NEW BRIDGE
On New Bridge, over Dart, stood Dinah with the sun warm upon her
face, while a first butterfly hovered on the golden broom at water's
edge. She had sent a message to Johnny by his sister that she would
meet him here, and now, while she waited, she speculated on the
difference between the beauty of the May day and the ugliness of what
she was about to do. But she had decided at last, and having done
so, she could only wonder why it had taken her so many weeks to reach
a decision. To her direct instincts delay had been a suffering and
produced a condition of mental bad health; but it was not for her own
sake that she had delayed, and she knew now that her hesitation had
been no kindness to Johnny, though endured largely out of affection
for him. She was convinced, beyond possibility of doubt, that her
regard could not be called love and she had determined with herself,
as she was bound to do, that to marry under such circumstances would
be no marriage in any seemly interpretation of the contract. She had
the imagination to know, however, that what was beaten ground to
her--a way exploited a thousand times by day and sleepless night--was
no such thing for him. He had said that he would have nothing more
to do with her until she named the day, and he was coming now under
expectation of hearing her do so. Instead he must learn that the day
could never be named.
She was full of sorrow, but no fear. Dinah had long discounted the
effect of the thing she was called to do. She did not expect anybody
to be patient, or even reasonable, save her step-father.
Johnny appeared punctually, with his gun on his shoulder. They had
not met for more than a month, but he ignored the past and greeted
her with a kiss. She suffered it and reflected that this was the
last time he would ever kiss her.
"At last," he said. "I've hated this job, Dinah; and you'll never
know how much I hated it; but what could I do?"
"I don't know, Johnny. You could have wondered a bit more why I held
off perhaps."
"And didn't I wonder? Didn't I puzzle myself daft about it? I don't
know now--such a downright piece as you--I don't know now why you
hung back. It wasn't natural."
"Yes it was--everything's natural that happens. It couldn't happen
if it wasn't natural--old Arthur Chaffe said that once and I
remembered it."
"If it was natural, then there was a reason," he answered, "and I'd
like to hear it, Dinah--for curiosity."
"The reason is everything, John. I didn't know the reason myself for
a good bit--the reason why I held away from you; and when I did, I
was so put about that it seemed to alter my whole nature and make me
shamed of being alive."
"That's pretty strong. Better we don't go back then. I'll ask no
questions and forget. We'll begin again by getting married."
"No; the reason you've got to hear, worse luck. The reason why I
behaved so strange was this, John: I'd made a terrible
mistake--terrible for both of us. I thought the love that I had for
you, and still have for you, and always shall, was the love of a
woman for the man she's going to wed. Then, like a cloud, it came
over me, denser and denser, that it was not. Listen--you must
listen. I examined into it--give me that credit--I examined into it
with all my senses tingling night and day. I never worked so hard
about anything after I'd got over my first fright. And then I saw
I'd slipped into this, being young and very ignorant about love--much
more so than many girls younger than me; because I never was
interested in men in the way they are. I found that out by talking
to girls, and by the things they said when they knew I was tokened to
you. They looked at marriage quite different from me, and they
showed me that love is another thing altogether seen that way than as
I'd seen it. They made me terrible uncomfortable, because I found
they'd got a deep understanding that I had not got about it; and they
laughed at me, when I talked, and said I didn't know what love meant.
And--and--I didn't, Johnny. That's the naked truth."
He was looking at her with a flushed face.
"Get on--get on to the end of it," he said.
"Be patient. I'm bitter sorry. We was boy and girl for so many
years, and I loved you well enough and always shall; but I don't know
nothing about the sort of love you've got for me. The first I heard
about it was from Jane. She knows. She understands far deeper about
what love is than I do. I only know I haven't got it, and what I
thought was it didn't belong to that sort of love at all. Haven't
you seen? Haven't you fretted sometimes--many times--because I
couldn't catch fire same as you, when you touched me and put your
arms round me? Didn't it tell you nothing?"
"How the devil should it? Women are different from men."
"Not they--not if they love proper. But how could you know
that--you, who was never in love before? I don't blame you there;
but if you'd only compare notes with other men."
