“I believe in the Sermon on the Mount, because it's beautiful and good
for all time.”
“But don't you believe Christ was divine?”
He shook his head.
She turned her face quickly to the window, and there sprang into his
mind Megan's prayer, repeated by little Nick: “God bless us all, and Mr.
Ashes!” Who else would ever say a prayer for him, like her who at this
moment must be waiting--waiting to see him come down the lane? And he
thought suddenly: 'What a scoundrel I am!'
All that evening this thought kept coming back; but, as is not unusual,
each time with less poignancy, till it seemed almost a matter of course
to be a scoundrel. And--strange!--he did not know whether he was a
scoundrel if he meant to go back to Megan, or if he did not mean to go
back to her.
They played cards till the children were sent off to bed; then Stella
went to the piano. From over on the window seat, where it was nearly
dark, Ashurst watched her between the candles--that fair head on the
long, white neck bending to the movement of her hands. She played
fluently, without much expression; but what a Picture she made, the
faint golden radiance, a sort of angelic atmosphere hovering about her!
Who could have passionate thoughts or wild desires in the presence of
that swaying, white-clothed girl with the seraphic head? She played a
thing of Schumann's called “Warum?” Then Halliday brought out a flute,
and the spell was broken. After this they made Ashurst sing, Stella
playing him accompaniments from a book of Schumann songs, till, in
the middle of “Ich grolle nicht,” two small figures clad in blue
dressing-gowns crept in and tried to conceal themselves beneath the
piano. The evening broke up in confusion, and what Sabina called “a
splendid rag.”
That night Ashurst hardly slept at all. He was thinking, tossing and
turning. The intense domestic intimacy of these last two days, the
strength of this Halliday atmosphere, seemed to ring him round, and make
the farm and Megan--even Megan--seem unreal. Had he really made love
to her--really promised to take her away to live with him? He must have
been bewitched by the spring, the night, the apple blossom! This May
madness could but destroy them both! The notion that he was going to
make her his mistress--that simple child not yet eighteen--now filled
him with a sort of horror, even while it still stung and whipped his
blood. He muttered to himself: “It's awful, what I've done--awful!”
And the sound of Schumann's music throbbed and mingled with his fevered
thoughts, and he saw again Stella's cool, white, fair-haired figure
and bending neck, the queer, angelic radiance about her. 'I must have
been--I must be-mad!' he thought. 'What came into me? Poor little
Megan!' “God bless us all, and Mr. Ashes! I want to be with you--only
to be with you!” And burying his face in his pillow, he smothered down a
fit of sobbing. Not to go back was awful! To go back--more awful still!
Emotion, when you are young, and give real vent to it, loses its
power of torture. And he fell asleep, thinking: 'What was it--a few
kisses--all forgotten in a month!'
Next morning he got his cheque cashed, but avoided the shop of the
dove-grey dress like the plague; and, instead, bought himself some
necessaries. He spent the whole day in a queer mood, cherishing a kind
of sullenness against himself. Instead of the hankering of the last two
days, he felt nothing but a blank--all passionate longing gone, as if
quenched in that outburst of tears. After tea Stella put a book down
beside him, and said shyly:
“Have you read that, Frank?”
It was Farrar's “Life of Christ.” Ashurst smiled. Her anxiety about his
beliefs seemed to him comic, but touching. Infectious too, perhaps, for
he began to have an itch to justify himself, if not to convert her.
And in the evening, when the children and Halliday were mending their
shrimping nets, he said:
“At the back of orthodox religion, so far as I can see, there's always
the idea of reward--what you can get for being good; a kind of begging
for favours. I think it all starts in fear.”
She was sitting on the sofa making reefer knots with a bit of string.
She looked up quickly:
“I think it's much deeper than that.”
Ashurst felt again that wish to dominate.
“You think so,” he said; “but wanting the 'quid pro quo' is about the
deepest thing in all of us! It's jolly hard to get to the bottom of it!”
She wrinkled her brows in a puzzled frown.
“I don't think I understand.”
He went on obstinately:
“Well, think, and see if the most religious people aren't those who feel
that this life doesn't give them all they want. I believe in being good
because to be good is good in itself.”
“Then you do believe in being good?”
How pretty she looked now--it was easy to be good with her! And he
nodded and said:
“I say, show me how to make that knot!”
