THE STILE IN THE WOOD
After that she changed the conversation to other things; and when I had
drunk my tea and eaten with an appetite I went upstairs with her to see
things she had promised to show me.
I had had no idea that they were for me. I knew that she had a great
many old and beautiful things, and from my childhood I had delighted in
them. I could remember her calling for me in her pony phaeton before
Uncle Luke had left us, and she would carry me all over Castle Clody for
she was a tall, strong young woman; and while she changed her dress I
used to sit in the middle of her bed with the curtains of blue and
silver damask falling to either side of me, and she would give me boxes
of pretty things to play with. To this day I like better than any of her
valuable jewels her pretty trinkets of garnet and amethyst and topaz, of
which she has a great many. They lay in trays in glass-lidded boxes and
I delighted to look at them. Many of them have come to me as Christmas
and birthday gifts since then, and Miss Standish had many of them, for
although she was an invalid she delighted in pretty things and was
greedy for them. My dear godmother is one to give with both hands;
indeed, to value things chiefly for the pleasure of giving them.
Lying on her bed now were a number of garments so pretty that I cried
out in delight. They were all white, yellowed a little with age, and in
some instances with a pattern in colours.
There was a scarf of China crêpe, powdered as thickly as possible with
roses and golden bees. There was an opera cloak made of a beautiful old
Indian shawl. There were several frocks of silk and lace and muslin and
fine woollen. There were finely laced and frilled petticoats and silk
stockings and shoes with paste buckles and a feather fan. Also there
were fichus and lace-edged handkerchiefs and such things, to strike a
young girl dumb with delight.
"They are all for you, Bawn," she said, smiling at me. "They were my
wedding clothes, and they have lain packed away in silver paper all
these years. I have brought them into the light of day for you. They
ought to have been kept for your wedding perhaps, but as there is
nothing definite----"
"Theobald and I shall be quite old before we need think of marriage, if
we ever do," I said. "I don't want to be married. It is nicer when
people will be satisfied with being just dear brothers. And are they
really for me, god-mamma? Why should you not wear them yourself? They
are so beautiful!"
"Let me have the pleasure of seeing you wear them, Bawn. We shall depend
less on the Dublin shops during our visit. Louise will fit the things on
you. They will have to be taken in for you. They will not look
old-fashioned. The fashion has come back to them."
I stood an hour or more while Louise pinned the things on me, kneeling
by my side and turning me this way and that way to look at myself in the
long glass of the wardrobe.
She kept up a running conversation on the things while she fitted me;
ecstatic little cries of admiration; deep sighs of satisfaction; with
all the animation of the Frenchwoman.
"I believe you get at least as much pleasure out of them as I do,
Louise," I said.
"Ah, heaven, more!" she answered. "Mademoiselle is but a child; she does
not know the delight of the feel, the soft lovely feel, of this that
drapes so perfectly. Fortunately Mademoiselle lends herself to the
lovely things. They become her. They cling to her figure as though they
loved it. The result will be charming. M. le Capitaine Theobald he
should be here to see the result. How his eyes would sparkle!"
"M. le Capitaine Theobald, as you call him, Louise," I said, "would not
know one stuff from another. It is quite possible that he would like me
better in the pink print yonder. The beautiful things will be quite
wasted on him. He thinks a white muslin frock with a blue sash the
finest thing a girl can wear."
"It is not bad, for an _ingénue_," said Louise, thoughtfully. "But I do
not agree with you, Mademoiselle, that he would not admire these lovely
things. He might not know, but he would admire all the same."
"Possibly," I said, with patience. I was not greatly interested in
Theobald's point of view. I might have altered in my cousin's eyes; but
he had hardly altered to me from the boy with whom I went climbing and
skating in the old days. I could not imagine myself having any
sentimentality about Theobald.
"Mademoiselle is too sensible for her years," said Louise; and I was
conscious of a subtle disparagement in the speech.
