Chapter X: Part III: Love Lies Bleeding (2)

Rose from my bosom murmured. ‘Love is strong as Death! Love is strong as Death!’

I locked her in my arms, so tightly that she grew breathless. ‘Hold me,’ she panted. ‘You are strong.’

A cold hand touched our foreheads so that, benumbed, we sank together to the ground, to fall instantly into a dreamless slumber.

When I awoke the clear grey light of the early morning had spread over the country. Beyond the Hell Garden the sun was just bursting through the clouds, and had already spread a long golden haze along the horizon. The babbling of the streamlet that runs down to Halkton was so distinct that it seemed almost at my side. How sweetly the wild thyme smelt! Filled with the tender recollections of the night, without turning, I called Rose Pascal from her sleep.

‘Sweetheart, sweetheart, waken! waken! waken! See how glad the world looks--see the omens of a happy future.’

No answer came. I sat up, and looking round me saw that I was alone. A square stone lay near. When the sun was high I crept to read the inscription carved thereon:--‘_Here, at four cross-paths, lieth, with a stake through the bosom, the body of Rose Pascal, who in her sixteenth year wilfully cast away the life God gave._’

THE BASILISK

Marina gave no sign that she heard my protestation. The embroidery of Venus’s hands in her silk picture of The Judgment of Paris was seemingly of greater import to her than the love which almost tore my soul and body asunder. In absolute despair I sat until she had replenished her needle seven times. Then impassioned nature cried aloud:--

‘You do not love me!’

She looked up somewhat wearily, as one debarred from rest. ‘Listen,’ she said. ‘There is a creature called a Basilisk, which turns men and women into stone. In my girlhood I saw the Basilisk--I am stone!’

And, rising from her chair, she departed the room, leaving me in amazed doubt as to whether I had heard aright. I had always known of some curious secret in her life: a secret which permitted her to speak of and to understand things to which no other woman had dared to lift her thoughts. But alas! it was a secret whose influence ever thrust her back from the attaining of happiness. She would warm, then freeze instantly; discuss the purest wisdom, then cease with contemptuous lips and eyes. Doubtless this strangeness had been the first thing to awaken my passion. Her beauty was not of the kind that smites men with sudden craving: it was pale and reposeful, the loveliness of a marble image. Yet, as time went on, so wondrous became her fascination that even the murmur of her swaying garments sickened me with longing. Not more than a year had passed since our first meeting, when I had found her laden with flaming tendrils in the thinned woods of my heritage. A very Dryad, robed in grass colour, she was chanting to the sylvan deities. The invisible web took me, and I became her slave.

Her house lay two leagues from mine. It was a low-built mansion lying in a concave park. The thatch was gaudy with stonecrop and lichen. Amongst the central chimneys a foreign bird sat on a nest of twigs. The long windows blazed with heraldic devices; and paintings of kings and queens and nobles hung in the dim chambers. Here she dwelt with a retinue of aged servants, fantastic women and men half imbecile, who salaamed before her with eastern humility and yet addressed her in such terms as gossips use. Had she given them life they could not have obeyed with more reverence. Quaint things the women wrought for her--pomanders and cushions of thistledown; and the men were never happier than when they could tell her of the first thrush’s egg in the thornbush or the sege of bitterns that haunted the marsh. She was their goddess and their daughter. Each day had its own routine. In the morning she rode and sang and played; at noon she read in the dusty library, drinking to the full of the dramatists and the platonists. Her own life was such a tragedy as an Elizabethan would have adored. None save her people knew her history, but there were wonderful stories of how she had bowed to tradition, and concentrated in herself the characteristics of a thousand wizard fathers. In the blossom of her youth she had sought strange knowledge, and had tasted thereof, and rued.

The morning after my declaration she rode across her park to the meditating walk I always paced till noon. She was alone, dressed in a habit of white lutestring with a loose girdle of blue. As her mare reached the yew hedge, she dismounted, and came to me with more lightness than I had ever beheld in her. At her waist hung a black glass mirror, and her half-bare arms were adorned with cabalistic jewels.

