THE BEECH TREE
When the travellers returned it was after nine o'clock. So soon as they
set foot indoors they were informed that dinner was ready to be served;
an announcement which, as they had been travelling all day, and had
only had a scanty lunch on the train, Mrs Plummer was inclined to hail
with rapture. Miss Arnott, however--as she was only too frequently wont
to be--was of a different mind.
"I don't want any dinner," she announced.
"Not want any dinner!" Mrs Plummer stared. The limits of human
forbearance must be reached some time, and the idea that that erratic
young woman could not want dinner was beyond nature. "But you must want
dinner--you're starving; I'm sure you are."
"Indeed? I don't see how you can be sure. I assure you, on my part,
that I am not even hungry. However, as you probably mean that yours is
a case of starvation, far be it from me to stand in the way of your
being properly fed. Come! let us go in to dinner at once."
The imperious young woman marched her unresisting companion straight
off into the dining-room, without even affording her an opportunity to
remove the stains of travel. Not that Mrs Plummer was unwilling to be
led, having arrived at that stage in which the satisfaction of the
appetite was the primary consideration.
Miss Arnott herself made but an unsubstantial meal; watching the
conscientious manner in which the elder lady did justice to the
excellent fare with ill-concealed and growing impatience. At last--when
they had only reached the entrees--her feeling found vent.
"Really, Mrs Plummer, you must excuse me. I'm not in the least bit
hungry, and am in that state of mind in which even the sight of food
upsets me--I must have some fresh air."
"Fresh air! But, my dear child, surely you must recently have had
enough fresh air."
"Not of the kind I want. You stay there and continue to recruit
exhausted nature; don't let my vagaries make any difference to you. I'm
going out--to breathe."
"After travelling for three whole days where can you be going to at
this time of night? It's ten o'clock."
"I'm going--" From the way in which she looked at her Mrs Plummer
deemed it quite possible that her charge was going to request her to
mind her own business. But, suddenly, Miss Arnott stopped; seemed to
change her mind, and said with a smile wrinkling her lips, "Oh, I'm
going out into the woods."
Before the other could speak again she was gone.
Left alone, Mrs Plummer put down her knife and fork, and stared at the
door through which the lady had vanished. Had there been someone to say
it to she might have said something to the point. The only persons
present were the butler and his attendant minions. To them she could
hardly address herself on such a subject. It was not even desirable
that any action of hers should acquaint them with the fact that there
was something which she was burning to say. She controlled her
feelings, composed her countenance, took up her knife and fork and
resumed her meal.
And Miss Arnott went out into the woods.
She was in a curious mood, or she would never have gone out on such a
frolic. Directly she found herself out in the cool night air,
stretching out her arms and opening her chest, she drank in great
draughts of it; not one or two, but half a dozen. When she reached the
shadow of the trees she paused. So far the sky had been obscured by
clouds. The woods stretched out in front of her in seemingly
impenetrable darkness. It was impossible to pick out a footpath in that
blackness. But all at once the clouds passed from before the moon.
Shafts of light began to penetrate the forest fastness, and to
illuminate its mysteries. The footpath was revealed, not over clearly,
yet with sufficient distinctness to make its existence obvious.
Unhesitatingly she began to follow it. It was not easy walking. The
moon kept coming and going. When it was at its brightest its rays were
not sufficiently vivid to make perfectly plain the intricacies of the
path. When it vanished she found herself in a darkness which might
almost have been felt. Progression was practically impossible. In spite
of her putting out her hands to feel the way she was continually coming
into contact with trees, and shrubs, and all sorts of unseen obstacles.
Not only so, there was the risk of her losing the path--all sense of
direction being nonexistent.
"If I don't take care I shall be lost utterly, and shall have to spend
the night, alone with the birds and beasts, in this sweet wilderness.
Sensible people would take advantage of the first chance which offers
to turn back. But I sha'n't; I shall go on and on."
Presently the opportunity to do so came again. The moon returned; this
time to stay. It seemed brighter now. As her eyes became accustomed to
its peculiar glamour she moved more surely towards the goal she had in
view. The light, the scene, the hour, were all three fitted to her
mood; which certainly would have defied her own analysis. It seemed to
her, by degrees, that she was bewitched--under the influence of some
strange spell. This was a fairy forest through which she was passing,
at the witching hour. Invisible shapes walked by her. Immaterial forms
peopled the air. It was as though she was one of a great company;
moving with an aerial bodyguard through a forest of faerie.
What it all meant she did not know; or why she was there; or whither,
exactly, she was going. Until, on a sudden, the knowledge came.
Unexpectedly, before she supposed she had gone so far, she came to
the end of the path. There, right ahead, was the mossy glade, the
fee-simple of which had been presented to her in such queer fashion the
last time she came that way. Coming from the shadow of the forest path
it stood out in the full radiance of the moon; every object showing out
as clearly as at high noon. The new-made fence, with its novelty
already fading; the turf on which she loved to lie; the unevenness on
the slope which had seemed to have been made for the express purpose of
providing cushions for her head and back. These things she saw, as
distinctly as if the sun were high in the heavens; and something else
she saw as well, which made her heart stand still.