With her fingers touching his, in manoeuvring the bit of string, he felt
soothed and happy. And when he went to bed he wilfully kept his thoughts
on her, wrapping himself in her fair, cool sisterly radiance, as in some
garment of protection.
Next day he found they had arranged to go by train to Totnes, and picnic
at Berry Pomeroy Castle. Still in that resolute oblivion of the past,
he took his place with them in the landau beside Halliday, back to the
horses. And, then, along the sea front, nearly at the turning to the
railway station, his heart almost leaped into his mouth. Megan--Megan
herself!--was walking on the far pathway, in her old skirt and jacket
and her tam-o'-shanter, looking up into the faces of the passers-by.
Instinctively he threw his hand up for cover, then made a feint of
clearing dust out of his eyes; but between his fingers he could see
her still, moving, not with her free country step, but wavering,
lost-looking, pitiful-like some little dog which has missed its master
and does not know whether to run on, to run back--where to run. How had
she come like this?--what excuse had she found to get away?--what did
she hope for? But with every turn of the wheels bearing him away from
her, his heart revolted and cried to him to stop them, to get out, and
go to her! When the landau turned the corner to the station he could
stand it no more, and opening the carriage door, muttered: “I've
forgotten something! Go on--don't wait for me! I'll join you at the
castle by the next train!” He jumped, stumbled, spun round, recovered
his balance, and walked forward, while the carriage with the astonished
Hallidays rolled on.
From the corner he could only just see Megan, a long way ahead now. He
ran a few steps, checked himself, and dropped into a walk. With each
step nearer to her, further from the Hallidays, he walked more and more
slowly. How did it alter anything--this sight of her? How make the going
to her, and that which must come of it, less ugly? For there was no
hiding it--since he had met the Hallidays he had become gradually sure
that he would not marry Megan. It would only be a wild love-time, a
troubled, remorseful, difficult time--and then--well, then he would
get tired, just because she gave him everything, was so simple, and so
trustful, so dewy. And dew--wears off! The little spot of faded colour,
her tam-o'-shanter cap, wavered on far in front of him; she was looking
up into every face, and at the house windows. Had any man ever such
a cruel moment to go through? Whatever he did, he felt he would be a
beast. And he uttered a groan which made a nursemaid turn and stare. He
saw Megan stop and lean against the sea-wall, looking at the sea; and he
too stopped. Quite likely she had never seen the sea before, and even in
her distress could not resist that sight. 'Yes-she's seen nothing,' he
thought; 'everything's before her. And just for a few weeks' passion,
I shall be cutting her life to ribbons. I'd better go and hang myself
rather than do it!' And suddenly he seemed to see Stella's calm eyes
looking into his, the wave of fluffy hair on her forehead stirred by
the wind. Ah! it would be madness, would mean giving up all that he
respected, and his own self-respect. He turned and walked quickly back
towards the station. But memory of that poor, bewildered little figure,
those anxious eyes searching the passers-by, smote him too hard again,
and once more he turned towards the sea.
The cap was no longer visible; that little spot of colour had vanished
in the stream of the noon promenaders. And impelled by the passion of
longing, the dearth which comes on one when life seems to be whirling
something out of reach, he hurried forward. She was nowhere to be seen;
for half an hour he looked for her; then on the beach flung himself face
downward in the sand. To find her again he knew he had only to go to the
station and wait till she returned from her fruitless quest, to take her
train home; or to take train himself and go back to the farm, so that
she found him there when she returned. But he lay inert in the sand,
among the indifferent groups of children with their spades and buckets.
