Chapter IV: A Shock and a Revelation

Into these sacred shades (quoth she)
How dar’st thou be so bold
To enter, consecrate to me,
Or touch this hallowed mould?
—MICHAEL DRAYTON (_Quest of Cynthia_).

Ellinor sat on the stone bench in the Herb-Garden, gazing disconsolately at the flourishing bed of _Euphrosinum_—at the Star-of-Comfort—and reviewing the events of the past days with a heavy and discomforted heart.

It is but seldom now that she could find a few minutes of solitude, so many were the claims upon her time. For, besides the household duties and Master Simon’s unconscious tyranny, she was subjected to a kind of persecution of admiration on the part of Bindon’s male guests. There were times, indeed, when Colonel Harcourt’s shadowing attendance became so embarrassing that she was glad to turn to the protection which the boyish worship of Luke Herrick afforded.

With the former she felt instinctively that under an almost exaggerated gentleness and deference there lurked a gathering danger; whereas the youthful poet, however exuberant in his devotion, was not only a harmless, but a sympathetic companion.

While she was far from realising the peril in which she stood where her dearest hopes were concerned, she felt the difficulty of her position increase at every turn. Forced by David’s wish into the society of his visitors, she was there completely ostracised by the ladies after an art only known to the feminine community. Thus she was thrown upon the mercies of the gentlemen, and they were extended to her with but too ready charity. It would not have been in human nature not to talk and laugh with Luke Herrick when Miss Priscilla was going by, her little nose in the air. It was impossible not to accept with a smiling grace the chair, the footstool, the greeting offered to her with a mixture of paternal and courtierlike solicitude, amid the icy silence and the drawing away of skirts whenever she entered upon the circle.

Now and again, perhaps, her laugh may have been a little too loud, her smile a shade too sweet; but she would not have been a woman had the insulting attitude of the other women not led her to some reprisals. Moreover there was a deep sore place in her soul which cried out that he who should by rights be her protector held himself too scornfully aloof; nay, that he actually included her now and again in the cold glance which he swept round the table upon his unwelcome guests. To the end of the chapter a woman will always seize the obvious weapon wherewith to fight the indifference of the man she loves, and nine times out of ten it is herself she wounds therewith.

The basket that was to hold the health of the village was still empty by her side. Absently she fingered a sprig of wormwood—meet emblem, she thought, of her present mood. Indeed, Ellinor’s thoughts were not often so bitter. Not often was her brave spirit so dashed.

There came a light rapid step behind her, a burst of laughter; and, as she turned, the triumphant face of Herrick met her glance at so slight a distance from her own that she drew back in double indignation.

“Why have you followed me?” she exclaimed indignantly. “You know that no one is allowed here!”

“How can I choose but love and follow her
Whose shadow smells like mild pomander?
How can I choose but——”

The gay voice broke off suddenly, and a flush—fellow to that of Ellinor, yet one of engaging embarrassment, overspread the singer’s face.

“Well, sir?” she asked.

How stern, how stiff, how unapproachable, this woman whom nature had made of such soft lovely stuff! Luke Herrick stooped, lifted a corner of her muslin apron, and carried it humbly to his lips.

“How could I choose but kiss her! Whence does come
The storax, spikenard, myrrh and labdanum?”

he went on, dropping his recitative note for what was almost a whisper. From his suppliant posture he looked up with eyes in which the man pleaded, yet where the boy’s irrepressible, irresponsible mischievousness still lurked. It was impossible not to feel that anger was an absurd weapon against so frivolous a foe. Moreover she liked him. There was something infectious in his mercurial humour, something attractive in the honest boy nature that lay open for all to read. There was something of a relief, also, to be obliged to jest and to laugh. To be near him was like meeting a breeze from some lost, careless youth.

Why, after all, should she not try and forget her own troubles? What was the Herb-Garden to him, to David, that, with a fond faithfulness she should insist on keeping it consecrate to the memory of one dawn! He who had begged for the key of it—what use had he made of the gift? How many a golden morning, how many a pearly day-break, how many an amethyst evening, had she haunted the scented enclosure—always alone!

“I’ll not say a single little word,” he urged. “I’ll be as mute as a sundial, if you’ll only let me bask in your radiance! I’ll just hold your basket and your scissors, and I’ll chew every single herb and tell you whether its taste be sweet, sour or bitter, if you’ll only give me a leaf between your white fingers. And then if I die——”

He thumped his ruffled shirt and languished.

“How did you get in?” she asked.

But though her tone was still rebuking, he laughed back into her blue eyes. He made a gesture: she saw the traces of moss, of lichen and crumbling mortar upon his kerseymere, the rent in his lace ruffle, the tiny broken twig that had caught his crisp curl.

“Ah,” she cried, “you have found my old secret scaling place.... Did you land in the balm bed?” she asked, laughing.

