A pillar of dim silver rain fronted the moon on the hills. Emilia walked
hurriedly, with her head bent, like a penitent: now and then peeping
up and breathing to the keen scent of the tender ferns. Wilfrid still
grasped her hand, and led her across the common, away from the rout.
When the uproar behind them had sunk, he said “You'll get your feet wet.
I'm sorry you should have to walk. How did you come here?”
She answered: “I forget.”
“You must have come here in some conveyance. Did you walk?”
Again she answered: “I forget;” a little querulously; perhaps wilfully.
“Well!” he persisted: “You must have got your harp to this place by some
means or other?”
“Yes, my harp!” a sob checked her voice.
Wilfrid tried to soothe her. “Never mind the harp. It's easily
replaced.”
“Not that one!” she moaned.
“We will get you another.”
“I shall never love any but that.”
“Perhaps we may hear good news of it to-morrow.”
“No; for I felt it die in my hands. The third blow was the one that
killed it. It's broken.”
Wilfrid could not reproach her, and he had not any desire to preach. So,
as no idea of having done amiss in coming to the booth to sing illumined
her, and she yet knew that she was in some way guilty, she accused
herself of disregard for that dear harp while it was brilliant and
serviceable. “Now I remember what poor music I made of it! I touched
it with cold fingers. The sound was thin, as if it had no heart.
Tick-tick!--I fancy I touched it with a dead man's finger-nails.”
She crossed her wrists tight at the clasp of her waist, and letting her
chin fall on her throat, shook her body fretfully, much as a pettish
little girl might do. Wilfrid grimaced. “Tick-tick” was not a pathetic
elegy in his ears.
“The only thing is, not to think about it,” said he. “It's only an
instrument, after all.”
“It's the second one I've seen killed like a living creature,” replied
Emilia.
They walked on silently, till Wilfrid remarked, that he wondered where
Gambier was. She gave no heed to the name. The little quiet footing and
the bowed head by his side, moved him to entreat her not to be unhappy.
Her voice had another tone when she answered that she was not unhappy.
“No tears at all?” Wilfrid stooped to get a close view of her face. “I
thought I saw one. If it's about the harp, look!--you shall go into that
cottage where the light is, sit there, and wait for me, and I will bring
you what remains of it. I dare say we can have it mended.”
Emilia lifted her eyes. “I am not crying for the harp. If you go back I
must go with you.”
“That's out of the question. You must never be found in that sort of
place again.”
“Let us leave the harp,” she murmured. “You cannot go without me. Let me
sit here for a minute. Sit with me.”
She pointed to a place beside herself on the fork of a dry log under
flowering hawthorn. A pale shadowy blue centre of light among the clouds
told where the moon was. Rain had ceased, and the refreshed earth smelt
all of flowers, as if each breeze going by held a nosegay to their
nostrils.
Wilfrid was sensible of a sudden marked change in her. His blood was
quicker than his brain in feeling it. Her voice now, even in common
speaking, had that vibrating richness which in her singing swept his
nerves.
“If you cry, there must be a cause, you know,” he said, for the sake of
keeping the conversation in a safe channel.
“How brave you are!” was Emilia's sedate exclamation, in reply.
Her cheeks glowed, as if she had just uttered a great confession, but
while the colour mounted to her eyes, they kept their affectionate
intentness upon him without a quiver of the lids.
“Do you think me a coward?” she relieved him by asking sharply, like
one whom the thought had turned into a darker path. “I am not. I hung my
head while you were fighting, because, what could I do? I would not have
left you. Girls can only say, 'I will perish with him.'”
“But,” Wilfrid tried to laugh, “there was no necessity for that sort
of devotion. What are you thinking of? It was half in good-humour, all
through. Part of their fun!”
Clearly Emilia's conception of the recent fray was unchangeable.
“And the place for girls is at home; that's certain,” he added.
“I should always like to be where...” Her voice flowed on with singular
gravity to that stop.
Wilfrid's hand travelled mechanically to his pricking cheek-bone.
Was it possible that a love-scene was coming on as a pendant to that
monstrously ridiculous affair of half-an-hour back? To know that she had
sufficient sensibility was gratifying, and flattering that it aimed at
him. She was really a darling little woman: only too absurd! Had she
been on the point of saying that she would always like to be where
he, Wilfrid, was? An odd touch of curiosity, peculiar to the languid
emotions, made him ask her this: and to her soft “Yes,” he continued
briskly, and in the style of condescending fellowship: “Of course we're
not going to part!”