Pity at her little figure wandering, seeking, was well-nigh merged in
the spring-running of his blood; for it was all wild feeling now--the
chivalrous part, what there had been of it, was gone. He wanted her
again, wanted her kisses, her soft, little body, her abandonment, all
her quick, warm, pagan emotion; wanted the wonderful feeling of that
night under the moonlit apple boughs; wanted it all with a horrible
intensity, as the faun wants the nymph. The quick chatter of the little
bright trout-stream, the dazzle of the buttercups, the rocks of the old
“wild men”; the calling of the cuckoos and yaffles, the hooting of the
owls; and the red moon peeping out of the velvet dark at the living
whiteness of the blossom; and her face just out of reach at the window,
lost in its love-look; and her heart against his, her lips answering
his, under the apple tree--all this besieged him. Yet he lay inert. What
was it which struggled against pity and this feverish longing, and kept
him there paralysed in the warm sand? Three flaxen heads--a fair face
with friendly blue--grey eyes, a slim hand pressing his, a quick voice
speaking his name--“So you do believe in being good?” Yes, and a sort
of atmosphere as of some old walled-in English garden, with pinks, and
cornflowers, and roses, and scents of lavender and lilaccool and fair,
untouched, almost holy--all that he had been brought up to feel was
clean and good. And suddenly he thought: 'She might come along the front
again and see me!' and he got up and made his way to the rock at the far
end of the beach. There, with the spray biting into his face, he could
think more coolly. To go back to the farm and love Megan out in the
woods, among the rocks, with everything around wild and fitting--that,
he knew, was impossible, utterly. To transplant her to a great town,
to keep, in some little flat or rooms, one who belonged so wholly to
Nature--the poet in him shrank from it. His passion would be a mere
sensuous revel, soon gone; in London, her very simplicity, her lack of
all intellectual quality, would make her his secret plaything--nothing
else. The longer he sat on the rock, with his feet dangling over a
greenish pool from which the sea was ebbing, the more clearly he saw
this; but it was as if her arms and all of her were slipping slowly,
slowly down from him, into the pool, to be carried away out to sea; and
her face looking up, her lost face with beseeching eyes, and dark, wet
hair-possessed, haunted, tortured him! He got up at last, scaled the low
rock-cliff, and made his way down into a sheltered cove. Perhaps in the
sea he could get back his control--lose this fever! And stripping off
his clothes, he swam out. He wanted to tire himself so that nothing
mattered and swam recklessly, fast and far; then suddenly, for no
reason, felt afraid. Suppose he could not reach shore again--suppose the
current set him out--or he got cramp, like Halliday! He turned to swim
in. The red cliffs looked a long way off. If he were drowned they
would find his clothes. The Hallidays would know; but Megan perhaps
never--they took no newspaper at the farm. And Phil Halliday's words
came back to him again: “A girl at Cambridge I might have Glad I haven't
got her on my mind!” And in that moment of unreasoning fear he vowed
he would not have her on his mind. Then his fear left him; he swam in
easily enough, dried himself in the sun, and put on his clothes. His
heart felt sore, but no longer ached; his body cool and refreshed.
When one is as young as Ashurst, pity is not a violent emotion. And,
back in the Hallidays' sitting-room, eating a ravenous tea, he felt much
like a man recovered from fever. Everything seemed new and clear; the
tea, the buttered toast and jam tasted absurdly good; tobacco had never
smelt so nice. And walking up and down the empty room, he stopped here
and there to touch or look. He took up Stella's work-basket, fingered
the cotton reels and a gaily-coloured plait of sewing silks, smelt at
the little bag filled with woodroffe she kept among them. He sat down
at the piano, playing tunes with one finger, thinking: 'To-night she'll
play; I shall watch her while she's playing; it does me good to watch
her.' He took up the book, which still lay where she had placed it
beside him, and tried to read. But Megan's little, sad figure began to
come back at once, and he got up and leaned in the window, listening to
the thrushes in the Crescent gardens, gazing at the sea, dreamy and
blue below the trees. A servant came in and cleared the tea away, and he
still stood, inhaling the evening air, trying not to think. Then he saw
the Hallidays coming through the gate of the Crescent, Stella a little
in front of Phil and the children, with their baskets, and instinctively
he drew back. His heart, too sore and discomfited, shrank from this
encounter, yet wanted its friendly solace--bore a grudge against this
influence, yet craved its cool innocence, and the pleasure of watching
Stella's face. From against the wall behind the piano he saw her come
in and stand looking a little blank as though disappointed; then she
saw him and smiled, a swift, brilliant smile which warmed yet irritated
Ashurst.
“You never came after us, Frank.”
“No; I found I couldn't.”
“Look! We picked such lovely late violets!” She held out a bunch.
Ashurst put his nose to them, and there stirred within him vague
longings, chilled instantly by a vision of Megan's anxious face lifted
to the faces of the passers-by.