When I knelt to kiss her hand, she sighed heavily. ‘Ask me nothing,’ she said. ‘Life itself is too joyless to be more embittered by explanations. Let all rest between us as now. I will love coldly, you warmly, with no nearer approaching.’ Her voice rang full of a wistful expectancy: as if she knew that I should combat her half-explained decision. She read me well, for almost ere she had done I cried out loudly against it:--‘It can never be so--I cannot breathe--I shall die?’

She sank to the low moss-covered wall. ‘Must the sacrifice be made?’ she asked, half to herself. ‘Must I tell him all?’ Silence prevailed a while, then turning away her face she said: ‘From the first I loved you, but last night in the darkness, when I could not sleep for thinking of your words, love sprang into desire.’

I was forbidden to speak.

‘And desire seemed to burst the cords that bound me. In that moment’s strength I felt that I could give all for the joy of being once utterly yours.’

I longed to clasp her to my heart. But her eyes were stern, and a frown crossed her brow.

‘At morning light,’ she said, ‘desire died, but in my ecstasy I had sworn to give what must be given for that short bliss, and to lie in your arms and pant against you before another midnight. So I have come to bid you fare with me to the place where the spell may be loosed, and happiness bought.’

She called the mare: it came whinnying, and pawed the ground until she had stroked its neck. She mounted, setting in my hand a tiny, satin-shod foot that seemed rather child’s than woman’s. ‘Let us go together to my house,’ she said. ‘I have orders to give and duties to fulfil. I will not keep you there long, for we must start soon on our errand.’ I walked exultantly at her side, but, the grange in view, I entreated her to speak explicitly of our mysterious journey. She stooped and patted my head. ‘’Tis but a matter of buying and selling,’ she answered.

When she had arranged her household affairs, she came to the library and bade me follow her. Then, with the mirror still swinging against her knees, she led me through the garden and the wilderness down to a misty wood. It being autumn, the trees were tinted gloriously in dusky bars of colouring. The rowan, with his amber leaves and scarlet berries, stood before the brown black-spotted sycamore; the silver beech flaunted his golden coins against my poverty; firs, green and fawn-hued, slumbered in hazy gossamer. No bird carolled, although the sun was hot. Marina noted the absence of sound, and without prelude of any kind began to sing from the ballad of the Witch Mother: about the nine enchanted knots, and the trouble-comb in the lady’s knotted hair, and the master-kid that ran beneath her couch. Every drop of my blood froze in dread, for whilst she sang her face took on the majesty of one who traffics with infernal powers. As the shade of the trees fell over her, and we passed intermittently out of the light, I saw that her eyes glittered like rings of sapphires. Believing now that the ordeal she must undergo would be too frightful, I begged her to return. Supplicating on my knees--‘Let me face the evil alone!’ I said, ‘I will entreat the loosening of the bonds. I will compel and accept any penalty.’ She grew calm. ‘Nay,’ she said, very gently, ‘if aught can conquer, it is my love alone. In the fervour of my last wish I can dare everything.’

By now, at the end of a sloping alley, we had reached the shores of a vast marsh. Some unknown quality in the sparkling water had stained its whole bed a bright yellow. Green leaves, of such a sour brightness as almost poisoned to behold, floated on the surface of the rush-girdled pools. Weeds like tempting veils of mossy velvet grew beneath in vivid contrast with the soil. Alders and willows hung over the margin. From where we stood a half-submerged path of rough stones, threaded by deep swift channels, crossed to the very centre. Marina put her foot upon the first step. ‘I must go first,’ she said. ‘Only once before have I gone this way, yet I know its pitfalls better than any living creature.’