"Men don't compare notes as you call it about sacred things like
love."
"Don't they? Then they're finer than us. Women do. Anyway I found
out, to my cruel cost, I was only half-fledged so far as you were
concerned."
"I see. But you needn't lie about it--not to me. You loved me well
enough, and the right way too. You can't shuffle out of it by
pretending any trash about being different from other girls. You
loved me well enough, and if you'd been on-coming like some
creatures, I'd have hated you for it. That was all right, and you
knew what you were doing very well indeed. And you're lying, I say,
because it wasn't women have brought you to this. It was men. A man
rather. Be plain, please, for I won't have no humbug about this.
You've found some blasted man you hanker after and think you like
better than me. And it's not the good part in you that have sunk to
any such base beastliness; it's the bad, wicked part in you--the part
I never would have believed was in you. And I've a right to know who
it is. And I will know."
"Hear me then, Johnny. May God strike me dead on this bridge, this
instant moment, if there's any man in the world I love--or even care
for. I tell you that I've never known love and most likely never
shall. 'Tis long odds it be left out of me altogether. And I can't
marry you for that good reason. I didn't come to it in a hurry. For
one of my nature I waited and waited an amazing time, and for your
sake I hoped and hoped I'd see different, and I tried hard to see
different. I thought only for you, and I'm thinking only for you
now. It would have been far easier for me to go on with it than
break. Can't you see that? But afterwards--you're a quick man and
you're a man that gives all, but wants all back again in exchange for
all; and rightly so. But what when you'd found, as find you must,
that I'd not loved you as you thought? Hell--hell--that's what it
would have been for you."
"You can spin words to hide your thoughts. I can't. You're a
godless, lying traitor--and--no--no--I call that back. You don't
know what you're saying. Have some mercy on a man. You're my all,
Dinah. There's nothing else to life but you! Don't turn me down
now--it's too late. You must see it's gone too far. You can't do
it; you can't do it. I'm content to let it be as it is. If you
don't love me now, I'll make you love me. I'll--all--I'll give all
and want nothing again! It's cruel--it's awful--no such thing could
happen. I believe you when you say there's not another man. I
believe you with all my heart. And then--then why not me? Why not
keep your solemn oath and promise? If anything be left out of you,
let me put it in. But there's nothing left out--nothing. You're
perfect, and the wenches that made you think you wasn't ban't worthy
to black your boots. For Christ's sake don't go back on me--you
can't--it wouldn't be you if you did."
"Don't make it worse than it is, dear John. I'm proud you could care
for me so well; but don't you see, oh, don't you see that I can't act
a lie? I can't do it. Everything tells me not to do it. I'm in a
maze, but I know that much. I must be fair; I must be straight. I
don't love you like that. I thought I did, because I was a fool and
didn't know better. It can't be. I'm fixed about it."
For a moment he was quiet. Then he picked up his gun, which he had
rested against the parapet of the bridge. His face was twisted with
passion. Then she heard him cock the gun. For a moment she believed
that he meant to shoot her. She felt absolutely indifferent and was
conscious of her own indifference, for life seemed a poor possession
at that moment.
"You can kill me if you like," she said. "I don't want to go on
living--not now."
He cursed her.
"Lying bitch! Death's a damned sight too good for you. May your
life be hell let loose, and may you come to feel what you've made me
feel to-day. And you will, if there's any right and justice in life.
And get out of Lower Town--d'you hear me? Get out of it and go to
the devil, and don't let me see your face, or hear your voice in my
parents' home no more."
A market cart came down the hill and trundled towards them, thus
breaking into the scene at its climax. John Bamsey turned his back
and strode down the river bank; Dinah hid her face from the man and
woman in the cart and looked at the river.
But the old couple, jogging to Poundsgate, had not missed the man's
gestures.
The driver winked at his wife.
"Lovers quarrelling!" he said; "and such a fine marnin' too. The
twoads never know their luck."
With heavy heart sat Johnny by the river under great pines and heard
the rosy ring-doves over his head fluttering busily at their nest;
while Dinah leant upon the parapet of the bridge and dropped big
tears into the crystal of Dart beneath her.