"I am not sensible at all, Louise," I answered, with some indignation.
"I am not sensible where grandpapa is concerned, nor grandmamma, I
tremble if grandpapa is a little later on a hunting day than we expect
him, or on Wednesday when the petty sessions are on at Quinn. I am
terrified about grandmamma if her finger aches; and I lie awake at night
imagining all the terrible things that could befall them."
"Ah, that is affectionateness. I never said you were not affectionate,
Mademoiselle."
But there was some meaning in Louise's accusation, although she would
say no more, pretending that she was always one to let her tongue run
away with her. Louise had been with Miss Champion these twenty years,
and was a privileged person as old servants are amongst us.
When she had finished I went to look for my godmother, and found her
with Miss Standish, bathing her forehead with eau-de-Cologne.
"Poor little Bawn," she said, "you look tired. Louise has kept you
standing too long. Once set Louise to fitting clothes and she forgets
everything. Could you not sit down here and rest a while before starting
for home?"
"Yes, why not sit with me for a while?" Miss Standish put in eagerly. "I
always find your voice restful, Bawn."
But I would not stay. I had promised my grandmother to be home by
half-past six at latest, and I was not going to have her fretting about
my absence. It was six o'clock now and the shadows were growing longer;
the coolness of evening was coming. The birds were singing their
even-song. As I went down the marble steps in the grassy terraces from
the house I saw the peacock and his lady already at roost in a low tree,
although the darkness would not come for some hours yet, and indeed
would be then only a green twilight.
There was never anything to be afraid of on our roads. Our valley was in
such a quiet isolation, so far away from the main roads, that even a
tramp or an importunate beggar were not to be feared. The labourers
going home from the fields touched their caps with a friendly "God save
you kindly, Miss Bawn." The children by the cottage doors smiled at me
shyly. Even the dogs knew me. It was the road I had taken to the
Creamery and back every day; and I had been familiar with it from my
childhood.
The sun was yet so hot on the exposed road that Dido and I were glad to
get within the shelter of Daly's Wood. Though the sun poured upon the
wood it was cool within it and steeped in a golden haze. The pale stems
of the springing trees looked like so many great candles in a golden
house; there was a sweet sound of falling waters, for a little mountain
stream ran through the wood, and in its neighbourhood the air was damp
and deliciously sweet. Where the water tumbled over broken boulders and
formed a little pool Dido stood to drink, and I stood, too, a minute
listening to the bird-songs of which the wood was full.
When we had turned round and gone on our way I observed that there was
some one sitting on the stile which led out on the road nearly opposite
the postern gate in our park wall and supposed it to be some one resting
there who would rise up to let me pass.
I could not imagine myself being afraid of these quiet places, where, no
matter what happened elsewhere, the people were always friendly and
respectful. But as I came close up to the man who sat on the stile and
who had not turned his head at the sound of my foot on the path, all of
a sudden I became filled with a nameless terror.
The wide shoulders, the rather massive head with the closely curling red
hair; I seemed to recognize them all at once for Richard Dawson's, and I
was as frightened as ever was a hare of the dogs; nay, more frightened,
for the hare has at least her speed. My feet seemed clogged by leaden
weights as they might be in the terror of a dream. Then the man turned
about with a smile which showed all his white teeth and I was sick with
fear.
"It is the third day I have been waiting for you, you pretty creature,"
he said. "I am going to lift you over the stile, and then you shall give
me a kiss for it."
He flung his arms about me and I closed my eyes while I tried to push
him away. I felt his breath on my face, and my loathing of him was so
great that it made me physically incapable of resistance. I uttered one
cry, but I felt that there was no body of sound in it to carry it even
if anybody had been near. But suddenly I heard a furious growl, and I
felt myself released.
"Damn the brute! She has bitten me," he said furiously.
And there he was with the blood running down his hand, while my brave
old dog stood by ready to defend me against all the world.