Spring was early, and very gracious, the year of Helen’s marriage. Day
after day warm sunshine lighted up the little square where the lilacs
and hawthorns were budding, and the crocuses blazed with purple and
golden flames in the grass borders.
“We’ll go into the country, all of us, one day before I’m married,”
Helen declared. “I want to pick primroses--don’t you want to pick
primroses, Bid? It shall be _my_ day. I will take father and you and
Aunt Charlotte--and Jim, if he’s good--and Mr. Carey, if he’ll come,
because he’s Jim’s friend; also because I like him. When shall we go?
Next Saturday, shall we?--because it’s Bid’s holiday!”
The Professor and Miss Mansfield fell in with her whim, and the little
party was arranged for the following week. Trelawney undertook to
discover a place at Bushberry--their proposed destination--where they
could get lunch and tea. Helen stipulated for a farmhouse.
They met Carey at Victoria, the following Saturday. He came up just
as the train was starting, and was execrated and dragged into the
carriage unceremoniously by Trelawney. There was a babel of laughter
and greetings as the train moved out of the station.
“I expected to see Jim got up like Corydon, with a smock frock and a
crook, and an oaten pipe in his waistcoat pocket,” Carey declared.
“It was entirely owing to my hesitation about my own apparel for this
Arcadian festival that I was late. This is a delicious idea of yours,
Miss Mansfield,” he said, turning to her. “I haven’t been into an
English wood in spring for years.”
“He’s relying exclusively on this experience to provide him with lyrics
for the next twelve months,” Trelawney explained. “He looks upon this
day from a purely pecuniary standpoint, believe me. Helen, it’s an
idyllic farmhouse; there is surrounding it an aura of butter and cream
and new-laid eggs. And you get your tea for ninepence a-head.”
Bridget struck in with a laughing comment. At the sound of her voice
Carey turned to her for the first time.
“It is ages since we met, Mrs. Travers,” he remarked.
“Is it?” she returned. “We have both been busy, I suppose. One doesn’t
notice how the time goes when one is busy.”
She leant back, and watched the green fields they were whirling
through, abstractedly. “We seem to have left the streets behind very
quickly,” she said, presently. “How delicious the color of that grass
is!--and see, the trees are in full leaf, almost!”
Carey was conscious of a coldness, a certain constraint, in her manner
he had never noticed before. It had all at once become difficult to
talk to her. The realization of this fell blankly, depressingly, upon
him.
The impression did not wear off when they reached the little country
station, and began to climb the hill, between white hedgerows, towards
the farmhouse.
Helen and Trelawney walked on a little ahead. Bridget and he followed
with the Professor and Miss Mansfield, and the conversation was
general; yet through it all he intuitively felt the new distance in her
manner towards him. Her words were gay enough. She stopped, every now
and then, with a delighted exclamation, before a hawthorn bush, veiled
in bridal white, and he cut blossom-laden branches for her till her
arms were full.
“They’ll die, Bridget,” Miss Mansfield expostulated. “What is the use
of picking them now?”
She declared that they would adorn the luncheon-table most
appropriately, and, when the farmhouse was reached, busied herself in
putting the dazzling white boughs in great brown jars on the table.
Lunch was served in the farmhouse parlor, with the lattice windows open
to the sweet spring air, and the sunlight lying in checkered squares
across the coarse white table-cloth and on the flagged floor.
Bridget sat opposite to Carey at the table, with the faint blue sky
for background behind her dusky hair. He had not seen her for several
weeks, and the change in her was very noticeable. He was struck by
the thin outline of her cheek when he caught her face in profile. He
wondered vaguely whether she was ill, or overworked.
When lunch was over, they started for the woods. Their way led through
level meadows, starred with pale cuckoo flowers. Here and there
cowslips lifted their delicate green stalks and dainty yellow blossoms.
From the woods, covered by a misty veil of green, the cuckoo’s note
rang clear and dainty sweet.
“Cuckoo! cuckoo!” Bridget repeated. She stopped every now and then to
snap a cowslip from its stalk.
“They break so crisply, it’s a delight to pick them!” she exclaimed,
and tucked the bunch she had gathered into the front of her gown.
“I can’t be altruistic about flowers. I _want_ them. I must have them!”
She put her lips down to those on her breast and caressed them.
“Isn’t it delicious--_delicious_ to be in the country in the spring?”
she said, raising shining eyes to the Professor. She took his arm, with
a little affectionate movement. The smiling glance they exchanged was
full of mutual understanding and sympathy. In the wide, sunny meadow
Bridget seemed to Carey to be herself again; though she spoke very
little to him directly, the intangible barrier between them was, he
felt, in some way broken down.
A stile separated the fields from the woods they were to pass through
in the walk they had planned.
A winding, mossy path, across which gnarled roots of trees made easy
steps, led slightly upwards. The trees were not yet in full leaf; the
sycamores still held some of their dainty rose-pink sheaths, from which
the brilliant translucent green was breaking. The larches, enveloped
in a mysterious filmy green mist, wavered in the sunshine. All the
underwood was in full leaf. It sprang from a carpet of russet and
yellow,--the leaves of yester year; nestling between them were clumps
of primroses. Their pure pale yellow stars burnt softly above their
dark bed. Here and there the ground was white with frail anemones.
