Away! the moor is dark beneath the moon,
Rapid clouds have drunk the last pale beam of even:
Away! the gathering winds will call the darkness soon,
And profoundest midnight shroud the serene lights of heaven.
Pause not! The time is past! Every voice cries, away!
SHELLEY.
ONCE outside, Richard flew along as though pursued by a thousand demons;
here were the downs, with their delicious tart air—but he raced across
them without pausing to inhale it; now to swing over the hedge and to
cover the ground that still lay between him and the garden. The garden
and her! His heart was thumping loudly against his ribs; a sound as of a
rushing sea was in his ears. On, on! there were the lights twinkling
from under the dark eaves—there was the gate set in the high wall. How
it shook beneath his violent hand as he flung it open! He stood still at
last, hardly breathing in his suspense. Was she there? All was still
save for the rustling of the boughs and the faint warbling of the
birds—more than one was celebrating evensong to-night. What if she
should not be there! He walked on, slowly and unsteadily now, and
presently there was a movement amid the greenery close at hand. Out of a
little arbour set amid the shrubs a figure came gliding forth to meet
him. She paused two paces away from him and her hands fell by her sides.
‘It is you?’ she said, almost in a whisper.
‘Yes, it is I.’
They stood facing each other in unbroken silence for a full minute, and
then she asked, still in that breathless whisper:
‘Why did you come?’
‘Because I could not keep away.’
She turned and began slowly to pace down the path between the roses.
Waves of perfume were wafted to their nostrils from the syringa blossom.
Yes, yonder stood the bush just as he had pictured to himself. The
remembrance suddenly flashed across Richard as he walked beside her that
these shrubs were sometimes called ‘Mock Orange Trees.’ _Mock Orange
Trees_! _Mock Orange Blossom_!—he must not pursue that thought further.
‘I kept away for four days,’ he said suddenly. ‘I tried to keep away
to-day.’
After a long pause she faltered:
‘I was wondering why you did not come.’
He made no answer, and they walked in silence till the end of the path
was reached, and then she said, still falteringly:
‘I don’t think you ought to have come now.’
‘I know I ought not!’
They turned and began to retrace their steps, but when about mid-way up
the garden she came to a standstill and looked him full in the face.
‘Go now,’ she said. ‘Go! You must not stay here any longer.’
Even in the dim light he could see that she was pale and that her figure
wavered; but he gazed at her as though without realising the sense of her
words.
‘Will you not leave me,’ she entreated, ‘when I ask you?’
He stood looking at her stupidly for a moment or two longer; then the
meaning of her request seemed to reach his understanding.
‘I will go,’ he said hoarsely, ‘if you will give me those flowers in your
hand.’
‘How foolish you are!’ she cried. ‘There, yes, take them, and for
Heaven’s sake go!’
She thrust them towards him, and he took them from her hand—a cluster of
roses, moist and sweet. Instead of fulfilling his promise, however, he
made a step closer to her.
‘Will you put them in my coat?’ he asked. His eyes in his haggard face
seemed to burn.
‘No,’ said Rosalie, drawing back.
The movement and the icy tone that accompanied it recalled him to
himself. He, too, drew back, hesitated, and then, throwing the flowers
on the ground with a passionate gesture, departed. Back again through
the gate, across the yard, under the lea of the hedge, over the downs.
Here was home; there was the warm light of the fire by which his uncle
sat. Now the door was open, and he stood once more in his presence; now,
he, Richard, would be forced to look him in the face.
For a moment he stood with the door-handle in his hand, and then, as the
old man turned to smile inquiringly upon him, he suddenly wheeled and
fled.
‘I can’t,’ he cried, as he mounted the stairs. ‘I can’t!’
Isaac stared at the closed door for some moments as though expecting it
to open again, then, slowly turning back to the fire, listened.
In the room overhead hasty steps were walking up and down.
‘He be gone to fetch summat, very like,’ remarked the farmer as he
restored his pipe to his mouth. But after smoking and listening a little
longer, and marking that the pacing to and fro continued without
intermission, he jerked his thumb upwards, nodded, and said, ‘He bain’t
a-comin’ back.’ Then, after pausing a moment to ruminate over this
circumstance, he made up his mind to the inevitable, tapped his pipe upon
the hob, extinguished the lamp, and went upstairs to bed.
