. The silence was broken for a moment by the cry of a
lonely bird, drifting homewards on wings that seemed almost
motionless.
Rochester was quite convalescent now, and with the aid of a stick
was able to walk almost as far as he chose. Pauline had remained at
Beauleys, and her presence had divested those last few weeks of all
their irksomeness. He stole a glance at her as she leaned back in
the carriage. She was a little pale, perhaps, and her eyes were
thoughtful, but the lines of her mouth were soft. There was no shadow
of unhappiness in her face, none of that look which in London had
driven him almost to madness.
His fingers closed upon hers. They were walking uphill, and the pony
took little guiding.
"You are sure, Pauline," he asked, "that you are not bored yet with
the country?"
"I am quite sure," she answered.
Something in her tone puzzled him. He looked at her again, long and
fixedly. Her eyes met his, they answered his unspoken question.
"I suppose," she said, "that I should look happier. I have been
content. I am content still. I suppose it is all one ought to expect
from life."
"There are other things," he answered, "but not for us, Pauline--not
yet."
"Life is a very perplexing matter," she declared.
He shook his head.
"There is no perplexity about it," he declared. "Its riddle is easily
enough solved. The trouble is that the fetters which bind us are
sometimes beyond our power to break."
"If we were free," she murmured, "you and I know very well whither we
should turn. And yet, Henry, are you sure, are you quite, quite sure
that there is nothing in life greater even than love?"
"If there is," he answered, "we will go in search of it, hand in hand,
you and I together."
"Yes," she echoed simply, "we will go in search of it. But first of
all we must find someone to light our torch."
He shook the reins a little impatiently, but they were not yet at the
top of the hill, and the pony crawled on, undisturbed.
"Dear Pauline," he said, "sometimes lately I fancied that you have
seemed a little morbid. I have lived longer than you. I have lived
long enough to be sure of one thing."
"And that is?" she asked.
"That all real happiness," he said, "even the everyday forms of
content, is to be found amongst the simple truths of life. Love is the
greatest of them. Look at me, Pauline. Don't you think that even
though we live our lives apart, don't you think that to me the world
is a different place when you are near?"
She looked into his face a little wistfully. Then she let her hand
rest on his.
"You are so steadfast," she said--"so strong, and so certain of
yourself. Forgive me if I seem a little restless. One loses one's
balance sometimes, thinking and thinking and wondering."
They were at the top of the hill, and the pony paused. Rochester
stepped out.
"Come," he said, "I will take you for a little walk. We will leave
Peter here."
He unlocked a gate with a key which he took from his pocket, and hand
in hand they ascended a steep path which led between a grove of pine
trees. Out once more into the open, they crossed a patch of green turf
and came to another gate, set in a stone wall. This also Rochester
opened. A few more yards, and they climbed up to the masses of tumbled
rock which lay about on the summit of the hill.
"Turn round," he said. "You have seen this view many a time in the
daylight. You can see it now fading away into nothingness."
They stood hand in hand, looking downwards. Mists rose from along the
side of the river, and stood about in the valleys. The lights began to
twinkle here and there. Afar off, like some nursery toy, they saw a
train, with its line of white smoke, go stealing across the shadowy
landscape.
Rochester's face darkened with a sudden reminiscence.
"It was here," he said, "that I first saw your friend the charlatan."
"My friend?" she murmured.
"More yours than mine, at any rate," he answered. "He sat with his
back against that rock, and if ever hunger was written into a boy's
face, it was there in his pale cheeks, burning in his eyes."
"He was very poor, then?" she asked.
"He was very poor," Rochester answered, "but it was not hunger for
food, it was hunger for life that one saw there. He had been down at
the Convalescent Home, recovering from some illness, and the next day
he was going back to his work--work which he hated, which made him
part of a machine. You know how many millions there are who live and
die like that--who must always live and die like that. They are part
of the great system of the world, and nine-tenths of them are
content."
"You set him free," she murmured.
"I did," Rochester answered. "It was a mistake."
"You cannot tell," she said. "I know that you mistrust him. You are
very, very English, dear Henry, and you have so little sympathy with
those things which you do not understand--which do come, perhaps, a
little near what you call charlatanism. Still, though you may deny it
as much as you like, there are many, many things in the world--things,
even, in connection with our daily lives, which are absolutely,
wonderfully mysterious. There are new things to be learned, Henry.
Bertrand Saton may be a self-deceiver. He may even deserve all the
hard things you can say of him, but there are cleverer people than you
and I who do not think so."
