Chapter XXI: Snow and Fire

It was a monstrous tale that he unfolded to me, scarce credible for the guile, the inhuman persecution, the infernal callousness which it revealed. And yet I could not but accept it as consistent and convincing. There are men born, one knows, without the moral bias--brutes “thrown back” on the primordial instincts for lust and blood. But that learning and culture could be acquired merely to the exploiting of such primitive passions was a stupendous enlightening. There is a horrible tale of Hawthorne’s, which depicts the agony of a clean and sensitive soul upon discovering accidentally that _all_ the brother and sister souls of his familiar intercourse are on secret midnight terms with the powers of darkness. I think I experienced something of that ghastly disillusionment now. Where was the good of refining and refining on our natures, if at the end such bestiality remained possible to them? Better the snake and the lion, hunting their prey on the plain issues of hunger.

My blood became water as I listened; the knees of my soul grew sick under me. What had this man not suffered of unspeakable persecution, if his story were to be believed! And I saw no reason to doubt it. The perspective it appeared to open out to me of revelations affecting my own interests was obscured for the moment in the contemplation of his wilder wrongs. And yet I could not but admit he had deserved badly of Fate. If his spirit of vengeance was justified, the spirit which had involved him in it was vile. Yet assuredly, sinner as he was, he had atoned a hundredfold. His back (he showed it me) was scored with ineffaceable marks of that discipline. His soul (and he showed me that too) was still deeper scored. He was delivered, had delivered himself, a fearful brand of retribution into my hand.

I talked with him till late that night, and far into the following morning. I had made him up a bed on the sofa, and there had become no question but that he was to remain with me until this riddle of our common destiny was resolved. I found in him, or believed I had found, a minister, a witness, a testifier to things potential but unspeakable. They will be touched upon in due time. In the meanwhile he dwelt suspended between a mortal hatred on the one side and a blind devotion on the other.

“What,” I said once to him, “if I were to tell you, Geoletti, that this man Dalston is my friend?”

He rose to his feet, and begged me, in great emotion, to unsay my question; to reassure him; not to drive him mad.

“Very well,” I said; “but you must consider that revenge is nothing if it involves the avenger in the ruin of his victim. We have enough evidence and over to put the noose about this fellow’s neck; but the law doesn’t hang on moral testimony; and until we have the material, sifted and compact, it behoves us to move with caution. He isn’t one, I gather, to overlook a false step made by an enemy. And there’s to be no knifing, mind.”

He assured me earnestly that he would be secret, circumspect, always entirely at my disposal and commands. And with that I had to rest content.

After lunch on that second day, restless beyond endurance, I left him to an hour’s siesta while I went for a walk in the bitter weather. I wanted to think my thoughts alone, to decide upon a plan of campaign, to clear my mind for battle. It was snowing again, and the wind was wilder than ever--a furious stimulant to action. I went down first of all into the road, and saw it swept as clean as a curling rink, though the drifts on the wood side were piled six feet deep against the bank. But, bethinking myself that Dalston, or even his uncanny lady, might chance to come that way, I altered my mind, and, turning again into the Caddle, went off northward towards Hags Lane.

It was stiff enough work while the trees protected me; but once out in the open, lungs, muscle, and resolution had to make a common cause of it. There was no thinking of anything here but just how to set one foot before the other and hold on. The wind was like a chaff cutter, whirling off ends of snow that stung one’s skin like straw points; the fields went up and down in tossed billows of white, with the ground frozen deep green in the troughs of them; leaden sky and spinning flakes and the dim tracery of trees were all wrought together in one’s view, as if life had got into that inextricable tangle which must mean the end of things. A wild enough day for a constitutional, one might have thought; and yet, it seemed, I was not the only, nor the weakest vessel, which had been driven to venture abroad in it. For, beating at length into the comparative harbourage of Hags Lane, I saw, come there before me in pursuit of shelter, the figure of a solitary young lady.

She stood under a white-streaked hawthorn which, protruding from the bank, afforded her a certain cover. In her hand was a broken umbrella, which dangled like a shot rook with its pinions flopping. Her face looked very white and her eyes preternaturally large.

I went up to her. “Miss Christmas,” I said, “are you out of your senses?”

I could have thought that some soft sound, even like a suppressed sob, came from her lips. If I was not mistaken, she hastened to convince me at least that the fact of my arrival had nothing to do with it. Her answer was as cold as the falling snow.

“I don’t think so. I am quite capable of taking care of myself, thank you.”

“You are not, if you can venture out alone on such a day as this. I must take you home at once.”

She curled her lip magnificently.

“I’m afraid I don’t quite understand you. I wish you would go to another tree. There is plenty of room in this lane for both of us.”