And long after he was sunk in dreamless slumbers those hasty footsteps
might have been heard in the adjoining room, pacing up and down, up and
down, like the restless tread of a caged beast.
Richard was not the only one who spent an unquiet night. Rosalie, too,
could find no rest for her aching heart. After some hours of feverish
tossing she rose, dressed in the dim grey light that was just stealing
over the world, and seated herself by the open window. She could
meditate here without risk of being disturbed, for the sun would not rise
for an hour and more; and even the earliest of her men would not appear
until some time after dawn.
With her chin resting on her hand, she hearkened vaguely to the
succession of sounds which betokened the awakening of Nature. The cock
had crowed long before she had left her uneasy pillow; the young sparrows
had been chirping while she had clothed her weary frame; but now the
cuckoo’s note was sounding faintly from a neighbouring copse, and the
starlings were chattering in their nests on the ivied wall. The grey
veil was being gradually withdrawn from the face of the earth, but even
yet familiar objects were only half revealed, and the most well-known had
a strange and unreal look.
The first sunbeam had not yet struck across the sky when Rosalie, whose
eyes had been absently fixed upon the irregular line of hedge which
marked the approach to the barton, saw a dark object moving slowly along
it, and presently into the open space before her gate there stepped the
figure of a man. She knew what man it was even before he had vaulted the
locked gate and taken up his stand beneath her window. She would have
given worlds to close this window and hasten out of sight, but a spell
seemed to be laid upon her, and she could neither move nor speak, only
gaze downward with dilated frightened eyes.
‘You are there?’ said Richard, looking up with a face as drawn and white
as her own. ‘Thank God! I wanted to see you before I go. I wanted to
say Good-bye.’
The power of speech returned to her, and she leaned forth impulsively
with a faint cry. ‘Going! You are going?’
‘Yes, I am going. Is it not the only thing I can do? Do you think I can
bear to sit at his table and take his pay, and know that I am a traitor
to him in my heart?’
Rosalie did not speak; but Richard, gazing upwards, saw the clasp of her
hands tighten, as they rested on the sill, till the nails and knuckles
showed white.
He went on passionately: ‘Every word he says to me stabs me. Every time
I look at his honest, unsuspicious face I feel—surely you must know what
I feel! I’m not quite a brute yet! And later, when you are his wife—do
you think it would be possible for me to go on living within a stone’s
throw—to see you every day—to keep up the farce of friendship? What do
you think I am made of?’
Her face was set like marble; only the eyes moved. After a long pause
she whispered: ‘Will you—ever come back?’
‘Who knows?’ he answered with a harsh laugh. ‘Some time perhaps—when I
am quite old—when I can no longer feel.’
She put her hand before her eyes, and then let it drop. Richard saw the
irrepressible anguish in them, and his face changed. He threw up his
arms suddenly with a kind of a sob:
‘I will not go—if you tell me to stay!’
For a moment longer the agonised eyes looked down into his, and he
thought he saw her waver; but it was only for a moment. Her lips moved,
at first without emitting any sound, but presently mastering herself, she
said firmly:
‘No, I tell you to go—it is right for you to go.’
‘Good-bye,’ said Richard hoarsely.
‘Good-bye,’ faltered Rosalie; and then there came a great sob: ‘God bless
you!’
He turned as if to leave her, but wheeling round, looked back.
‘Am I to have nothing? Am I to be sent away without so much as a clasp
of the hand?’
She had vanished from the window, and for a moment he stood holding his
breath; would she come down to him—would she meet him at the door?
But within all was silent.
‘She will not come,’ he said to himself; and once more went on his way,
staggering blindly forward, with his head sunk upon his breast.
Had he looked back again he might have seen her creep to the window and
kneel by it, straining her eyes through streaming tears.
Poor Rosalie! Poor Beauty! Did she wake at last only to look upon the
vanishing form of her Prince?