“I wonder,” said Emilia.
There she sat, evidently sounding right through the future with her
young brain, to hear what Destiny might have to say.
The 'I wonder' rang sweetly in his head. It was as delicate a way
of confessing, “I love you with all my soul,” as could be imagined.
Extremely refined young ladies could hardly have improved upon it,
saving with the angelic shades of sentiment familiar to them.
Convinced that he had now heard enough for his vanity, Wilfrid returned
emphatically to the tone of the world's highroad.
“By the way,” he said, “you mustn't have any exaggerated idea of this
night's work. Remember, also, I have to share the honours with Captain
Gambier.”
“I did not see him,” said Emilia.
“Are you not cold?” he asked, for a diversion, though he had one of her
hands.
She gave him the other.
He could not quit them abruptly: nor could he hold both without being
drawn to her.
“What is it you say?” Wilfrid whispered: “men kiss us when we are happy.
Is that right? and are you happy?”
She lifted a clear full face, to which he bent his mouth. Over the
flowering hawthorn the moon stood like a windblown white rose of the
heavens. The kiss was given and taken. Strange to tell, it was he who
drew away from it almost bashfully, and with new feelings.
Quite unaware that he played the feminine part, Wilfrid alluded to her
flight from Richford, with the instinct to sting his heart by a revival
of his jealous sensations previously experienced, and so taste the
luxury of present satisfaction.
“Why did you run away from me?” he said, semi-reproachfully.
“I promised.”
“Would you not break a promise to stay with me?”
“Now I would!”
“You promised Captain Gambier?”
“No: those poor people.”
“You are sorry that you went?”
No: she was happy.
“You have lost your harp by it,” said Wilfrid.
“What do you think of me for not guessing--not knowing who sent it?” she
returned. “I feel guilty of something all those days that I touched
it, not thinking of you. Wicked, filthy little creature that I was! I
despise ungrateful girls.”
“I detest anything that has to do with gratitude,” Wilfrid appended,
“pray give me none. Why did you go away with Captain Gambier?”
“I was very fond of him,” she replied unhesitatingly, but speaking as it
were with numbed lips. “I wanted to tell him, to thank him and hold his
hand. I told him of my promise. He spoke to me a moment in the garden,
you know. He said he was leaving to go to London early, and would wait
for me in the carriage: then we might talk. He did not wish to talk to
me in the garden.”
“And you went with him in the carriage, and told him you were so
grateful?”
“Yes; but men do not like us to be grateful.”
“So, he said he would do all sorts of things on condition that you were
not grateful?”
“He said--yes: I forget: I do forget! How can I tell what he said?”
Emilia added piteously. “I feel as if I had been emptied out of a sack!”
Wilfrid was pierced with laughter; and then the plainspoken simile gave
him a chilling sensation while he was rising to the jealous pitch.
“Did he talk about taking you to Italy? Put your head into the sack, and
think!”
“Yes,” she answered blandly, an affirmative that caused him some
astonishment, for he had struck at once to the farthest end of his
suspicions.
“He feels as I do about the Italian Schools,” said Emilia. “He wishes me
to owe my learning to him. He says it will make him happy, and I thought
so too.” She threw in a “then.”
Wilfrid looked moodily into the opposite hedge.
“Did he name the day for your going?” he asked presently, little
anticipating another “Yes”: but it came: and her rather faltering manner
showed her to be conscious too that the word was getting to be a black
one to him.
“Did you say you would go?”
“I did.”
Question and answer crossed like two rapiers.
Wilfrid jumped up.
“The smell of this tree's detestable,” he said, glancing at the
shadowing hawthorn.
Emilia rose quietly, plucked a flower off the tree, and put it in her
bosom.
Their way was down a green lane and across long meadow-paths dim in the
moonlight. A nightingale was heard on this side and on that. Overhead
they had a great space of sky with broken cloud full of the glory of the
moon. The meadows dipped to a brook, slenderly spanned by a plank. Then
there was an ascent through a cornfield to a copse. Rounding this they
had sight of Brookfield. But while they were yet at the brook, Wilfrid
said, “When is it you're going to Italy?”
