Chapter XI: 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.