Before I could hinder her she was leaping from stone to stone like a hunted animal. I followed hastily, seeking, but vainly, to lessen the space between us. She was gasping for breath, and her heart-beats sounded like the ticking of a clock. When we reached a great pool, itself almost a lake, that was covered with lavender scum, the path turned abruptly to the right, where stood an isolated grove of wasted elms. As Marina beheld this, her pace slackened, and she paused in momentary indecision; but, at my first word of pleading that she should go no further, she went on, dragging her silken mud-bespattered skirts. We climbed the slippery shores of the island (for island it was, being raised much above the level of the marsh), and Marina led the way over lush grass to an open glade. A great marble tank lay there, supported on two thick pillars. Decayed boughs rested on the crust of stagnancy within, and divers frogs, bloated and almost blue, rolled off at our approach. To the left stood the columns of a temple, a round, domed building, with a closed door of bronze. Wild vines had grown athwart the portal; rank, clinging herbs had sprung from the overteeming soil; astrological figures were enchiselled on the broad stairs.

Here Marina stopped. ‘I shall blindfold you,’ she said, taking off her loose sash, ‘and you must vow obedience to all I tell you. The least error will betray us.’ I promised, and submitted to the bandage. With a pressure of the hand, and bidding me neither move nor speak, she left me and went to the door of the temple. Thrice her hand struck the dull metal. At the last stroke a hissing shriek came from within, and the massive hinges creaked loudly. A breath like an icy tongue leaped out and touched me, and in the terror my hand sprang to the kerchief. Marina’s voice, filled with agony, gave me instant pause. ‘_Oh, why am I thus torn between the man and the fiend? The mesh that holds life in will be ripped from end to end! Is there no mercy?_’

My hand fell impotent. Every muscle shrank. I felt myself turn to stone. After a while came a sweet scent of smouldering wood: such an Oriental fragrance as is offered to Indian gods. Then the door swung to, and I heard Marina’s voice, dim and wordless, but raised in wild deprecation. Hour after hour passed so, and still I waited. Not until the sash grew crimson with the rays of the sinking sun did the door open.

‘Come to me!’ Marina whispered. ‘Do not unblindfold. Quick--we must not stay here long. He is glutted with my sacrifice.’

Newborn joy rang in her tones. I stumbled across and was caught in her arms. Shafts of delight pierced my heart at the first contact with her warm breasts. She turned me round, and bidding me look straight in front, with one swift touch untied the knot. The first thing my dazed eyes fell upon was the mirror of black glass which had hung from her waist. She held it so that I might gaze into its depths. And there, with a cry of amazement and fear, _I saw the shadow of the Basilisk_.

The Thing was lying prone on the floor, the presentment of a sleeping horror. Vivid scarlet and sable feathers covered its gold-crowned cock’s-head, and its leathern dragon-wings were folded. Its sinuous tail, capped with a snake’s eyes and mouth, was curved in luxurious and delighted satiety. A prodigious evil leaped in its atmosphere. But even as I looked a mist crowded over the surface of the mirror: the shadow faded, leaving only an indistinct and wavering shape. Marina breathed upon it, and, as I peered and pored, the gloom went off the plate and left, where the Chimera had lain, the prostrate figure of a man. He was young and stalwart, a dark outline with a white face, and short black curls that fell in tangles over a shapely forehead, and eyelids languorous and red. His aspect was that of a wearied demon-god.

When Marina looked sideways and saw my wonderment, she laughed delightedly in one rippling running tune that should have quickened the dead entrails of the marsh. ‘I have conquered!’ she cried. ‘I have purchased the fulness of joy!’ And with one outstretched arm she closed the door before I could turn to look; with the other she encircled my neck, and, bringing down my head, pressed my mouth to hers. The mirror fell from her hand, and with her foot she crushed its shards into the dank mould.

The sun had sunk behind the trees now, and glittered through the intricate leafage like a charcoal-burner’s fire. All the nymphs of the pools arose and danced, grey and cold, exulting at the absence of the divine light. So thickly gathered the vapours that the path grew perilous. ‘Stay, love,’ I said. ‘Let me take you in my arms and carry you. It is no longer safe for you to walk alone.’ She made no reply, but, a flush arising to her pale cheeks, she stood and let me lift her to my bosom. She rested a hand on either shoulder, and gave no sign of fear as I bounded from stone to stone. The way lengthened deliciously, and by the time we reached the plantation the moon was rising over the further hills. Hope and fear fought in my heart: soon both were set at rest. When I set her on the dry ground she stood a-tiptoe, and murmured with exquisite shame: ‘To-night, then, dearest. My home is yours now.’

