Chapter VIII: With Dora in the Drive

I

There was just the chance! "Ah, Chance be kind!" his prayer, but in the simpler form: "If only I can see her!" For he could not have told himself precisely what he desired of her. The new condition of mind and body that possessed him was too newly come for him clearly to understand towards what it impelled him. We speak of love as an intoxication. He was as it were beneath the first and sudden influence of a draught of wine more potent than the drinker knows--causing an elevation of the spirits, that is to say, a sharper note in the surroundings, something of a singing in the ears; a readiness for adventure, but not a clear notion as to the form of adventure required; a sudden comprehension that there is more tingling stuff in life than ever the dull round has revealed; but a sense that it is there and must be found rather than an exact knowledge of what it will prove to be. He only knew he wished to see her; that seemed the goal; he had no thoughts nor fancies to take him to what might lie beyond--then reached the Abbey gates and saw the drive, and saw her there, and stopped as if a hand suddenly rebuked him in the throat.

That he felt a surge run through his being and flame upon his face, that he felt suddenly abashed and could not dare to make his presence known--these marked his nearness to knowledge of his state.

II

The night was very clear. By now the full moon had disdained more trifling with the clouds that earlier had joined hands about her. Far to the west they trailed their watery burdens to the hills: she queened above them--queenly serene, aloof in the unbounded vault that all her empery of stars about her ruled and divided subject to her rule. The Abbey gates stood wide. Between their pillars little breezes came to him and brought to him the fragrance of the flowers that banked the drive on either hand. He saw they also stirred the dress and some light scarf that Dora wore.

Mystery was here. He knew not what--only that, conditioned by some new sense that caused him strangeness, he was upon the threshold of things as yet unknown.

He watched--afraid as yet. She was stooped above a cluster of pansies. While he looked, she plucked a blossom here and there, her hand now hovering above their shade and now caressed amid their bloom, and raised them to her face.

She turned then and came towards him; and he drew back a step. Mystery was here; not yet, not yet to challenge what it held!

She reached the gates and paused a moment. The little breezes that had brought the flowers to him stopped their play; her scarf's floating ends--gossamer and delicately painted--came softly to her sides. You might have said that the night airs had heralded her here, had taken form in her scarf's ends to attend her as she walked, and now awaited which way she should please to move.

Snow-White-and-Rose-Red! The childish appreciation of her, aroused in him years before, returned to him again. Snow-White-and-Rose-Red--that was she! As when a child he had been caused a childish wonder and a child's unspoilt delight at so rare a thing as she appeared to him, so now, seeing her for the first time with the new eyes that belonged to his new condition, he felt himself amazed and almost awed that beauty could have this degree. Snow-White-and-Rose-Red! All she had promised in her girlish years dowered her now in the burgeoning of her maidenhood--and dowered more than it had told, as all the beauty of the opening bud scarcely can hint the opened blossom's beauty; and dowered more than it had told by the increasing strangeness, as she grew, of this rare perfection of each feature in one face. Rare, strangely rare, the transparent fairness of her skin; rare, rare that almost crimson shade on either cheek, sharply defined, not blended, as it were frozen there; rare the dark pansy of her wide and stilly eyes; rare, most rare of all, transcending all, the high air with which she bore herself--that her chaste and faultless face maintained, with which her eyes looked and that her presence seemed to make.

He saw her dress. He saw her scarf to be some filmy veil about her shoulders and that beneath it all her throat was bare. He saw that it was turned about her throat in a loose fold that lay where her bosom was disclosed by the silk evening gown she wore, draped low, but maidenly discreet. At throat, at breast, at arms, at hands, he saw this filmy thing was challenged of its whiteness and seemed to take a shade.

She moved; he thought to speak. Mystery was here and held him on its threshold.

Watching her he had a sudden new conception of her quality. Later, when he had spoken to her, when he had left her, when he trod again each passage of their meeting, recalled her voice, her mode of speech, and how she bore herself, he recalled that conception and knew it was most proper to her, and thrilled to know it so.

As he looked, and afterwards as he remembered, he conceived the word that estimated all her beauty, all her quality and her degree--frozen. Frozen and thus invested with the strange rareness that frozen beauty has. Frozen and thus most proper that those flames upon her cheeks never could stain beyond themselves, as blood that will not run in snow; proper the quaint precision of the words she used, as icicles broken in a cold hand; proper the high pitch of her voice, curiously hard, without modulations, as winter sounds are hard.

