A NIGHT OF STORM
That afternoon the whole Vicarage party walked up to the farm to
inspect another litter of young pigs. It struck Geoffrey, remembering
former editions, that the reproductive powers of Mr. Granger’s old sow
were something little short of marvellous, and he dreamily worked out a
calculation of how long it would take her and her progeny to produce a
pig to every square yard of the area of plucky little Wales. It seemed
that the thing could be done in six years, which was absurd, so he gave
up calculating.
He had no words alone with Beatrice that afternoon. Indeed, a certain
coldness seemed to have sprung up between them. With the almost
supernatural quickness of a loving woman’s intuition, she had divined
that something was passing in his mind, inimical to her most vital
interests, so she shunned his company, and received his conventional
advances with a politeness which was as cold as it was crushing. This
did not please Geoffrey; it is one thing (in her own interests, of
course) to make up your mind heroically to abandon a lady whom you do
not wish to compromise, and quite another to be snubbed by that lady
before the moment of final separation. Though he never put the idea
into words or even defined it in his mind—for Geoffrey was far too
anxious and unhappy to be flippant, at any rate in thought—he would at
heart have wished her to remain the same, indeed to wax ever tenderer,
till the fatal time of parting arrived, and even to show appreciation
of his virtuous conduct.
But to the utter destruction of most such hands as Geoffrey held,
loving women never will play according to the book. Their conduct
imperils everything, for it is obvious that it takes two to bring an
affair of this nature to a dignified conclusion, even when the stakes
are highest, and the matter is one of life and death. Beatrice after
all was very much of a woman, and she did not behave much better than
any other woman would have done. She was angry and suspicious, and she
showed it, with the result that Geoffrey grew angry also. It was cruel
of her, he thought, considering all things. He forgot that she could
know nothing of what was in his mind, however much she might guess;
also as yet he did not know the boundless depth and might of her
passion for him, and all that it meant to her. Had he realised this he
would have acted very differently.
They came home and took tea, then Mr. Granger and Elizabeth made ready
to go to evening service. To Geoffrey’s dismay Beatrice did the same.
He had looked forward to a quiet walk with her—really this was not to
be borne. Fortunately, or rather unfortunately, she was ready the
first, and he got a word with her.
“I did not know that you were going to church,” he said; “I thought
that we might have had a walk together. Very likely I shall have to go
away early to-morrow morning.”
“Indeed,” answered Beatrice coldly. “But of course you have your work
to attend to. I told Elizabeth that I was coming to church, and I must
go; it is too sultry to walk; there will be a storm soon.”
At this moment Elizabeth came in.
“Well, Beatrice,” she said, “are you coming to church? Father has gone
on.”
Beatrice pretended not to hear, and reflected a moment. He would go
away and she would see him no more. Could she let slip this last hour?
Oh, she could not do it!
In that moment of reflection her fate was sealed.
“No,” she answered slowly, “I don’t think that I am coming; it is too
sultry to go to church. I daresay that Mr. Bingham will accompany you.”
Geoffrey hastily disclaimed any such intention, and Elizabeth started
alone. “Ah!” she said to herself, “I thought that you would not come,
my dear.”
“Well,” said Geoffrey, when she had well gone, “shall we go out?”
“I think it is pleasanter here,” answered Beatrice.
“Oh, Beatrice, don’t be so unkind,” he said feebly.
“As you like,” she replied. “There is a fine sunset—but I think that we
shall have a storm.”
They went out, and turned up the lonely beach. The place was utterly
deserted, and they walked a little way apart, almost without speaking.
The sunset was magnificent; great flakes of golden cloud were driven
continually from a home of splendour in the west towards the cold lined
horizon of the land. The sea was still quiet, but it moaned like a
thing in pain. The storm was gathering fast.
“What a lovely sunset,” said Geoffrey at length.
“It is a fatal sort of loveliness,” she answered; “it will be a bad
night, and a wet morrow. The wind is rising; shall we turn?”
“No, Beatrice, never mind the wind. I want to speak to you, if you will
allow me to do so.”
“Yes,” said Beatrice, “what about, Mr. Bingham.”
To make good resolutions in a matter of this sort is comparatively
easy, but the carrying of them out presents some difficulties.
Geoffrey, conscience-stricken into priggishness, wished to tell her
that she would do well to marry Owen Davies, and found the matter hard.
Meanwhile Beatrice preserved silence.
“The fact is,” he said at length, “I most sincerely hope you will
forgive me, but I have been thinking a great deal about you and your
future welfare.”
“That is very kind of you,” said Beatrice, with an ominous humility.