Colonel Harcourt, in search of Ellinor, looked in through the locked gate and knocked once or twice, then called gently. But, though he could hear bursts of laughter and the intermingling sounds of voices in gay conversation, he could see nothing but the strange herb-beds and bushes, intersected by narrow paths, overhung by swarmlets of humming bees and other honey-seeking insects; and no one seemed to hear him.

As he stood, smiling to himself in good humoured cynicism, the tall figure of his host, with bare head, came slowly out of the laurel walk that led to the open plot before the gate. Sir David seemed absorbed in thought. And it was not until he was within a pace or two of the other man that he suddenly looked up.

“Good morning!” said the colonel genially. “A lovely day, is it not? Queer place, that old garden of weeds—our friend, Master Simon’s herbary, as I understand. The gate is locked, I find.”

As he spoke, Colonel Harcourt scanned the set, pallid face with a keen curiosity. It required all a sick woman’s disordered fancy (he told himself) to imagine that this cold-blooded student, this walking symbol of abstractedness should be in danger of being led away into romantic folly. The soldier’s full smiling lips parted still more broadly, as he went on to reflect that, whatever designs the pretty widow might have upon her cousin’s fortune, her warm splendid personality was scarce likely to be attracted by “this long, thin, icy, fish of a fellow!”

Sir David had inclined his head gravely on the other’s greeting. When the hearty voice had rattled off its speech, he answered that he regretted that it was the rule to admit no visitors to the Herb-Garden. And then drew a key from his pocket and slipped it into the lock, so completely ignoring his guest’s persistent proximity, that the colonel, as a man of breeding would have felt it incumbent upon him to retire, had he not special reasons for standing his ground.

“Indeed!” said he. “Forbidden ground?”

“Yes, the plants are many of them deadly poison. It is a necessary precaution.”

“No doubt—quite right. Very prudent. But—what about the charming Mrs. Ellinor Marvel, the beauteous widow, the bewitching and amiable cousin, whom you are fortunate to have as companion in this romantic house?”

David dropped his hand from the key, turned and fixed his grave eyes on the speaker. Their expression was merely one of waiting for the next remark. The colonel hardly felt quite as assured of his ground as before, but he resumed in the same tone of banter:

“I saw her going there just now. Is it quite safe to let so precious a being into such dangerous precincts?”

The remark ended with that laugh upon the hearty note of which so much of his popularity rested. Most people found it impossible not to respond to this breezy way of Colonel Harcourt’s. But there was not a flicker of change upon Sir David’s countenance.

Yet, when he spoke, after coldly pausing till the other’s mirth should have utterly ceased, and remarked that his cousin, Mrs. Marvel, was associated with her father’s scientific investigations and therefore was the only person, besides the speaker himself, whom he allowed to make use of the garden, the colonel felt that his insinuation had been understood and rebuked by a courtesy severer than anger. His resentment suddenly rose. The easy contempt with which he had hitherto regarded the uncongenial personality of his host, flamed on the instant into active dislike; and he was glad to have a weapon in his hand which might find a joint in this irritatingly impenetrable armour.

“Indeed!” cried he, ruffled out of his usual commanding urbanity.—Trying to smile he found himself sneering. “Indeed? Aha, very good, I declare! It is worth while living on a tower to be able to retain those confiding views of life! It has never struck you, I suppose—the stars are doubtless never in the least irregular in their courses, but young and charming widows have little ways of their own—it has never struck you that this forbidden wilderness might be an ideal spot for rendezvous?”

Sir David shot at the speaker a look very unlike that far-off indifferent glance which was all he had hitherto vouchsafed him. This sudden, steel-bright, concentrated gaze was like the baring of a blade. Dim stories of the recluse’s romantic and violent youth began to stir in Harcourt’s memory. He straightened his own sturdy figure and the instinctive hot defiance of the fighter at the first hint of an opposing spirit ran tingling to his stiffening muscles.

So, for a quick-breathing moment, they fixed each other. Then, through the drowsy humming summer stillness rang from within the Herb-Garden the note of Herrick’s singing voice:

“Go, lovely rose and, interwove
With other flowers, bind my love.
Tell her too, she must not be,
Longer flowing, longer free——”

The melody broke off. There was a burst of laughter; and then Ellinor’s voice, with an unusual sound of young merriment in it, sprang up into hearing as a crystal fountain springs into sight:

“Foolish boy, there are no roses here!”

Sir David started. His eyes remained fixed, but they no longer saw. In yet another moment he had turned away and was gone, leaving Colonel Harcourt staring after him.

“’Pon my life,” said the _roué_ to himself, “the woman was right—My God, he’s mad for her!”

Upon a second and more composed thought, he began to chuckle and feel his own personality resume its lost importance.

“The situation is becoming interesting,” he thought. His eye fell on the key, forgotten in the lock and he broke into a short laugh. He then unlocked the gate, slipped the key into his pocket and walked into the garden.

“I had no idea,” he said, addressing the balm beds, as he passed them, “that I could be such a useful friend to my Lady.”