Snow-White-and-Rose-Red--and frozen snow and frozen red. She was that in his new discovery of her: and was that better than he knew; caparisoned and trained for that.

III

She raised to her face the pansies he had seen her gather, caressed them a moment against her lips, then turned and went a few steps back. And then he spoke--stepped from the pillar's shadow and into mystery's doors and called her--"Dora!"

The little breezes ran among the flowers: "Bend! Bend! you sleepy things and blow her your caresses where she moves again!"--ran among the tree-tops high above the borders: "Salute! Salute! you sentinels, and show your joy, she comes!"--chased from her path a daring leaf or two--sprung to her person and bade her veil attend her--caught his low whisper and tossed it from her ears.

Tiny the stir; yet stiller all the voice he made. He waited; breathed her name again--"Dora!" and then she heard.

She gave the faintest start; turned, and said, "Why--Percival?" and then a little laugh, and then spoke "Percival!" again.

He went to her. "Did I frighten you? I'm sorry."

He went into the mystery that barred him at the gate. Her surprise caused the shades upon her cheeks to flame to sudden crimson, promoting her beauty to its most high effect. Her lips--also of her surprise--were lightly parted, alert, with the aspect of some nymph of the woods and glades, startled and poised to listen. Not yet, not yet his to know all the truth of what influence had him here. He only had known he wished to see her: he only knew now that he wished to stay and talk with her. He was in the mystery--not yet of it; but already, at this first contact with her presence, a glimmering, a suspicion arose--softened his voice, quickened his senses.

"I ought to have been frightened," she said. "I never heard you come. But I scarcely was startled. It is the most curious circumstance, but I happened to be thinking of you."

As icicles broken in a cold hand!

He did not cry, as love might have directed him--"Thinking of me! You!" Not yet, not yet the knowledge that would give that ardour. He only was boyishly pleased. He only said: "Were you, Dora? I'm awfully glad you were."

And she, no more aware of deeper things than he: "Well, they were not particularly nice thoughts I had of you," she said, and gave a little laugh that toned with the clear pitch of her voice. "Indeed, I was vexed with you."

He laughed back an easy laugh: "I wonder what I've done?"

"It is what you have not done, Percival--or did not do. I was at the Manor all the afternoon and had the dullest time that anybody could imagine. Your fault. Rollo was expecting you to tea, and was looking out for you all the time, and was the most ungracious person. To me, you know, it is ridiculous how he seems to dote upon you."

And Percival laughed brightly again. Happy, happy to be with her--alone, alone at this hour, in this still place! "Old Rollo!" he laughed. "Well, anyway, if I failed him, I've seen you."

She asked him. "But why have you come--so late?" and at that his laughter left him.

"I wanted to see you," he said. "I don't know why," and paused.

He did not know; but in declaring it to her, and in that pause, came a step nearer discovery. Some nameless reason held his speech, and, while she waited, fluttered in his eyes and communicated its influence to her also. In that pause suspicion came to both of some strange element that trembled in the air--fugitive, remote, but causing its presence to be known as a scent declares itself upon the breeze. She saw a tinge of redness kindle in his face. He saw the faintest trace of deepening colour in the shades upon her cheeks.

Not yet, not yet the truth! Transient the spell and quickly gone. Only, a little shaken by it, "You're going away soon, Dora," he said. "I think that's why I came."

Free of it: "But that's not a reason," she answered him lightly. "I am not going so suddenly--not till the end of the week."

"Saturday--it's the day after to-morrow."

"Ah, well, time goes so slowly here."

"Dull for you--I can imagine that. To this French school, are you going, Dora? I heard you telling Lady Burdon of it."

"It's not a school. No more school for me, and I am very thankful."

"Tell me what you do there."

She went into a sudden break of laughter. She had somewhere picked up a single vulgar phrase that consorted most strangely with her precise manner of speech. "Your coming here like this," she laughed, "and asking such very funny things!"--then used her phrase--"it tickles me to death."

The piquancy of it delighted him, and he laughed delightedly, and for some reason had a stronger sense of her rare beauty. Not yet, not yet the truth, but nearer yet, even as such truth advances by the strangest and most secret steps.

"Tell me, though, Dora!"

"Oh, how it can interest you I am puzzled to imagine! Pleasant enough things, then. There are twelve of us there, all English, I am glad to say. We never speak English, though--always French; and then there are German and Italian days; they make us laugh very much."