In return he had an eager look, so that he was half-ashamed to add,
“With Captain Gambier, I mean.” He was suffering, and by being brutal he
expected to draw balm on himself; nor was he deceived.
Emilia just then gave him her hand to be led over, and answered, as she
neared him, “I am never to leave you.”
“You never shall!” Wilfrid caught her in his arms, quite conquered by
her, proud of her. He reflected with a loving rapture that her manner
at that moment was equal to any lady's; and the phantom of her with
her hand out, and her frank look, and trustful footing, while she spoke
those words, kept on advancing to him all the way to Brookfield, at the
same time that the sober reality murmured at his elbow.
Love, with his accustomed cunning, managed thus to lift her out of
the mire and array her in his golden dress to idealize her, as we say.
Reconciled for the hour were the contesting instincts in the nature of
this youth the adoration of feminine refinement and the susceptibility
to sensuous impressions. But Emilia walked with a hero: the dream of all
her days! one, generous and gentle, as well as brave: who had fought for
her, had thought of her tenderly, was with her now, having raised her to
his level with a touch! How much might they not accomplish together: he
with sword, she with harp? Through shadowy alleys in the clouds, Emilia
saw the bright Italian plains opening out to her: the cities of marble,
such as her imagination had fashioned them, porticos of stately
palaces, and towers, and statues white among cypresses; and farther,
minutely-radiant in the vista as a shining star, Venice of the sea.
Fancy made the flying minutes hours. Now they marched with the regiments
of Italy, under the folds of her free banner; now she sang to the
victorious army, waving the banner over them; and now she floated in a
gondola, and turning to him, the dear home of her heart, yet pale with
the bleeding of his wound for Italy, said softly, in the tone that had
power with him, “Only let me please you!”
“When? Where? What with?” came the blunt response from England, with
electric speed, and Emilia fell from the clouds.
“I meant my singing; I thought of how I sang to you. Oh, happy time!”
she exclaimed, to cut through the mist of vision in her mind.
“To me? down at the booth?” muttered Wilfrid, perplexed.
“Oh, no! I mean, just now--” and languid with the burden of so full a
heart, she did not attempt to explain herself further, though he said,
invitingly, “I thought I heard you humming?”
Then he was seized with a desire to have the force of her spirit upon
him, for Brookfield was in view; and with the sight of Brookfield, the
natural fascination waxed a shade fainter, and he feared it might
be going. This (he was happily as ignorant as any other youth of the
working of his machinery) prompted him to bid her sing before they
parted. Emilia checked her steps at once to do as he desired. Her throat
filled, but the voice quavered down again, like a fainting creature sick
unto death. She made another effort and ended with a sorrowful look at
his narrowly-watching eyes.
“I can't,” she said; and, in fear of his anger, took his hand to beg
forgiveness, while her eyelids drooped.
Wilfrid locked her fingers in a strong pressure, and walked on, silent
as a man who has faced one of the veiled mysteries of life. It struck
a full human blow on his heart, dragging him out of his sentimental
pastures precipitately. He felt her fainting voice to be the intensest
love-cry that could be uttered. The sound of it coursed through his
blood, striking a rare illumination of sparks in his not commonly
brilliant brain. In truth, that little episode showed an image of nature
weak with the burden of new love. I do not charge the young cavalry
officer with the power of perceiving images. He saw no more than that
she could not sing because of what was in her heart toward him; but such
a physical revelation was a divine love-confession, coming involuntarily
from one whose lips had not formed the name of love; and Wilfrid felt
it so deeply, that the exquisite flattery was almost lost, in a certain
awed sense of his being in the presence of an absolute fact: a thing
real, though it was much talked about, and visible, though it did not
wear a hat or a petticoat.
It searched him thoroughly enough to keep him from any further pledges
in that direction, propitious as the moment was, while the moon slipped
over banks of marble into fields of blue, and all the midnight promised
silence. They passed quickly through the laurel shrubs, and round the
lawn. Lights were in the sleepless ladies' bed-room windows.
“Do I love her?” thought Wilfrid, as he was about to pull at the bell,
and the thought that he should feel pain at being separated from her for
half-a-dozen hours, persuaded him that he did. The self-restraint which
withheld him from protesting that he did, confirmed it.
“To-morrow morning,” he whispered.
“I shall be down by daylight,” answered Emilia.
“You are in the shade--I cannot see you,” said he.
The door opened as Emilia was moving out of the line of shadow.