He said shortly: “How jolly!” and turned away. He went up to his room,
and, avoiding the children, who were coming up the stairs, threw himself
on his bed, and lay there with his arms crossed over his face. Now that
he felt the die really cast, and Megan given up, he hated himself,
and almost hated the Hallidays and their atmosphere of healthy, happy
English homes.
Why should they have chanced here, to drive away first love--to show him
that he was going to be no better than a common seducer? What right had
Stella, with her fair, shy beauty, to make him know for certain that
he would never marry Megan; and, tarnishing it all, bring him such
bitterness of regretful longing and such pity? Megan would be back by
now, worn out by her miserable seeking--poor little thing!--expecting,
perhaps, to find him there when she reached home. Ashurst bit at his
sleeve, to stifle a groan of remorseful longing. He went to dinner glum
and silent, and his mood threw a dinge even over the children. It was
a melancholy, rather ill tempered evening, for they were all tired;
several times he caught Stella looking at him with a hurt, puzzled
expression, and this pleased his evil mood. He slept miserably; got up
quite early, and wandered out. He went down to the beach. Alone there
with the serene, the blue, the sunlit sea, his heart relaxed a little.
Conceited fool--to think that Megan would take it so hard! In a week
or two she would almost have forgotten! And he well, he would have the
reward of virtue! A good young man! If Stella knew, she would give him
her blessing for resisting that devil she believed in; and he uttered a
hard laugh. But slowly the peace and beauty of sea and sky, the flight
of the lonely seagulls, made him feel ashamed. He bathed, and turned
homewards.
In the Crescent gardens Stella herself was sitting on a camp stool,
sketching. He stole up close behind. How fair and pretty she was, bent
diligently, holding up her brush, measuring, wrinkling her brows.
He said gently:
“Sorry I was such a beast last night, Stella.”
She turned round, startled, flushed very pink, and said in her quick
way:
“It's all right. I knew there was something. Between friends it doesn't
matter, does it?”
Ashurst answered:
“Between friends--and we are, aren't we?”
She looked up at him, nodded vehemently, and her upper teeth gleamed
again in that swift, brilliant smile.
Three days later he went back to London, travelling with the Hallidays.
He had not written to the farm. What was there he could say?
On the last day of April in the following year he and Stella were
married....
Such were Ashurst's memories, sitting against the wall among the gorse,
on his silver-wedding day. At this very spot, where he had laid out the
lunch, Megan must have stood outlined against the sky when he had first
caught sight of her. Of all queer coincidences! And there moved in him
a longing to go down and see again the farm and the orchard, and the
meadow of the gipsy bogle. It would not take long; Stella would be an
hour yet, perhaps.
How well he remembered it all--the little crowning group of pine trees,
the steep-up grass hill behind! He paused at the farm gate. The low
stone house, the yew-tree porch, the flowering currants--not changed
a bit; even the old green chair was out there on the grass under the
window, where he had reached up to her that night to take the key. Then
he turned down the lane, and stood leaning on the orchard gate-grey
skeleton of a gate, as then. A black pig even was wandering in there
among the trees. Was it true that twenty-six years had passed, or had
he dreamed and awakened to find Megan waiting for him by the big apple
tree? Unconsciously he put up his hand to his grizzled beard and brought
himself back to reality. Opening the gate, he made his way down through
the docks and nettles till he came to the edge, and the old apple tree
itself. Unchanged! A little more of the greygreen lichen, a dead branch
or two, and for the rest it might have been only last night that he had
embraced that mossy trunk after Megan's flight and inhaled its woody
savour, while above his head the moonlit blossom had seemed to breathe
and live. In that early spring a few buds were showing already; the
blackbirds shouting their songs, a cuckoo calling, the sunlight bright
and warm. Incredibly the same-the chattering trout-stream, the narrow
pool he had lain in every morning, splashing the water over his flanks
and chest; and out there in the wild meadow the beech clump and the
stone where the gipsy bogie was supposed to sit. And an ache for lost
youth, a hankering, a sense of wasted love and sweetness, gripped
Ashurst by the throat. Surely, on this earth of such wild beauty, one
was meant to hold rapture to one's heart, as this earth and sky held it!
And yet, one could not!
He went to the edge of the stream, and looking down at the little pool,
thought: 'Youth and spring! What has become of them all, I wonder?'