This was disconcerting, but Geoffrey was determined, and he went on in
a somewhat flippant tone born of the most intense nervousness and
hatred of his task. Never had he loved her so well as now in this
moment when he was about to counsel her to marry another man. And yet
he persevered in his folly. For, as so often happens, the shrewd
insight and knowledge of the world which distinguished Geoffrey as a
lawyer, when dealing with the affairs of others, quite deserted him in
this crisis of his own life and that of the woman who worshipped him.
“Since I have been here,” he said, “I have had made to me no less than
three appeals on your behalf and by separate people—by your father, who
fancies that you are pining for Owen Davies; by Owen Davies, who is
certainly pining for you; and by old Edward, intervening as a kind of
domestic _amicus curiæ_.”
“Indeed,” said Beatrice, in a voice of ice.
“All these three urged the same thing—the desirability of your marrying
Owen Davies.”
Beatrice’s face grew quite pale, her lips twitched and her grey eyes
flashed angrily.
“Really,” she said, “and have _you_ any advice to give on the subject,
Mr. Bingham?”
“Yes, Beatrice, I have. I have thought it over, and I think
that—forgive me again—that if you can bring yourself to it, perhaps you
had better marry him. He is not such a bad sort of man, and he is well
off.”
They had been walking rapidly, and now they were reaching the spot
known as the “Amphitheatre,” that same spot where Owen Davies had
proposed to Beatrice some seven months before.
Beatrice passed round the projecting edge of rock, and walked some way
towards the flat slab of stone in the centre before she answered. While
she did so a great and bitter anger filled her heart. She saw, or
thought she saw, it all. Geoffrey wished to be rid of her. He had
discerned an element of danger in their intimacy, and was anxious to
make that intimacy impossible by pushing her into a hateful marriage.
Suddenly she turned and faced him—turned like a thing at bay. The last
red rays of the sunset struck upon her lovely face made more lovely
still by its stamp of haughty anger: they lay upon her heaving breast.
Full in the eyes she looked him with those wide angry eyes of
hers—never before had he seen her wear so imperial a mien. Her dignity
and the power of her presence literally awed him, for at times
Beatrice’s beauty was of that royal stamp which when it hides a heart,
is a compelling force, conquering and born to conquer.
“Does it not strike you, Mr. Bingham,” she said quietly, “that you are
taking a very great liberty? Does it not strike you that no man who is
not a relation has any right to speak to a woman as you have spoken to
me?—that, in short, you have been guilty of what in most people would
be an impertinence? What right have you to dictate to me as to whom I
should or should not marry? Surely of all things in the world that is
my own affair.”
Geoffrey coloured to the eyes. As would have been the case with most
men of his class, he felt her accusation of having taken a liberty, of
having presumed upon an intimacy, more keenly than any which she could
have brought against him.
“Forgive me,” he said humbly. “I can only assure you that I had no such
intention. I only spoke—ill-judgedly, I fear—because—because I felt
driven to it.”
Beatrice took no notice of his words, but went on in the same cold
voice.
“What right have you to speak of my affairs with Mr. Davies, with an
old boatman, or even with my father? Had I wished you to do so I should
have asked you. By what authority do you constitute yourself an
intermediary for the purpose of bringing about a marriage which you are
so good as to consider would be to my pecuniary interest? Do you not
know that such a matter is one which the woman concerned, the woman
whose happiness and self-respect are at stake, alone can judge of? I
have nothing more to say except this. I said just now that you had been
guilty of what would in most people be an impertinence. Well, I will
add something. In this case, Mr. Bingham, there are circumstances which
make it—a cruel insult!”
She stopped speaking, then suddenly, without the slightest warning,
burst into passionate weeping. As she did so, the first rush of the
storm passed over them, winnowing the air as with a thousand eagles’
wings, and was lost on the moaning depths beyond.
The light went out of the sky. Now Geoffrey could only see the faint
outlines of her weeping face. One moment he hesitated and one only;
then Nature prevailed against him, for the next she was in his arms.
Beatrice scarcely resisted him. Her energies seemed to fail her, or
perhaps she had spent them in her bitter words. Her head fell upon his
shoulder, and there she sobbed her fill. Presently she lifted it and
their lips met in a first long kiss. It was finished; this was the end
of it—and thus did Geoffrey prosper Owen Davies’s suit.
“Oh, you are cruel, cruel!” he whispered in her ear. “You must have
known I loved you, Beatrice, that I spoke against myself because I
thought it to be my duty. You must have known that, to my sin and
sorrow, I have always loved you, that you have never been an hour from
my mind, that I have longed to see your face like a sick man for the
light. Tell me, did you not know it, Beatrice?”
