Chapter VIII

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.