So, in a rapture too subtle for words, we walked together, arm-enfolded, to her house. Preparations for a banquet were going on within: the windows were ablaze, and figures passed behind them bowed with heavy dishes. At the threshold of the hall we were met by a triumphant crash of melody. In the musician’s gallery bald-pated veterans stood to it with flute and harp and viol-de-gamba. In two long rows the antic retainers stood, and bowed, and cried merrily: ‘Joy and health to the bride and groom!’ And they kissed Marina’s hands and mine, and, with the players sending forth that half-forgotten tenderness which threads through ancient song-books, we passed to the feast, seating ourselves on the daïs, whilst the servants filled the tables below. But we made little feint of appetite. As the last dish of confections was removing, a weird pageant swept across the further end of the banqueting-room: Oberon and Titania with Robin Goodfellow and the rest, attired in silks and satins gorgeous of hue, and bedizened with such late flowers as were still with us. I leaned forward to commend, and saw that each face was brown and wizened and thin-haired: so that their motions and their epithalamy felt goblin and discomforting; nor could I smile till they departed by the further door. Then the tables were cleared away, and Marina, taking my finger-tips in hers, opened a stately dance. The servants followed, and in the second maze a shrill and joyful laughter proclaimed that the bride had sought her chamber....

Ere the dawn I wakened from a troubled sleep. My dream had been of despair: I had been persecuted by a host of devils, thieves of a priceless jewel. So I leaned over the pillow for Marina’s consolation; my lips sought hers, my hand crept beneath her head. My heart gave one mad bound--then stopped.

DAME INOWSLAD

Sycamores and beeches surrounded the inn; elders, still green-flowered, leaned over the grass-grown roads. The belt of sward was white with lady-smocks, but in the damp hollows marsh-marigolds radiated essential sunlight. The blackbirds sang, and loudly, yet without the true strain of mirth: sang like blackbirds that must sing, but of rifled nests. Even the grasshoppers had some trouble: never had they chirped so pathetically before.

On the green the gilded figure of a bull hung from two uprights; it swung from side to side in the light breeze. The copper bell on a twisted pole hard by was green with mould: a-swing from it was a rusty chain; it had been used in the old posting days, and many a yeoman had haled himself into his saddle from the worn mounting-block beside it.

For the inn itself, it was vast and rambling, dwarfed by the towering trees. For miles in every direction lay the old forest of Gardomwood, a relic of primeval woodland, rich in glades and brakes, in streamlets and mizzies: hazy in the clearings, where sheer-legs, like the trivets of witches’ caldrons, and tents and blue-smoking heaps told of charcoal-burners and their ever-shifting trade.

The Golden Bull with its beautiful precincts took me back to that fading Arcady whose shepherdesses and swains felt the end of the joy-time coming. It was utterly sad; but I was caught in the meshes of its melancholy, and for the while could not escape. Twilight fell, and I ceased from exploring, and went indoors. In the parlour was a great square piano. Its music, while acidly discordant, was yet plaintive with the curious speech such old things often own. I played a few Robin Hood ballads--of the Outlaw and Little John, of the Bishop of Hereford and Robin’s pleasing escape. Then the hostess entered with a great Nottingham jar full of white lilac. She set this down between the fire-dogs, and stood leaning one hand on a chair-back and listening to the music. When I stopped she sighed heavily: I left the piano, and offered her a chair. She was middle-aged and deformed; her shoulders were humped, her face was shrivelled, but she had large grey eyes and a wistful smile.

‘I thank you, sir,’ she said. ‘’Twas the music drew me in. Nobody’s played since last summer, when Sir Jake Inowslad stayed here. His taste was sonatas and fugues--things pretty enow, but only pleasing at the time. Give me a melody that I can catch--almost grasp in my hand so to speak.’