“If I go, I shall go altogether.”

She turned her shoulder on me.

“I don’t want to be rude,” she said.

Now, whatever the meaning of her presence here, her escapade was the maddest thing conceivable. I was quite at a loss how to account for it or persuade her from it, when suddenly the devil put a suspicion, half tormenting, half mocking, into my head, and I spoke recklessly, on the spur of it.

“Mr Dando has gone away,” I said, “if it was any hope of running across him that brought you here.”

She started--turned swiftly--and I saw that look on her face which I had seen once before.

“Ira,” I cried, “don’t say it!”

She threw away the dislocated umbrella, burst into tears, and ran out into the snow. But she had not gone ten paces, when she stumbled and sank to her knees. In an instant I was beside her. I did not know what had happened to me. Is this sort of thing after all a stroke--or perhaps a sudden possession? Something like a fiery pulse was hammering in my brain. I felt furious, savage, half suffocated--reckless with a lust of pain, to inflict it and invite it. We were Pan and Syrinx in the blasting weather. I was crazy to make a reed of her sweet red mouth, and breathe my soul of passion into it. This frenzy may have been long germinating in me. Its delivery came in a roar of flame--why at this moment more than at another I cannot say. Perhaps it was the sudden sense of my isolation, alone with her in that cold soft world--her helplessness--the appeal of her young troubled face--my own much troubled soul. I had no claim on her, nor hope nor right of claim that could be held to exonerate me. Who was I to cull such a flower to my bastardy? And yet I could not control this sudden insane feeling, nor deny myself the mad indulgence of it. Come what would, I would take for my own so much of her as my lips would carry. I lifted her in my arms, while she struggled weakly to repulse me.

“No use,” I said fiercely. “I am strong, and a brute perhaps, and I am going to use my strength to rob your lips. They have insulted me often enough to deserve that toll. Scream if you like. It can hurt no one but yourself. Why did you think I made that remark about Johnny Dando? I myself hardly knew at the moment; but now I know. I was jealous--wickedly, horribly jealous. I had no right to be, I own--no right to think at all of you. But I do, Ira--I can’t help it; no more can you. I think of you, I am thinking of you now, in a way that would make you blush if you knew. Be quiet; it is useless your struggling. I want just that much of you--your mouth, and I intend to have it. Then I will let you go, and you can punish me as you like. Only this one thing you will never be able to say again--that your lips are virgin lips to the man who shall come to court and win you. You had better say nothing about it to him. That will be always the secret between you and me, Ira; and I will promise for my part to hold it inviolate.”

Something in the word, perhaps, drove me beyond myself. I bent my face down towards hers.

She had lain all this time like a wounded fawn in my arms, her eyes closed, her lips a little parted, the breath fluttering in her tender side. Now suddenly, to my wonderment, she looked up at me with a wistful smile.

“Richard,” she said, “you do not want me to die, do you? I thought I was going to; and then you came, and I could have cried with delight. I was so cold, and I had lost myself, and my heart seemed to fly out to your warmth and strength; and I thought, He is going to help me, though I have been so foolish; and suddenly I felt quite safe and happy.”

The madness died down in me, like a flame on which fragrant spices have been thrown. I seemed to myself to gasp for breath. She had seen me coming to her in her peril, and had felt safe.

“No, Ira,” I said, in a low choking voice, “I do not want you to die.”

“Then why do you threaten me with this killing shame?”

“I must have some of you. I never knew my own mad need until this moment.”

“Are you in love with me, Richard?”

“Yes. Now you mention it, I suppose that’s it.”

“And do you want to shame the thing you love?”

“No, Ira, if you would only love me too a little. Will you?”

She gave a thread of a smile.

“How can I help it, if it is to save myself?”

I gathered her furiously to my breast, and rose to my feet, holding her so. My arms were crushed about her; I set my teeth, snarling, to the demons of the storm. Let death and hate try to come to conclusions with me for this my possession. Not a breath should enter to despoil her, if I knew her really for my own. I looked with wonder once more into her face. The very veins in it were things to love like flowers; the snowflakes crisped upon her hair; her eyes were closed again, and happily, it seemed to me.

“My God!” I said. “It can’t be true--it can’t. Answer me, Ira. Are you not offended?”

“I don’t think so, Richard.”

“Oh, my love! You said your heart flew out to me.”

“You mustn’t be too exacting,” she whispered.

“Why don’t you open your eyes, Ira? I am mad to read them.”

“Yes, that’s it.”

I held her closer still.

“Ira, I shall never kiss you now, until you give me leave with your own lips.”

She did not answer. Suddenly I saw a smile flicker on her mouth, and her long lids opened--just a crevice.

“Richard!” she panted, “they never gave you leave.”