As icicles broken in the hand!

Her laughter had caused the shades on her cheek to glow. He gazed at her in sheerest admiration; felt a new stirring of his blood; felt his breath quicken. She was close, close to him. The little breezes that had attended her, and had gone as if asulk at his intrusion, came with a sudden little fury to win her back again, and smote him full with all the fragrance that she had, and tossed her scarf and tossed her skirt against him.

She drew back her skirt, using the hand that held the pansies she had gathered. The action brushed his hand with hers and with her flowers.

Not yet, not yet the truth, but almost come! He slipped his fingers about her wrist, holding her hand mid-breast between them. "Give me those flowers, Dora."

She slower in approaching it, but suspicious again of some strange element in the air, as a fawn that lifts a doubtful head to question a new thing in the breeze. "You have one buttonhole already," she told him, her voice not very easy.

He looked down at Ima's wild rose in his coat. "That's nothing," he said, and began to remove it whence it was pinned.

He was clumsy, for his hand trembled--the other still had hers. He was clumsy. Thoughts, thoughts, were at hammer in his brain--new to him, fierce to him and, as from iron in a forge, striking a glow that glowed within his eyes.

She saw the glow, saw how his hand shook. "It is well fastened," she said.

He broke off the rose at its head, jerked it aside and drew down the stalk. She suffered him to take her flowers, and very carefully then he placed them where the rose had been--hers! hers! That she had plucked! That she had held! He was at the truth and he looked at her.

She almost there.

The glow in his eyes was turned full upon her and she stepped back from it. The secret thing the night had was full about her and she had alarm of it. "I find it rather chilly standing here," she said, "--and late. I must be going in."

He watched her take the veil about her shoulders another turn about her throat, and watched her move away a pace. He started after her as though he burst through bonds that held him. He walked beside her, moving his tongue in his mouth as though it were locked from words and sought them; and he could hear his heart knock.

So, without words--in silence that shouted louder than speech--they came to where the drive bent towards the house. She paused, and he knew his dismissal.

His face was red, as a child reddens when control of tears is on the edge of breaking. His voice, when he spoke, had a strained note as the voice is caused to strain when only one thought can be spoken and a hundred press for speech. And strange--as between them--the words at last he found: "Dora, you'd hate a man--wouldn't you?--with nothing--who just poked along and did nothing?"

It was the door that should introduce her to the knowledge wherein he struggled. But she was only surprised, not recognising it; and surprised, relieved indeed. "Any one would," she said.

He flung wide the door. "Ah! Do you suppose I am going to?"

IV

Love is an instinct and is played by instinct. Struggling in the knowledge, in the mystery, that had drawn him here and that now engulfed him, he scarcely yet was aware that he loved, but by instinct was put in command of all the cunning of the game. His question fronted her with personal issue between them; it is the first, the last, the essential strategy.

"Why, Percival!" she said and stopped--saw the door wide; and he saw the colour deepen where her colour lay. "Why, Percival, why ever should I suppose it of you?"

He could control his voice no more. The strained note went. He said thickly: "But you'll begin to think it. In time you're bound to--if I let you. And then scorn me. If I just idled here you're bound to scorn me. Any one would--you said it."

Nervous her breathing. "But you--you never could be like that, Percival. I've always thought of you as doing things. Every one thinks it. I have noticed how they do."

All the distress he had suffered earlier in the day was back with him now, joined in fiercest tumult with what caused his heart to knock. He cried "They soon won't!" and cried it on a bitter note that made her go an unthinking step towards what waited her. "Percival, they always will," she said. "I always will, Percival."

The redness went from his face. His own clear voice came back to him. All, all his being braced from storm to his control. He breathed "Dora! Will you?"

The stress that had been his was hers. She found no words; she only nodded--moved her lips for "yes" but made no sound. He had come slowly to the truth, by blundering ways that sometimes brought him near and sometimes went astray. She was suddenly come--and come, not of herself, but of as it were a flame that his voice as he spoke, his ardour as he bent towards her, seemed to communicate. She was suddenly come, was a degree bewildered, wanted even yet some further light. She only nodded.

"Dora, you are going for a long time. I heard you tell--"

She said very low: "For a year."

"Dora! A year!"

"I am to be a year away. It is the last time. It is to finish."

"A year! A year! Oh, Dora, a year!"