“How should I know?” she answered very softly; “I could only guess, and
if indeed you love me how could you wish me to marry another man? I
thought that you had learned my weakness and took this way to reproach
me. Oh, Geoffrey, what have we done? What is there between you and
me—except our love?”
“It would have been better if we had been drowned together at the
first,” he said heavily.
“No, no,” she answered, “for then we never should have loved one
another. Better first to love, and then to die!”
“Do not speak so,” he said; “let us sit here and be happy for a little
while to-night, and leave trouble till to-morrow.”
And, where on a bygone day Beatrice had tarried with another wooer,
side by side they sat upon the great stone and talked such talk as
lovers use.
Above them moaned the rising gale, though sheltered as they were by
cliffs its breath scarcely stirred their hair. In front of them the
long waves boomed upon the beach, while far out to sea the crescent
moon, draped in angry light, seemed to ride the waters like a boat.
And were they alone with their great bliss, or did they only dream?
Nay, they were alone with love and lovers’ joys, and all the truth was
told, and all their doubts were done. Now there was an end of hopes and
fears; now reason fell and Love usurped his throne, and at that royal
coming Heaven threw wide her gates. Oh, Sweetest and most dear! Oh,
Dearest and most sweet! Oh, to have lived to find this happy hour—oh,
in this hour to die!
See heaviness is behind us, see now we are one. Blow, you winds, blow
out your stormy heart; we know the secret of your strength, you rush to
your desire. Fall, deep waters of the sea, fall in thunder at the feet
of earth; we hear the music of your pleading.
Earth, and Seas, and Winds, sing your great chant of love! Heaven and
Space and Time, echo back the melody! For Life has called to us the
answer of his riddle! Heart to heart we sit, and lips to lips, and we
are more wise than Solomon, and richer than barbarian kings, for
Happiness is ours.
To this end were we born, Dearest and most sweet, and from all time
predestinate! To this end, Sweetest and most dear, do we live and die,
in death to find completer unity. For here is that secret of the world
which wise men search and cannot find, and here too is the gate of
Heaven.
Look into my eyes, and let me gaze on yours, and listen how these
things shall be. The world is but a mockery, and a shadow is our flesh,
for where once they were there shall be naught. Only Love is real; Love
shall endure till all the suns are dead, and yet be young.
Kiss me, thou Conqueror, for Destiny is overcome, Sorrow is gone by;
and the flame that we have hallowed upon this earthly altar shall still
burn brightly, and yet more bright, when yonder stars have lost their
fire.
But alas! words cannot give a fitting form to such a song as this. Let
music try! But music also folds her wings. For in so supreme an hour
“A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast,”
and through that opened door come sights and sounds such as cannot be
written.
They tell us it is madness, that this unearthly glory is but the frenzy
of a passion gross in its very essence. Let those think it who will,
but to dreamers let them leave their dreams. Why then, at such a time,
do visions come to children of the world like Beatrice and Geoffrey?
Why do their doubts vanish, and what is that breath from heaven which
they seem to feel upon their brow? The intoxication of earthly love
born of the meeting of youth and beauty. So be it! Slave, bring more
such wine and let us drink—to Immortality and to those dear eyes that
mirror forth a spirit’s face!
Such loves indeed are few. For they must be real and deep, and natures
thus shaped are rare, nor do they often cross each other’s line of
life. Yes, there are few who can be borne so high, and none can breathe
that ether long. Soon the wings which Love lent them in his hour of
revelation will shrink and vanish, and the borrowers will fall back to
the level of this world, happy if they escape uncrushed. Perchance even
in their life-days, they may find these spirit wings again,
overshadowing the altar of their vows in the hour of earthly marriage,
if by some happy fate, marriage should be within their reach, or like
the holy pinions of the goddess Nout, folded about a coffin, in the
time of earthly death. But scant are the occasions, and few there are
who know them.
Thus soared Beatrice and Geoffrey while the wild night beat around
them, making a fit accompaniment to their stormy loves. And thus they
too fell from heaven to earth.
“We must be going, Geoffrey; it grows late,” said Beatrice. “Oh,
Geoffrey, Geoffrey, what have we done? What can be the end of all this?
It will bring trouble on you, I know that it must. The old saying will
come true. I saved your life, and I shall bring ruin on you!”
It is characteristic of Beatrice that already she was thinking of the
consequences to Geoffrey, not of those to herself.
“Beatrice,” said Geoffrey, “we are in a desperate position. Do you wish
to face it and come away with me, far away to the other side of the
world?”