“Yes, they did, they did. O! the world has gone by us, Ira, and we are left alone together in the old first heaven of things.”

We sat together presently, very unwisely, in the snow under the old hawthorn--at least I sat on the snow and Ira on me. But we were both content.

“My poor umbrella,” she said. “It was blown to pieces in my hand.”

“What made you do such an insane thing--come out at all?”

“Are you sorry I did?”

“Sorry! Supposing I had not taken a walk? Supposing the cold had killed you?”

“Would you have minded _very_ much, Richard?”

This fond stichomythia! these amorous anglings for assurance and reassurance of love’s blisses! They are not for the wise to understand. I had not understood them myself an hour ago. Let me hide their memory away in that old old tabernacle of nature, where only the foolish and the selfsame smitten shall steal in to contemplate and adore.

Ira accounted to me for her rashness. The sight of Lady Skene’s restless anguish--for the child, though better from that dread attack of two nights ago, was still in a parlous state--had in the end proved too much for her, and she had hurried out to forget herself in exercise and fresh air. Then, wandering on blindly in the snow, she had suddenly awakened to the knowledge that she was lost, and very cold, and that the wind and rushing flakes seemed all at once to have become things of animate wickedness, shutting her round and in, and barring every exit with spears of ice.

“You must have been thinking very deeply, Ira, to have come so far without noticing. I wonder what about?”

“Yes, Richard. When--when we think a good deal of something, I suppose something is a good deal in our thoughts, isn’t it?”

“How aggravating of you! I was already pluming myself on a nice compliment. Well, _you_ have been in _my_ thoughts enough, I can tell you.”

“Have I? That is why I have felt cold for such a time, I suppose.”

“It sha’n’t be my fault if you feel cold ever again. Do you know what fools we are to sit here? I’m in a fine glow, myself; but how about you?”

“O! your arms are about me.”

“You ought to feel them like stove pipes, if they come anywhere near expressing their own ardour.”

“Please be a little less violent in your language, Richard. Do you know you are rather a savage creature altogether.”

“You shall tame me. I have had my excuses, Ira--I really have.”

“I know, my dear lord. How shouldn’t I know indeed!”

She put up a penitent mouth. Her sweetness and submission quite overcame me.

“Richard,” she whispered, with her face very close to mine, “do you know that, when you--when you cried out to stop me just now, it was the first time in all your life you had called me Ira?”

“Was it? I don’t know why I called you so then. It came out involuntarily.”

“Yes; so I supposed; and it was that that made me burst out crying and run away.”

“I don’t understand why.”

“No, you wouldn’t. You must be a woman first.”

“Like you, you chit, I suppose you mean. But something occurs to me that I want to ask you. Do you remember that kiss I gave you long ago?”

“Perhaps I do--if I flog my memory very hard.”

“Ira, did you hate me for it?”

“N-o-o--I think not.”

“What then?”

“You can imagine nothing but extremes. Isn’t there something--I only put it to you, you know--between hate, and--love?”

“No; nothing whatever.”

“O! then I suppose I didn’t hate you for it.”

“You dear! What would you have thought of Johnny Dando if he had dared such a thing?”

“Mr Dando? I should have been furious--outrageously furious; and then spoilt all the effect by laughing myself into hysterics, I expect. But it’s too absurd to think of for a moment. He’s much too good-mannered, for one thing.”

“O, Ira!”

“Does that hurt you, Richard? You have insulted me often enough to deserve that toll, dear. Don’t you remember your own words? But, there! It’s very helpful, sometimes, to be taken by storm.”

“I have been very cruel to you, you lovely soft thing.”

Her young arms stole sweetly about my neck.

“How nice to hear your flattery, Richard. You might beat me ten times a day, if you would always end by saying such things to me. And you have the air of believing them. _Am_ I pretty--to you, I mean?”

“As if you didn’t know it.”

“That is to say you think me spoilt.”

“Well, young lady, a cherry’s only the sweeter for having a little bruise in it. But you’ve come on finely in these years. To think what a detestable little prig you used to be!”

“Now you want to make me cry.”

“Cry away. There aren’t many women to whom tears are becoming, but I expect you are one of the few.”

“What a Sultan you are; but not very wise to flatter me there. Think what it would mean to have a crying wife!”

A wife! The words struck a sudden chill into me. My arms, strained passionately about the child, relaxed a little.

“Ira,” I groaned, “I swear that until this moment I have never realised my madness.”

She did not answer; but her eyes canvassed me with a sudden piteous wonder.

“That I should dream of such a monstrous thing--dream that any claim of mine to you would be listened to for a moment!”

She gave a heart-won happy sigh, and her face was summer again.

