I wrote that night to Katherine, but she did not reply to my letter,
and I had no heart to send a second. Two days passed, during which
I did not go near Derryaghy, but took to gardening, and when Gerald
came down on the second afternoon I offered this as my excuse for not
going with him. The fact was that I felt uncomfortable in his society,
not knowing how much he knew. He had witnessed my discomfiture on the
night Katherine had cut me, and of course he must have questioned her
afterwards.
During these days I made one or two attempts to come to a more cordial
relation with my father; yet it seemed to me that he suspected the
genuineness of my timid advances, and at all events his unresponsiveness
discouraged me from repeating them.
On the evening of the third day, having nothing else to do, I
strolled listlessly in the direction of the field occupied by the
booths of the steam-circus proprietors. It was recognizable from
afar by a luminous cloud that hung above it like a curtain of fire
against the night. The wind was blowing from that direction, and, as
I advanced, my ears were filled with the rough music blared out by a
couple of steam-organs, a music broken every now and again by short
convulsive shrieks as of demoniac laughter. Swings, shooting-galleries,
throwing-competitions――all were in the full energy of life when
I approached; but the chief centres of attraction were the two
hobby-horse machines, brightly painted and flashing with mirrors and
gilding. I mingled in the outer ring of spectators about the larger of
these two wheeling monsters, and stood gazing at it, as it turned round
swiftly and rhythmically to the throbbing din of brazen pipes. White
puffs of steam shot up against the black sky in the coloured glare
of naphtha lamps. Girls with flushed, excited faces, tossed hair and
shining eyes, leaned sideways from the horses’ backs, laughed, swayed
in a kind of innocent abandon toward their accompanying sweethearts.
Arms were round waists, the pops of guns mingled with the blare
of the music, the shrieks of the steam-whistle, the shrillness of
feminine voices. Standing there, in lonely contemplation of all this
Dionysian revelry, I felt as hopelessly out of touch with it, as if I
had wandered thither from another planet. Suddenly I felt a hand laid
lightly on my arm, and looking round saw the laughing face of Annie
Breen.
She asked me if I had seen their Willie, but without waiting for an
answer went on to chatter about all the people who were here to-night.
A whole crowd had come over from Castlewellan; and there were a lot of
excursionists from Belfast, who had missed the last train, and nobody
knew where they were going to sleep, for there wasn’t a room to be had
in the hotels. Wasn’t it fun? They would have to stay out all night;
and if it rained wouldn’t it be awful?
“There’s room for two there,” she cried, “those white horses. Ellen
Gibson and Brian Seery are getting off.”
I made a half-hearted movement forward, but in my lack of enthusiasm
was ousted by a more eager couple whose eyes had been as quick as
Annie’s. There was no hint of reproach, however, in the smile the girl
turned on me.
“We’ll get them next time, and I’d just as soon watch, any way.
Wouldn’t you?”
“There’s Willie over there,” I suggested. “Perhaps you would like――――”
But she interrupted me. “I don’t care about the horses. Only maybe I’m
keeping you: maybe you’re waiting for somebody?”
“No,” I answered, hurriedly.
“Let’s go round the tents then. Will you?”
We moved over to the one which appeared to have attracted the largest
crowd. In the foreground, just beyond the barrier, was a long counter
or table covered with cheap ornaments, artificial jewelry, and boxes
of unhealthy-looking cigars; and behind this, set in tiers against
the canvas back of the tent itself, were three rows of grotesque,
painted, wooden busts, waiting to be knocked down. Surrounded by a
group of encouraging spectators, George Edge was stolidly bombarding
these figures with a good deal of success, though what he intended to
do with his prizes it was difficult to imagine. We stood and watched
him, and every now and again a loud smack was instantly followed by the
disappearance of one of the dolls.
“Have a throw you,” said Annie. “Go on. I’m sure you can do it better
than him.”