‘Do you play?’ I asked, half-hoping to hear some air she had loved in her youth.

‘No, I cannot play. I was still-room maid at Melbrook Abbey, so I never had opportunity.’

As she spoke, a girl came in with the snuffer-tray and candles. She was pale and tall and of a tempting shape. Beautiful she was not, yet the sad strangeness of her face impressed me more than great beauty would have done. Her eyes were like the other woman’s, but clearer and more expressive; her lips were quaintly arched; long yellow hair hung down her back. She seemed, although she walked erect, to be recovering from some violent illness. When she had gone the hostess spoke again. ‘My niece is not strong,’ she said, laying an unnecessary emphasis on the word _niece_. ‘The air does not suit her.’

‘Was not she bred in the country?’ I inquired.

‘Ah, no! She is not without money--her father endowed her well. Until two years back she was at the convent of the Sisters of Saint Vincent de Paul for her education. ’Tis in the hill-country, and I think that coming to the flatness of Gardomwood has done her harm.’

The girl came in again: this time I noted her grace of movement; it had something of the wearied goddess. ‘Aunt,’ she said quietly, ‘I wish to go into the woods--you can spare me? All I had to do is done; the women are sewing in the kitchen.’ She went to the further end of the room, where a cloak of rose-coloured silk hung, ermine-lined, from a nail in the panelling. She donned it at her leisure; her long and narrow hands were of a perfect colour. She tied the broad ribands of the collar; she lighted two candles that hung before a tarnished mirror, and gazed at her shadow; then, her lips moving silently, she left the room.

‘Ever the same,’ the elder woman said. ‘Night after night does she leave the house and travel about like an aimless thing. Come back, Dinah,’ she called, ‘come back.’ But the thin voice went wavering through the empty passages unanswered. So the hostess rose and with a half-apologetic ‘Good-night,’ left me alone. I sat down in the deep recess of the window behind a heavy curtain. A copy of Denis Diderot’s _Religieuse_ lay on the little table. I took it up, and was soon engrossed in it: for of all books this is the most fascinating, the most disappointing, the most grim. A light came glimmering at the end of the vista before me: it grew and grew, and the moon uplifted herself waist-high above the trees. And when I had watched her thus far, I returned to my nun and reached page twenty-two of the second volume, where I read the following sentence: ‘After a few flourishes she played some things, foolish, wild, and incoherent as her own ideas, but through all the defects of her execution I saw she had a touch infinitely superior to mine.’ Then in the shaded window-seat I fell asleep....

The striking of a tall clock near the hearth awakened me: I had slept till midnight. The candles had been removed from the table to the piano; those in the girandole had guttered out or been extinguished. A young man sat at the piano on the embroidered stool. His back was towards me; I saw nothing but high, narrow shoulders and a dome-shaped head of dishevelled black hair plentifully besprinkled with grey. From the road outside came a noise of horses whinnying and plunging. I looked out, and there was a lumbering coach drawn by four stallions which, black in daylight, shone now like burnished steel.

The would-be musician turned and showed me a long painful face with glistening eyes and a brow ridged upward like a ruined stair. It was a face of intense eagerness: the eagerness of a man experimenting and praying for a result whereon his life depends. Without any prelude he played a dance of ghosts in an old ball-room: ghosts of men and women that moved in lavoltas and sarabands; ghosts that laughed at Susanna in the tapestry; ghosts that loved and hated. When the last chord had sent them crowding to their graves he turned and listened for a footstep. None came. He lifted a leather case from the side of the stool and, unfastening its clasps, took out a necklace which glistened in the candlelight like a fairy shower of rain and snow. ’Twas of table diamonds and margarites, the gems as big as filberts. He spread it across the wires, and after an instant’s reflection began to play. The carcanet rattled and jangled as he went: it was as an advancing host of cymbal-women. When he listened again, great tears oozed from his eyes. He took up the jewel and played a melody vapid at first, but so subtle in its repetitions that none might doubt its meaning: thus and not otherwise would sound a lyke-wake sung in a worn voice after a night of singing. And whilst he played, the door opened silently, and I saw Dinah, there in her nightgown, holding the posts with her hands. She took one swift glance, then disappeared again in the darkness, and came back carrying in her arms a bundle swathed in pure linen and strongly redolent of aromatic herbs. Holding this to her breast, she approached the man. Her shadow fell across the keys, and he lifted his head. From both came a long murmur: his of love and joy and protection, hers of agony. He rose and would have clasped her, but she drew back and placed her burden in his outstretched hands.