And then, in sudden fear of having this memory jarred by human
encounter, he went back to the lane, and pensively retraced his steps to
the crossroads.
Beside the car an old, grey-bearded labourer was leaning on a stick,
talking to the chauffeur. He broke off at once, as though guilty of
disrespect, and touching his hat, prepared to limp on down the lane.
Ashurst pointed to the narrow green mound. “Can you tell me what this
is?”
The old fellow stopped; on his face had come a look as though he were
thinking: 'You've come to the right shop, mister!'
“'Tes a grave,” he said.
“But why out here?”
The old man smiled. “That's a tale, as yu may say. An' not the first
time as I've a-told et--there's plenty folks asks 'bout that bit o'
turf. 'Maid's Grave' us calls et, 'ereabouts.”
Ashurst held out his pouch. “Have a fill?”
The old man touched his hat again, and slowly filled an old clay pipe.
His eyes, looking upward out of a mass of wrinkles and hair, were still
quite bright.
“If yu don' mind, zurr, I'll zet down my leg's 'urtin' a bit today.” And
he sat down on the mound of turf.
“There's always a flower on this grave. An' 'tain't so very lonesome,
neither; brave lot o' folks goes by now, in they new motor cars an'
things--not as 'twas in th' old days. She've a got company up 'ere.
'.was a poor soul killed 'erself.”
“I see!” said Ashurst. “Cross-roads burial. I didn't know that custom
was kept up.”
“Ah! but 'twas a main long time ago. Us 'ad a parson as was very
God-fearin' then. Let me see, I've a 'ad my pension six year come
Michaelmas, an' I were just on fifty when t'appened. There's none livin'
knows more about et than what I du. She belonged close 'ere; same farm
as where I used to work along o' Mrs. Narracombe 'tes Nick Narracombe's
now; I dus a bit for 'im still, odd times.”
Ashurst, who was leaning against the gate, lighting his pipe, left his
curved hands before his face for long after the flame of the match had
gone out.
“Yes?” he said, and to himself his voice sounded hoarse and queer.
“She was one in an 'underd, poor maid! I putts a flower 'ere every time
I passes. Pretty maid an' gude maid she was, though they wouldn't burry
'.r up to th' church, nor where she wanted to be burried neither.” The
old labourer paused, and put his hairy, twisted hand flat down on the
turf beside the bluebells.
“Yes?” said Ashurst.
“In a manner of speakin',” the old man went on, “I think as 'twas a
love-story--though there's no one never knu for zartin. Yu can't tell
what's in a maid's 'ead but that's wot I think about it.” He drew his
hand along the turf. “I was fond o' that maid--don' know as there was
anyone as wasn' fond of 'er. But she was to lovin'-'.arted--that's where
'.was, I think.” He looked up. And Ashurst, whose lips were trembling in
the cover of his beard, murmured again: “Yes?”
“'Twas in the spring, 'bout now as 't might be, or a little
later--blossom time--an' we 'ad one o' they young college gentlemen
stayin' at the farm-nice feller tu, with 'is 'ead in the air. I liked
'. very well, an' I never see nothin' between 'em, but to my thinkin'
'. turned the maid's fancy.” The old man took the pipe out of his mouth,
spat, and went on:
“Yu see, 'e went away sudden one day, an' never come back. They got 'is
knapsack and bits o' things down there still. That's what stuck in my
mind--'is never sendin' for 'em. 'Is name was Ashes, or somethen' like
that.”
“Yes?” said Ashurst once more.
The old man licked his lips.
“'Er never said nothin', but from that day 'er went kind of dazed
lukin'. didn'seem rightly therr at all. I never knu a'uman creature
so changed in me life--never. There was another young feller at the
farm--Joe Biddaford 'is name wer', that was praaperly sweet on 'er, tu;
I guess 'e used to plague 'er wi 'is attentions. She got to luke quite
wild. I'd zee her sometimes of an avenin' when I was bringin' up the
calves; ther' she'd stand in th' orchard, under the big apple tree,
lukin' straight before 'er. 'Well,' I used t'think, 'I dunno what 'tes
that's the matter wi' yu, but yu'm lukin' pittiful, that yu be!'.
The old man refit his pipe, and sucked at it reflectively.
“Yes?” said Ashurst.