“No, no,” she answered vehemently, “it would be your ruin to abandon
the career that is before you. What part of the world could you go to
where you would not be known? Besides there is your wife to think of.
Ah, God, your wife—what would she say of me? You belong to her, you
have no right to desert her. And there is Effie too. No, Geoffrey, no,
I have been wicked enough to learn to love you—oh, as you were never
loved before, if it is wicked to do what one cannot help—but I am not
bad enough for this. Walk quicker, Geoffrey; we shall be late, and they
will suspect something.”
Poor Beatrice, the pangs of conscience were finding her out!
“We are in a dreadful position,” he said again. “Oh, dearest, I have
been to blame. I should never have come back here. It is my fault; and
though I never thought of this, I did my best to please you.”
“And I thank you for it,” she answered. “Do not deceive yourself,
Geoffrey. Whatever happens, promise me never for one moment to believe
that I reproached or blamed you. Why should I blame you because you won
my heart? Let me sooner blame the sea on which we floated, the beach
where we walked, the house in which we lived, and the Destiny that
brought us together. I am proud and glad to love you, dear, but I am
not so selfish as to wish to ruin you: Geoffrey—I had rather die.”
“Don’t talk so,” he said, “I cannot bear it. What are we to do? Am I to
go away and see you no more? How can we live so, Beatrice?”
“Yes, Geoffrey,” she answered heavily, taking him by the hand and
gazing up into his face, “you are to go away and see me no more, not
for years and years. This is what we have brought upon ourselves, it is
the price that we must pay for this hour which has gone. You are to go
away to-morrow, that we may be put out of temptation, and you must come
back no more. Sometimes I shall write to you, and sometimes perhaps you
will write to me, till the thing becomes a burden, then you can stop.
And whether you forget me or not—and, Geoffrey, I do not think you
will—you will know that I shall never forget you, whom I saved from the
sea—to love me.”
There was something so sweet and infinitely tender about her words,
instinct as they were with natural womanly passion, that Geoffrey bent
at heart beneath their weight as a fir bends beneath the gentle,
gathering snow. What was he to do, how could he leave her? And yet she
was right. He must go, and go quickly, lest his strength might fail
him, and hand in hand they should pass a bourne from which there is no
return.
“Heaven help us, Beatrice,” he said. “I will go to-morrow morning and,
if I can, I will keep away.”
“You _must_ keep away. I will not see you any more. I will not bring
trouble on you, Geoffrey.”
“You talk of bringing trouble on me,” he said; “you say nothing of
yourself, and yet a man, even a man with eyes on him like myself, is
better fitted to weather such a storm. If it ruined me, how much more
would it ruin you?”
They were at the gate of the Vicarage now, and the wind rushed so
strongly through the firs that she needed to put her lips quite close
to his ear to make her words heard.
“Stop, one minute,” she said, “perhaps you do not quite understand.
When a woman does what I have done, it is because she loves with all
her life and heart and soul, because all these are a part of her love.
For myself, I no longer care anything—I have _no_ self away from you; I
have ceased to be of myself or in my own keeping. I am of you and in
yours. For myself and my own fate or name I think no more; with my eyes
open and of my own free will I have given everything to you, and am
glad and happy to give it. But for you I still do care, and if I took
any step, or allowed you to take any that could bring sorrow on you, I
should never forgive myself. That is why we must part, Geoffrey. And
now let us go in; there is nothing more to say, except this: if you
wish to bid me good-bye, a last good-bye, dear Geoffrey, I will meet
you to-morrow morning on the beach.”
“I shall leave at half-past eight,” he said hoarsely.
“Then we will meet at seven,” Beatrice said, and led the way into the
house.
Elizabeth and Mr. Granger were already seated at supper. They supped at
nine on Sunday nights; it was just half-past.
“Dear me,” said the old gentleman, “we began to think that you two must
have been out canoeing and got yourselves drowned in good earnest this
time. What have you been doing?”
“We have had a long walk,” answered Geoffrey; “I did not know that it
was so late.”
“One wants to be pleased with one’s company to walk far on such a night
as this,” put in Elizabeth maliciously.
“And so we were—at least I was,” Geoffrey answered with perfect truth,
“and the night is not so bad as you might think, at least under the lee
of the cliffs. It will be worse by and by!”
Then they sat down and made a desperate show of eating supper.
Elizabeth, the keen-eyed, noticed that Geoffrey’s hand was shaking. Now
what, she wondered, would make the hand of a strong man shake like a
leaf? Deep emotion might do it, and Elizabeth thought that she detected
other signs of emotion in them both, besides that of Geoffrey’s shaking
hand. The plot was working well, but could it be brought to a climax?