An obliging lady handed me three wooden balls, about the size of tennis
balls, in exchange for two pence; but in absence of mind I came within
an ace of sending the first of these at the head of the proprietor
himself, which just then bobbed up close to the dolls, and in features,
colouring, and expression, startlingly resembled them. At my third
shot I was successful, and Annie chose a gold and turquoise cross. We
passed on to the next booth, leaving George still pegging away, with a
perseverance that must have cost him about half-a-crown already. Annie
herself now won a walking-stick, by throwing a wooden ring over it, and
this trophy was presented to me.
“Let’s get out of the glare for a minute,” she said unexpectedly. “It’s
that hot with all the lights and things I can’t hardly breathe.”
We passed behind the tents, and a few steps brought us into shadow,
and a few steps more to a bank under a hawthorn-hedge, where we sat
down. I had nothing to say to her, and, as it did not seem to matter
to Annie whether we talked or not, I pursued my own thoughts. She
leaned up against me confidingly, but I was hardly more conscious
of her presence than of the bank upon which I sat. I was thinking,
and presently I put a question to her, put it perfectly seriously.
“Suppose, Annie,” I began very deliberately,――“suppose you were friends
with somebody――somebody like me, say. Suppose you knew he was very fond
of you, and, one day, when you were alone together, without asking you
if he might, he put his arms round you and kissed you――would you be
very angry with him, so angry that you would never speak to him nor
look at him again?”
I kept my eyes fixed upon the ground as I awaited her reply, and I
awaited it with some anxiety. It seemed to me a long while coming. All
at once I felt two warm lips pressed against my cheek. I was so taken
aback by the unexpected nature of this answer that I’m afraid I drew
away from it. I understood that poor Annie had seen in my question
only a somewhat timid method of courtship. It was distinctly awkward.
She leaned her head sentimentally on my shoulder, and we sat in this
absurd position for several minutes, while I had time to reflect on the
hopeless inconsistency of feminine nature. As soon as I could, without
hurting her feelings, I got up. “We must try the hobby-horses now,” I
said, with feeble sprightliness, seizing on the only pretext I could
think of to escape from a disagreeable situation.
Annie rose too, but with no great alacrity: in fact, she remarked that
she was sick of the hobby-horses. I pretended not to believe her. We
went back to the spot where she had first spoken to me, and, when the
machine came to a standstill, secured two riderless steeds. Mine was
on the outside and Annie’s of course next to it, but we were no sooner
in possession of them than I became aware of Katherine and Gerald
among the spectators quite close to us. I looked the other way, and I
felt my face grow crimson. It seemed to me that the engine-man would
never set us in motion. Already we appeared to have been waiting for
an eternity. Annie was laughing and chattering, and I answered at
random, though, indeed, to the kind of remarks she was making, any sort
of answer served. Had she, too, seen the Dales? for her vivacity had
suddenly become much more noisy and familiar, with something about it
that smacked rather of town than of country? I noticed that all the
other riders were obviously in couples, and that most of the youths
were supporting their partners in a strikingly gallant fashion. Annie
had already given me permission to follow their example by telling me
half a dozen times she was sure she’d fall off. I didn’t care very much
whether she did or not. At last, with a shrill and frivolous scream,
the huge construction began to revolve slowly, and our horses to move
up and down on their polished brass rods. We swept by within a yard
or two of Katherine and Gerald, but I looked straight before me, my
face burning. I would have liked to pretend that I was there for a
solitary ride, quite independent of Annie, but her manner made any such
hypocrisy perfectly futile. Round we came a second time, and a third,
gathering velocity at every moment. Annie had taken off her hat and put
it on my horse’s head, and her skirts streamed out behind, and flapped
against my right leg.
“Peter!”