* * *
Later in the day Isaac Sharpe came to Littlecomb in great perturbation of
mind. He found Rosalie lying on the couch in the parlour, the blind
being drawn down—she had a headache, she said.
‘Dear heart alive!’ said Isaac, sitting down, a hand on either knee.
‘Everything d’ seem to be goin’ wrong this day! Here’s my nevvy gone off
wi’ himself!’
‘Gone?’ echoed Rosalie, faintly, turning her face to the wall.
‘’Ees, took himself off this morning wi’out a word to anyone, and left
this here bit of a note for to explain. I bain’t much of a hand at
letter readin’, but Bithey did read it for me, and he does n’t seem to
give no excuse at all, except that he were feelin’ restless. He says he
al’ays told me he were a rover, and could n’t settle down, and now the
travellin’ fit have come on him and he felt he must be off. And he
thanks me very handsome, and he tells me he don’t know where he be
a-goin’ to yet, but when he does he’ll write and let me know where to
send his luggage. And that’s all.’
That’s all,’ repeated Rosalie, looking at the kind, troubled old face
with a bewildered stare. That was all, of course; and she had known it
before. She had with her own eyes watched Richard’s departing figure
until it had disappeared from sight. She had known quite well that he
would never return; she had even told him to go, agreed with him that it
was the right and honourable thing to do—the only thing to do. Ever
since the morning she had been telling herself so over and over again;
yet none the less the farmer’s words fell like a knell upon her heart.
‘You do look bad, to be sure—I am sorry your head be so bad. Lard!
Lard, what a world this be! I’m that upset I don’t know whether I’m on
my head or my heels.’
The quaver in his voice smote Rosalie. She must make an effort to
overcome her selfish grief; above all, to conquer that mad spirit of
rebellion which every now and then rose rampant within her. This good
man had need of her sympathy; should she not give it all the more
willingly that there was so large an element of remorse mingled with her
misery? She sat up and looked affectionately towards him:
‘I’m very, very sorry for you,’ she said.
‘’T was so sudden, ye see,’ pursued Isaac dolefully. ‘He never so much
as said a word to I—never so much as hinted as he war n’t satisfied. I
mid ha’ seen that the restless fit were a-comin’ on if I had n’t ha’ been
sich a sammy. Restless! He were that restless last night, he were more
like a dog at a fair as had lost his master nor a reasonable human being!
It was up and down, and in and out the whole blessed evening. Ah, I be
terrible upset; I be oncommon fond o’ Richard, d’ ye see. Always was
from the time he were a little ’un. I was oncommon fond o’ his mother
afore him; she were the only woman I ever could put up wi’—present
company excepted.’
As Isaac ducked his head towards her with a melancholy attempt at
jocularity, Rosalie’s heart sank lower still; she turned away hastily
that he might not see her face. At an earlier period she might have been
gratified by the knowledge that she was one of the few women in the world
whom Isaac Sharpe could ‘put up with’—phrases of the kind were his
nearest approach to ardour, and indicated, as she knew, a considerable
amount of solid attachment; but the passionate tones of Richard’s voice
had rung too recently in her ear—the look in his eyes was too fresh in
her memory. Ah, what had she not seen in those eyes!
‘’Ees,’ went on her unconscious future husband, ‘’ees, I’ll be like to
miss ’en; him and me was the best of friends—and that’s not all. His
leaving me like this be terrible ill-convenient just now—’t is the busy
time of year, d’ye see—haymaking time—every pair o’ hands is wanted.
Richard did very near the work o’ two men; and he must go trapesing off
wi’ hisself, giving me no time at all to find somebody to take his
place.’
There was a distinct sense of injury in his tone now.
‘I am sure he never thought of that,’ cried Rosalie, quickly and
resentfully. How could Isaac find it in his heart to think of such
things in the face of the overwhelming fact that Richard was gone!
‘Ah, sure he did n’t,’ agreed Isaac. ‘’T is a very bad job! A very bad
job indeed; but I suppose there bain’t nothing to be done.’
Rosalie agreed with a sigh. It was too true; there was nothing to be
done.