Bridget dived into the thicket with a rapturous exclamation, and began
to fill her basket, heedless of Carey’s laughing assurances of open
spaces farther on.
The rest of the party walked on more soberly. When they emerged--Bridget
with loosened hair where the sweeping branches had caught it, but
triumphant, with half filled basket--they were out of sight. She sent a
swift glance up the empty, sun-flecked path.
“The road is quite easy to follow,” Carey hastened to say. “It leads in
a half-circle back again to the farm, though it’s a good long walk. We
shall find our way, though they seem to have deserted us.” They walked
in silence for a moment--a silence which Bridget broke with a question
about some book.
Carey replied with an eagerness somewhat out of proportion to the
subject; but the conversation, once started, did not flag.
He did not look at her as they walked, but kept his eyes fixed on the
winding wood-path. He spoke fluently, as usual, but to Bridget his talk
was mechanical. Her thoughts wandered; it seemed to her impossible to
keep up the strain of even conversation much longer. Her heart began
to beat, at first with slow, heavy throbs, then faster and faster,
as she struggled to keep her voice steady. In spite of herself, her
hands shook. Two or three of the flowers on the top of her basket were
scattered on the path.
Carey stooped for them. As he put them into the basket his hand touched
hers.
He drew it back quickly, as though he had been stung; and at the moment
their eyes met.
Bridget’s face was white.
“You are tired,” he said quickly, with an effort. “You are not looking
well. Let us sit down and rest a little. I’ve walked too fast for you.
What a brute I am!”
Bridget sank down upon one of the great roots across the path. She
could not trust herself to reply. An awful fear possessed her that if
he spoke to her again she should burst into tears. She was fighting
desperately, despairingly, for self-control.
There was silence. Carey watched the sunlight strike along the shining
ivy leaves that trailed towards the edge of the path. The words of an
exquisite spring song came involuntarily to his mind as he looked at
them:--
“Now on some twisted ivy-net,
Now by some twinkling rivulet.”
How did it end?
“A man had given all other bliss,
And all his worldly worth for this,
To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips.”
He turned to her abruptly. “I’ve made up my mind to go abroad again,”
he said. “I start in a week or two.”
For one second she gazed at him with wide eyes and parted lips; then,
with a half-stifled cry, she put out both hands as though to ward
off a blow. Almost at the same moment she rose wildly to her feet.
Carey rose, too, and caught her hands, with a startled, incredulous
exclamation.
“Bridget!” he whispered hoarsely. “What do you mean? Say it,--_say
it!_” he implored. His face was close to hers, his eyes blazing.
She cowered, and hesitated for one moment. Then she turned and faced
him.
“Say your part first,” she said, looking at him with a long, steady
gaze.
He drew himself up. “I love you!” he said. “And you?”
“I love you!” she repeated, in a low, vibrating voice. The color rushed
into her face as she said the words.
Carey’s arms closed round her, and she lifted her lips to his. She
freed herself presently. She was trembling from head to foot, but she
smiled radiantly, meeting his eager eyes. At the sight of her face he
groaned. “Bridget,” he began, “what have I done--?”
“You have dared to tell the truth. You have made me the happiest woman
in the world!” she replied simply. “But why didn’t you tell me before?
I--I believe I’ve got quite thin.” She pulled the sleeve of her dress
away from her wrist, and held it out to him with a little laugh, which
held tears.
He seized both her slender hands, and put them passionately to his lips.
“My love!--Bridget--I didn’t guess,” he began, incoherently. In the
midst of her tremulous joy she was startled to see him so moved, so
almost terribly shaken. His imperturbable coolness had been one of
the qualities she had first noticed as peculiar to him; it had always
filled her with something between admiration and amusement. His
vehemence almost frightened her.
“I thought the suffering was all on my side,” he said. “Bridget,
I’ve endured the torture of the damned these last few months!” He
tightened his grasp on her hands till it hurt her. “I kept away; how
I did it, I don’t know; but I kept away from you because I couldn’t
trust myself. I was afraid you would know it, and it would worry you.
Poor child!--and you have trouble enough already.” His voice suddenly
dropped into infinite tenderness for her.
The tears sprang to Bridget’s eyes. With a sudden movement she laid her
cheek caressingly against his hand.
“My darling!” he whispered, holding her close. “You know what it means?
Bridget, you poor little girl, have you thought?”
She drew herself away.
“No,” she said, with downcast eyes. “I know there’s a battle coming.
We shall have to decide--I know that; but, Larry, I _can’t_ think of
it now. There’s no room in my heart for anything but joy! Dear, let
us have our moment! We shall have plenty of time to think,--plenty of
time!” she repeated sadly.
He knelt beside her, murmuring her name in a half-incredulous voice.
“This day, at least, is ours,” he said triumphantly, defiantly.
“Nothing can take it from us!”