“I remembers one day I said to 'er: 'What's the matter, Megan?'--'er
name was Megan David, she come from Wales same as 'er aunt, ol' Missis
Narracombe. 'Yu'm frettin' about somethin'. I says. 'No, Jim,' she says,
'.'m not frettin'.' 'Yes, yu be!' I says. 'No,' she says, and to tears
cam' rollin' out. 'Yu'm cryin'--what's that, then?' I says. She putts
'.r 'and over 'er 'eart: 'It 'urts me,' she says; 'but 'twill sune be
better,' she says. 'But if anything shude 'appen to me, Jim, I wants
to be burried under this 'ere apple tree.' I laughed. 'What's goin' to
'.ppen to yu?' I says; 'don't 'ee be fulish.' 'No,' she says, 'I won't
be fulish.' Well, I know what maids are, an' I never thought no more
about et, till two days arter that, 'bout six in the avenin' I was
comin' up wi' the calves, when I see somethin' dark lyin' in the strame,
close to that big apple tree. I says to meself: 'Is that a pig-funny
place for a pig to get to!' an' I goes up to et, an' I see what 'twas.”
The old man stopped; his eyes, turned upward, had a bright, suffering
look.
“'Twas the maid, in a little narrer pool ther' that's made by the
stoppin' of a rock--where I see the young gentleman bathin' once or
twice. 'Er was lyin' on 'er face in the watter. There was a plant o'
goldie-cups growin' out o' the stone just above 'er'ead. An' when I come
to luke at 'er face, 'twas luvly, butiful, so calm's a baby's--wonderful
butiful et was. When the doctor saw 'er, 'e said: 'Er culdn' never
a-done it in that little bit o' watter ef' er 'adn't a-been in an
extarsy.' Ah! an' judgin' from 'er face, that was just 'ow she was. Et
made me cry praaper-butiful et was! 'Twas June then, but she'd afound
a little bit of apple-blossom left over somewheres, and stuck et in 'er
'.ir. That's why I thinks 'er must abeen in an extarsy, to go to et gay,
like that. Why! there wasn't more than a fute and 'arf o' watter. But
I tell 'ee one thing--that meadder's 'arnted; I knu et, an' she knu et;
an' no one'll persuade me as 'tesn't. I told 'em what she said to
me 'bout bein' burried under th' apple tree. But I think that turned
'.m--made et luke to much 's ef she'd 'ad it in 'er mind deliberate; an'
so they burried 'er up 'ere. Parson we 'ad then was very particular, 'e
was.”
Again the old man drew his hand over the turf.
“'Tes wonderful, et seems,” he added slowly, “what maids 'll du for
love. She 'ad a lovin-'.art; I guess 'twas broken. But us never knu
nothin'.”
He looked up as if for approval of his story, but Ashurst had walked
past him as if he were not there.
Up on the top of the hill, beyond where he had spread the lunch, over,
out of sight, he lay down on his face. So had his virtue been rewarded,
and “the Cyprian,” goddess of love, taken her revenge! And before his
eyes, dim with tears, came Megan's face with the sprig of apple blossom
in her dark, wet hair. 'What did I do that was wrong?' he thought. 'What
did I do?' But he could not answer. Spring, with its rush of passion,
its flowers and song-the spring in his heart and Megan's! Was it just
Love seeking a victim! The Greek was right, then--the words of the
“Hippolytus” as true to-day!
“For mad is the heart of Love,
And gold the gleam of his wing;
And all to the spell thereof
Bend when he makes his spring.
All life that is wild and young
In mountain and wave and stream
All that of earth is sprung,
Or breathes in the red sunbeam;
Yea, and Mankind. O'er all a royal throne,
Cyprian, Cyprian, is thine alone!”
The Greek was right! Megan! Poor little Megan--coming over the hill!
Megan under the old apple tree waiting and looking! Megan dead, with
beauty printed on her!
A voice said:
“Oh, there you are! Look!”
Ashurst rose, took his wife's sketch, and stared at it in silence.
“Is the foreground right, Frank?”
“Yes.”
“But there's something wanting, isn't there?”
Ashurst nodded. Wanting? The apple tree, the singing, and the gold!
And solemnly he put his lips to her forehead. It was his silver-wedding
day. 1916