"Dear," Rochester answered, "I did not bring you here to talk of
Bertrand Saton. To tell you the truth," he added, "I even hate to hear
his name upon your lips."
There was no time for her to answer. From the shadow of the rock
against which they leaned, he rose with a subtle alertness which
seemed somehow a little uncanny--as though, indeed, he had risen from
under the ground upon which they stood.
"I heard my name," he said. "Forgive me if I am interrupting you. I
had no wish to play the eavesdropper."
Pauline took a quick step backwards. Even in that tense moment of
surprise, Rochester found himself able to notice the color fading from
her cheeks. He turned upon the newcomer, and there was something like
fury in his tone.
"What the devil are you doing here, Saton?" he asked.
Saton's tone was almost apologetic.
"I did not know," he said, "that I was forbidden to walk upon your
lands. I am often here, and this is my favorite hour."
Rochester laughed, a little harshly.
"You like to come back," he said. "You like to sit here, perhaps, and
think. Well, I do not envy you. You sat here and thought, years ago.
You built a house of dreams here, unless you lied. You come here now,
perhaps, to compare it with the house of gewgaws which you have built,
and in which you dwell."
Saton did not for a moment shrink. In his heart he felt that it was
one of his inspired moments. There was confidence alike in his bearing
and in his gentle reply.
"Why not?" he asked. "Why should you take it for granted that there is
so much amiss in my life, that I have fallen so far away from those
dreams? It may not be so," he continued. "Remember that the man who
lives, and comes a little nearer toward knowledge, has nothing to be
ashamed of. It is the man who lives, and eats and drinks and sleeps,
and knows no more when his head presses the pillow at night than when
the sun woke him in the morning, it is that man who is ignoble. You
have spoken of the past," he added, turning face to face with
Rochester. "Once more I will remind you of your own words. _'The only
crime in life is failure. If the crash comes, and the pieces lie
around you, swim out to sea too far, and sink beneath the waves
forever!_' Wasn't that your advice? Not your exact words, perhaps, but
wasn't that what you told the boy who sat here and dreamed?"
Rochester shrugged his shoulders slightly.
"Youth," he said, "may be forgiven much. Manhood must accept its own
responsibilities."
Saton smiled grimly.
"Always the same," he said. "All the time you play with the truth,
Rochester, as though it were a glass ball committed into your keeping,
and yours alone. Don't you know that the one inspired period of life
is youth--youth before it is sullied with experience, youth which
knows everything, fears nothing--youth which has the eyes of the
clairvoyant?"
Rochester frowned.
"Your tongue goes glibly to-night," he remarked. "Talk to the shadows,
my friend. Lady Marrabel and I are going."
"I did not bid you come," Saton answered. "This is my spot, and my
hour. It was you who intruded."
"The fact that this is my property----" Rochester began, gently.
"Is of no consequence," Saton answered. "You may buy the earth upon
which we stand, but you cannot buy the person whose feet shall press
it, or the thoughts that rise up from it, or the words that are
breathed from it, or the hopes and passions which go trembling from it
to the skies. Go away and jog homeward behind your fat pony, but----"
"Well, sir?" Rochester asked, turning suddenly.
Saton's eyes did not meet his. They were fixed upon Pauline's, and
Pauline was as white as death.
"Take her, too, if you will," Saton said slowly. "Take her, too, if
she will go."
"I am going this instant," Pauline cried, with a sudden nervous
passion in her tone. "Come, Henry, come away. I hate this place. Come
away quickly."
Rochester caught her hand. It was cold as a stone. She was pale, and
she commenced to tremble.
"Take her," Saton said, "if she will go. Take her, because you are
strong and she is weak. Lead her by the arm, guide her as you will,
only be sure that you leave nothing with me."
He sat down upon the rock, and with folded arms looked away from
them--even as though they had not existed--across to the world of
shadows and vague places. Rochester passed his arm through Pauline's,
and led her down the hill. Her hands were cold. She seemed to lift her
feet as though they had been of lead. She did not look at him. Always
she looked ahead. She moved slowly and heavily. When he spoke, her
lips answered him languidly. Rochester felt an intense and passionate
anger burning in his veins. The vague disquiet of an hour ago had
settled down into something definite. She was his no longer! Something
had come between them! Even though he might take her into his arms,
might hold her there, and dare anyone in the world to take her from
him, it was her body only, the shadow of herself. Something--some part
of her seemed to have flitted away. He asked himself with a sudden
cold horror, whether indeed it had remained by the side of that silent
figure, blotted out now from sight, who sat upon the rocks while the
darkness fell about him!