Oh, if he would only throw prudence to the winds and run away with
Beatrice, so that she might be rid of her, and free to fight for her
own hand.
Shortly after supper both Elizabeth and Beatrice went to bed, leaving
their father with Geoffrey.
“Well,” said Mr. Granger, “did you get a word with Beatrice? It was
very kind of you to go that long tramp on purpose. Gracious, how it
blows! we shall have the house down presently. Lightning, too, I
declare.”
“Yes,” answered Geoffrey, “I did.”
“Ah, I hope you told her that there was no need for her to give up hope
of him yet, of Mr. Davies, I mean?”
“Yes, I told her that—that is if the greater includes the less,” he
added to himself.
“And how did she take it?”
“Very badly,” said Geoffrey; “she seemed to think that I had no right
to interfere.”
“Indeed, that is strange. But it doesn’t mean anything. She’s grateful
enough to you at heart, depend upon it she is, only she did not like to
say so. Dear me, how it blows; we shall have a night of it, a regular
gale, I declare. So you are going away to-morrow morning. Well, the
best of friends must part. I hope that you will often come and see us.
Good-bye.”
Once more a sense of the irony of the position overcame Geoffrey, and
he smiled grimly as he lit his candle and went to bed. At the back of
the house was a long passage, which terminated at one end in the room
where he slept, and at the other in that occupied by Elizabeth and
Beatrice. This passage was lit by two windows, and built out of it were
two more rooms—that of Mr. Granger, and another which had been Effie’s.
The windows of the passage, like most of the others in the Vicarage,
were innocent of shutters, and Geoffrey stood for a moment at one of
them, watching the lightning illumine the broad breast of the mountain
behind. Then looking towards the door of Beatrice’s room, he gazed at
it with the peculiar reverence that sometimes afflicts people who are
very much in love, and, with a sigh, turned and sought his own.
He could not sleep, it was impossible. For nearly two hours he lay
turning from side to side, and thinking till his brain seemed like to
burst. To-morrow he must leave her, leave her for ever, and go back to
his coarse unprofitable struggle with the world, where there would be
no Beatrice to make him happy through it all. And she, what of her?
The storm had lulled a little, now it came back in strength, heralded
by the lightning. He rose, threw on a dressing-gown, and sat by a
window watching it. Its tumult and fury seemed to ease his heart of
some little of its pain; in that dark hour a quiet night would have
maddened him.
In eight hours—eight short hours—this matter would be ended so far as
concerned their actual intercourse. It would be a secret locked for
ever in their two breasts, a secret eating at their hearts, cruel as
the worm that dieth not. Geoffrey looked up and threw out his heart’s
thought towards his sleeping love. Then once more, as in a bygone
night, there broke upon his brain and being that mysterious spiritual
sense. Stronger and more strong it grew, beating on him in heavy
unnatural waves, till his reason seemed to reel and sink, and he
remembered naught but Beatrice, knew naught save that her very life was
with him now.
He stretched out his arms towards the place where she should be.
“Beatrice,” he whispered to the empty air, “Beatrice! Oh, my love! my
sweet! my soul! Hear me, Beatrice!”
There came a pause, and ever the unearthly sympathy grew and gathered
in his heart, till it seemed to him as though separation had lost its
power and across dividing space they were mingled in one being.
A great gust shook the house and passed away along the roaring depths.
Oh! what was this? Silently the door opened, and a white draped form
passed its threshold. He rose, gasping; a terrible fear, a terrible
joy, took possession of him. The lightning flared out wildly in the
eastern sky. There in the fierce light she stood before him—she,
Beatrice, a sight of beauty and of dread. She stood with white arms
outstretched, with white uncovered feet, her bosom heaving softly
beneath her night-dress, her streaming hair unbound, her lips apart,
her face upturned, and a stamp of terrifying calm.
“In the wide, blind eyes uplift
Thro’ the darkness and the drift.”
Great Heaven, she was asleep!
Hush! she spoke.
“You called me, Geoffrey,” she said, in a still, unnatural voice. “You
called me, my beloved, and I—have—come.”
He rose aghast, trembling like an aspen with doubt and fear, trembling
at the sight of the conquering glory of the woman whom he worshipped.
See! She drew on towards him, and she was _asleep_. Oh, what could he
do?
Suddenly the draught of the great gale rushing through the house caught
the opened door and crashed it to.
She awoke with a wild stare of terror.
“Oh, God, where am I?” she cried.
“Hush, for your life’s sake!” he answered, his faculties returning.
“Hush! or you are lost.”
But there was no need to caution her to silence, for Beatrice’s senses
failed her at the shock, and she sank swooning in his arms.