Her face was close to his, her lips a shade apart, her wide eyes lifted to him. Rare, rare he had thought her; perfect he knew her. That mystic thing the night had held, held them mute, magnetised, privy from all the world, alone. They stood so close the air he drew had first caressed her. They stood so close that her young bosom almost told him how she breathed. Slowly, as he were drawn to it, he stooped towards her; steadily, as she were held, she suffered his face to approach. Their lips touched, stayed for a space--smaller, infinitely less, than mind can conceive; wider, immeasurably more, as their joined spirits reckoned time, and rushed through time in bliss of ecstasy, than mind can reckon space.

And then he kissed her.

Crimson she flamed in the places of her colour--flaming and more flaming and deeper yet their flame. Their sharp limitations drove her driven white about them; from throat to flame and flame to brow as lily was her hue. She did not move nor speak, and he, amazed before her rareness, drew back a step. She might have been a statue, so still she stood. She might not have breathed, nor thought, so motionless her breast, her eyes so wide, so still her gaze. Only that glowing scarlet on her cheeks, only her skin's transparency--soft, deep, as if beneath it some jewel gave a secret light--declared her mortal and proclaimed she lived.

A space passed. She came from the trance in which she seemed to be. She gave a little sigh. As if she had been struck, not kissed; as if she had been robbed, not possessed. "Oh! Percival!" she said.

And he: "Oh! Dora!"

He sprung to her, took both her hands; clasped them in his and adored her with his eyes; bent his head to them and raised them to his lips.

"Oh, Dora, have I hurt you? Oh, Dora, I love you so!"

"Let me go in, Percival!"

He held her hands against his breast. "I could not help it! I could not help it! I love you, Dora! I've always loved you! I suddenly knew I'd always loved you!"

She spoke so low he scarcely could hear her voice: "Percival, let me go in!"

"Oh, Dora, have I hurt you? Dear, dear Dora, you are all the world to me. I love you so, I love you so!"

The faintest movement of her head gave him his answer and gave him ecstasy.

"I have not hurt you? You are not angry? I knew--or I would not have kissed you. Speak to me, dear Dora."

She only whispered: "Percival, I would like to go in. I am afraid."

He cried: "I know. You are so beautiful--so beautiful; not meant for me to love you."

"You are hurting my hands, Percival."

He kissed her hands again--fragile and white and cold and scented, like crushed, cold flowers in his grasp. He told her: "From the very first I loved you--but could not know it then. From that day when I first saw you! Look how I must have been born to love you--you'll not be frightened then. Snow-White-and-Rose-Red I called you. Smile, darling Dora, as you smiled when I told you in the muddy lane that day. Do you remember?"

She had no smile: still seemed aswoon, still scarcely breathed, as some bewildered dove--captured, past fluttering--which only quivers in the hands that hold it.

"If only you can sometimes think of me. You will understand then and think again perhaps, and know all my life is changed, and know that everything I do I shall do for you. I'll not see you again. I'll not be here when you come back."

At that he felt her fingers move within his hands.

"I cannot stay here now--now that I love you. I shall go."

He felt her tremble, and she breathed: "Oh, why? Oh, where?"

"How could I face you again and still be idling here? I don't know where, Dora. I only know why--because I love you so. Anywhere, anything to get me something that will give you to me!"

She whispered "Percival!" and stopped as though she had not strength for more. And he breathed "Dora!" as though he knew what she would say and by intensity of love would draw it from her.

She slowly drew her hands from his. She took them to her breast, and faltered again--again as she were wounded, afraid, struck, threatened, atremble at some fearful brink, robbed of some vital virtue: "Oh, Percival!" and caught her breath and said "Oh, Percival, what is it--this?"

"It is love!" he cried. "Dora, it is love!"

She gave a little sigh; she unclasped her hands; seemed to relax in all her spirit; suffered her hands, like cold white flowers floating earthwards, lovewards to float to his.

"Tell me!" he breathed.

Soft as her hands fell, "I always shall think of you," she told him.

He besought her "Tell me!"

She whispered "Always!"

In a man's voice, out of a sudden and terrible review of his condition--possessed of nothing, chained to do nothing--and of her high estate: "Others will love you!" he cried.

As they would nestle there and there abide, her fingers moved within his hands.

In a man's voice, full man as full love makes, "Tell me," he besought her.

Scarcely perceptible her answer came; scarcely her lips moved for it--faint as the timid breeze ventured to the innermost thicket, soft as the hushed caress of summer rain along the hedgerows, "I shall always love you," she breathed.

Shortly he left her.