Under the giant beech, whose spreading branches cast such grateful
shade, when the sun was hot, over the nook which she had chosen as a
couch, stood a man--who was himself by way of being a giant. Never
before had his height so struck her. Whether it was the clothes he
wore, the position in which he stood, or a trick of the moonlight, she
could not tell. She only knew that, as he appeared so instantly before
her, he was like some creature out of Brobdingnag, seeming to fill all
space with his presence.
The man was Hugh Morice.
He was so absorbed in what he was doing, and she was still some little
distance from him, and had come so quietly; that she saw him while he
still remained unconscious of her neighbourhood. She had ample time to
withdraw. She had only to take a few steps back, and he would never
know she had been near him. So the incident would be closed. Her
instinct told her that in that way she would be safest. And for a
moment or two she all but turned to go.
Her retreat, however, was delayed by one or two considerations. One was
that the sight of him affected her so strangely that, for some seconds,
she was genuinely incapable of going either backward or forward. Her
feet seemed shod with lead, her knees seemed to be giving way beneath
her, she was trembling from head to foot. Then she was divided between
conflicting desires, the one saying go, the other stay; and while her
instinct warned her to do the one, her inclination pointed to the
other. In the third place there was her woman's curiosity. While she
hesitated this began to gain the upper hand. She wondered what it was
he was doing which absorbed him so completely that he never ceased from
doing it to look about him.
He was in a dinner suit, and was apparently hatless. He had something
in his hand, with which he was doing something to the tree in front of
which he stood. What was he doing? She had no right to ask; she had no
right to be there at all; still--she wondered. She moved a little
farther out into the open space, to enable her to see. As she did so it
seemed that he finished what he was doing. Standing up straight he drew
back from the tree the better to enable him to examine his handiwork;
and--then he turned and saw her.
There was silence. Neither moved. Each continued to look at the other,
as if at some strange, mysterious being. Then he spoke.
"Are you a ghost?--I think not. I fancy you're material. But I haunt
this place so constantly myself--defying Jim Baker's charge of
lead--that I should not be one whit surprised if your spirit actually
did appear to keep me company. Do you believe in telepathy?"
"I don't know what it is."
"Do you believe that A, by dint of taking thought, can induce B to
think of him? or--more--can draw, B to his side? I'm not sure that I
believe; but it certainly is queer that I should have been thinking of
you so strenuously just then, longing for you, and should turn and find
you here. I thought you were over the hills and far away, haunting the
shores of the Italian lakes."
"On Wednesday we came away from Como."
"On Wednesday? That's still stranger. It was on Wednesday my fever came
to a head. I rushed down here, bent, if I could not be with you, on
being where you had been. Since my arrival I've longed--with how great
a longing--to use all sorts of conjurations which should bring you back
to Exham; and, it seems, I conjured wiser than I knew."
"I left Como because I could no longer stay."
"From Exham? or from me? Speak sweetly; see how great my longing is."
"I had to return to say good-bye."
"To both of us? That's good; since our goodbyes will take so long in
saying. Come and see what I have done." She went to the tree. There,
newly cut in the bark, plain in the moonlight, were letters and figures.
"Your initials and mine, joined by the date on which we met--beneath this
tree. I brought my hunting knife out with me to do it--you see how sharp
a point and edge it has." She saw that he held a great knife in his hand.
"As I cut the letters you can believe I thought--I so thought of you
with my whole heart and soul that you've come back to me from Como."
"Did I not say I've returned to say good-bye?"
"What sort of good-bye do you imagine I will let you say, now that
you've returned? That tree shall be to us a family chronicle. The first
important date's inscribed on it; the others shall follow; they'll be
so many. But the trunk's of a generous size. We'll find room on it for
all. That's the date on which I first loved you. What's the date on
which you first loved me?"
"I have not said I ever loved you."
"No; but you do."
"Yes; I do. Now I know that I do. No, you must not touch me."
"No need to draw yourself away; I do not mean to, yet. Some happinesses
are all the sweeter for being a little postponed. And when did the
knowledge first come to you? We must have the date upon the tree."
"That you never shall. Such tales are not for trees to tell, even if I
knew, which I don't. I'm afraid to think; it's all so horrible."
"Love is horrible? I think not."
"But I know. You don't understand--I do."
"My dear, I think it is you who do not understand."
"Nor must you call me your dear; for that I shall never be."
"Not even when you're my wife?"
"I shall never be your wife!"
"Lady, these are strange things of which you speak. I would rather
that, just now, you did not talk only in riddles."
"It is the plain truth--I shall never be your wife."
"How's that? Since my love has brought you back from Como, to tell me
that you also love? Though, mind you, I do not stand in positive need
of being told. Because, now that I see you face to face, and feel you
there so close to me, your heart speaks to mine--I can hear it
speaking; I can hear, sweetheart, what it says. So that I know you love
me, without depending for the knowledge on the utterance of your lips."
"Still, I shall never be your wife."
"But why, sweetheart, but why?"
"Because--I am a wife already."