“Have _I_ not listened to you, Richard--with all my ears and heart?”

“Yes; but your guardian? The world?”

“What are they to us? I shall soon be my own mistress.”

“Yes, but--O, Ira! I wish I could say I shall soon be my own master.”

“You are master of me, and I am you, Richard. O, dear! are you going to break my heart after all you’ve said?”

I caught her to me once more in a rapture.

“You dear passionate baby! Do you realise to what, to whom you are binding yourself?”

“Yes, to my Richard, if you please; and if you abuse him any more, I shall cry in good earnest.”

How could I answer but in the terms of that lovers’ text-book which has endured since Eden? A silence fell between us; and then suddenly I felt myself shivering.

“We are a couple of fools, young woman,” I said, “love-making out here in the snow. That is not the way to provide against troubles that will need all our strength to meet them.”

She bestirred herself in quick alarm.

“O dear! what a selfish wretch! You have been keeping me warm all this time at your own cost. O, come away, Richard--come away at once, before it is too late.”

She pulled frantically at me. I laughed.

“I expect you will have to carry _me_ now, Ira. I feel as stiff as a gun barrel.”

“Richard!”

“There, Miss Christmas--nothing but my chaff; but on my word we ought to be moving. Will you come and sit with me a little in my own lodge?”

“O! you mustn’t ask me, Richard.”

“But, supposing I do, and insist?”

“Then I shall obey, of course.”

“And be very unhappy, of course; and a sweet dutiful devoted child. I am learning by degrees, Ira. But I must take you that way, though not to stop, because, with all my ardour, the prospect of that climb back by the fields doesn’t appeal to me, and the road is swept clean by the wind, so that we can walk on it easily, and get back by the main entrance. Come along, child.”

I had to carry her through the lane, nevertheless, and so on mostly until we reached the woods, where I could trust her to her own pretty feet. And there we walked in security, like authorised lovers.

“Now,” I said, “I have been forgetting everything but just our two selves. Is Lady Skene so very unapproachable, Ira?”

She stopped me suddenly, clinging to me, with a pained line come between her eyes.

“What does it all mean, Richard? There is something more than the child--I am sure of it; and it fills me with fear and anxiety.”

I held her silent a little, turning my face away in a gloom of irresolution.

“Yes, Ira, there is something more,” I said presently, and very softly--“something terribly serious and terribly upsetting.”

“I was certain of it,” she whispered. “And you know what it is? I can never forget her face that evening I found you, together. Am I not to know, Richard? It is not for my curiosity, indeed.”

“I am sure of it, dear,” I said. “It is your love for her. But I have a greater claim on your love now, Ira, and I must ask you, for the sake of that claim, to forbear questioning me at present. The secret is not my own--at least, not all my own--though it affects my interests very closely. Sometimes, even, I dare to hope of it a better claim to you than I possess now. But you mustn’t ask me, dear. There are ordeals, and interviews, and all sorts of unhappy explanations to be gone through with before I can trust myself to reveal it to you. But you mustn’t suppose, in the meantime, that I am Lady Skene’s enemy. Indeed, if that is true which I expect to be true, my interference will benefit her--in one way, at least. I am trying to circumvent a scoundrel, Ira, and chance has put some very wonderful evidence in my hands. I must not tell you more than that.”

“You are not in any danger--you yourself, Richard?” she asked fearfully.

“No, you love,” I said--“not more that most people who set themselves to battle against the forces of villainy. And now I am double-armoured in your love. It will be such a joy to me, Ira, to put it all out of mind when I am alone, and let your little image in to talk with me, and laugh with me, and sleep with me, too, for you can’t help it.”

She gazed into my face a little longer in great doubt and trouble, until the tears coming into her eyes made her blink, and she turned away.

“I wish,” she said woefully, “I could be thought strong enough to bear the burden with you--to help you, Richard.”

“Help me?” I cried--“never so much as by holding yourself and your dear love apart from all this debasing atmosphere of gloom and secrecy. I want to think of you out in the sunshine, Ira--something sweet and unspoiled for my heart to rest on. Now be a sensible dear. I shall come up to the house to see you to-morrow.”

“You will?” she whispered, brightening through her grief. “Come early, Richard.”

“Why not?” I cried cheeringly. “Small profits and quick returns, Ira, as Johnny would say. I sha’n’t let the grass grow under my feet, lest you change your mind.”

She gave me a lovely tremulous smile in reassurance for that, and we went on together again. The wind had dropped, almost suddenly, and the cold white woods were full of a wonderful stillness. As we passed by the darkling lodge, I thought of the figure hidden away within its shadows, and a glow of mighty triumph went through my veins, picturing that confederacy of love and death out of which was to be wrought for me a new manhood and a name.