It was Katherine’s voice. She had called my name. It came to me through
the night, and an indescribable emotion shook me. I could not have
spoken: my eyes were blinded with tears: and again the huge machine
swept round. But in the place where Katherine and Gerald had been I
could no longer see them. Where were they gone? The organ belched its
coarse music, the steam throbbed, the whistle hooted, we rushed on
faster and faster. Where were they? She had called me. Perhaps they had
gone home. I could not wait any longer, but slipped from my horse’s
back. Annie screamed; the man who was going round collecting the fares
while the ride was in progress made a grab at me; but I jumped――jumped
and fell headlong, rolling over and knocking all the breath out of
my body, though luckily not breaking any bones. Instantly there was
commotion. A crowd gathered about me, and everybody seemed to think
I had either gone mad or been seized with a fit. I scrambled to my
feet as soon as I had pumped a little wind into myself, and, without
waiting to brush the dust from my clothes, without answering any of the
questions that poured in upon me from all sides, pushed my way through
the people, who appeared inclined to detain me by force, and hurried,
as fast as my still rather breathless condition would allow, in pursuit
of Katherine and Gerald. Alas, I could see no sign of them. They had
vanished as completely and mysteriously as Persephone on that summer
morning in the meadows. I clambered through the hedge out on to the
road, but there was no one there. I ran on till I reached the turning,
but there was no one there either, and I knew I had missed them, for
the road here lay straight and bare in both directions. I stood still
by the sea-wall. I could not go back. The glare and din were now
become impossible, to say nothing of Annie, whom I had flouted in so
unscrupulous a fashion.
I took my old path over the golf-links till I reached the hollow where
I always came when I wanted to be quite alone. I flung myself down on
the soft, white, powdery sand, among the thin gray grasses, in the
pallid starlight. My heart was surging with emotions, at once happy
and desolating. I could not understand what had occurred; only I heard
again and again the sound of my name, as it had come to me in that
loved voice through the night.
I lay there for a long time. I was crying, I think, but I did not know
I was crying, though I kept wiping my tears away. I was unconscious
of everything around me, I was blind and deaf, and it was only when
I felt a hand on my shoulder that I looked up, startled, and saw
Katherine bending over me.
“Peter, what is the matter? Is it my fault?”
Her voice was all gentleness; in her face a beautiful tenderness; but I
could not speak.
“It is nothing,” I stammered out at last. “Only I thought――you were
never going to speak to me again, and――”
“I was horrid. I can’t think now why I was so horrid. Forget about it,
Peter dear, won’t you? Tell me you will.”
“It was my fault,” I muttered. “It was all my fault.”
“Never mind whose fault it was. Let us forget about it.”
“I can’t forget,” I said. “It was my fault.”
“But why――when I want you to? Can’t you forget, even if you know I love
you?”
I scrambled to my feet and stood facing her. “Do you really?” I
faltered. “Don’t say it if――if it is not true.”
“It is true.”
“How is it true?” I asked. “How much? Do you love me as much as you
love Gerald?”
She hesitated, and it seemed to me that it was because she feared to
wound me. “Yes,” she said at last, in a low voice. There was something
that touched me, through all my longing and pain, in her desire to
be perfectly honest. “Better than Gerald. Better than anybody,” she
pursued, doubtfully, “better than anybody, I think, except mother.”
I sighed; I could not help it.
She looked at me sadly. “Why aren’t you content, Peter? Why do you
always want more than I can give, when I have given you so much?”
“And Owen?” I asked, though I was ashamed of myself for doing so.
“I like Owen very much. I think he is very nice, but that is all. And
now tell me you are content. I must go, and I shan’t be happy unless I
know _you_ are.”
“I am happy,” I lied most dismally. I saw indeed that it was all
hopeless, and that she would never understand.
“I will see you to-morrow. I can’t stay now; Gerald is waiting for me
over at the Club House.”
“Where were you when I looked for you?” I asked. “I heard you call my
name, and I jumped off, but when I went to look for you, you were gone.”
“Miss Dick was with us, and she wanted to go home; but we went round
the other way――not by the sea. We had to go all the way back with Miss
Dick, but I got Gerald to come out again, for I thought, I don’t know
why, I might find you here. And I’m very glad I came. I couldn’t go on
any longer without making it up. But I mustn’t really wait now. I told
Gerald I should only be five minutes. Good-night, Peter. Come to-morrow
morning.”
“Good-night.”
She was gone, and I was left alone to whatever felicity I might be able
to discover.