‘It is the child,’ she said. ‘Three months ago I gave birth to her, none knew save myself.... She was all that remained of you: all that I had, and I dared not part with her.... But now--now that I have seen you again--take her away--leave me--leave me in peace.’

‘Dinah,’ he said proudly, ‘listen to me.’

‘Nay,’ she whispered, ‘not again. If I listen I may forget your wickedness; I might be weak again. Leave me, Jake.’

‘Dinah, you must hear me. Why, out of all the love you held and hold for me, can you condemn? When I left you I fell mad; for the year I have been mad, and only yesterday did they set me loose. See, I have brought you all the diamonds; to-morrow you will be Dame Inowslad.’ And he laid the dead thing on a table, and caught the mother to his bosom. Her figure was shaken with sobs.

‘Oh,’ she cried, ‘it has been hard; but my trial has brought the true guerdon of happiness. Only once have I missed seeing the place where you promised to meet me--the place where you said you loved me; and that was on the night of my lonely travailing.’

Outside the horses plunged and snorted: a shrunken postillion swaying at the neck of the off-leader. In the hollows of the road lay sheets of mist, and the moonlight turned them into floods. A long train of startled owls left the hollow sycamores and passed hooting ... hooting ... down the glade.

‘Let us go,’ Sir Jake said; ‘by morning light we shall be in sight of Cammere, where Heaven grant us a happy time;--a year of joy for each week of pain. Do not wait to dress; rich robes and linen are inside the coach; I have brought many of my mother’s gowns.’

Dinah extricated herself from his embrace, and went to find her cloak. During her absence a strange and terrible look came into Inowslad’s face and he smote his forehead. He smiled at her re-appearing. ‘Dinah,’ he said, looking downwards, so that she might not see his eyes, ‘Dinah, I am so happy that I can scarce see. Lead me from the house.’

He took up the dead little one in his right arm, and carried it as believers carry relics. The outer door closed softly; they descended the mossgrown steps, and entered the coach. The horses leaped forward, half drowning the sound of a chuckle. A glint of the moon pierced the coach windows, and I saw a brown hand, convulsed and violent, griping a long white throat.

EXCERPTS FROM WITHERTON’S JOURNAL: ALSO A LETTER OF CRYSTALLA’S

The principal events of Pliny Witherton’s life are written at length in Goodwin’s _Records of English Painters_, a volume published by Dodsley in 1752. He is described therein as one whose genius went beyond his achievement; who suffered ecstatic pain in conception, yet brought forth little worthy of remembrance.

Personally he was small and ill-formed: of that sallow countenance and red skein-like hair wherewith tradition has gifted Judas Iscariot. His gait was felinely nimble, his voice harsh. Notwithstanding his great defects, he was a favourite with women.

He died at his zenith. His celebrity was ephemeral; for, possessed of a curious medium, the secret of whose preparation he refused to share with any contemporary, he used it with such fatal effect that his works, which were strangely rich at first, became almost colourless after the lapse of a few decades. The only picture still existent is at Hambleton; where is also preserved the journal whence the following extracts are taken. It is a ‘Boadicea,’ faded to a sober brown.

* * * * *

_Jan. 12, 1700._--This morning my uncle chose the story of Jacob wrestling with the Angel. I know not how I bore his tedious droning. He pictured the dullest scene, put into their mouths the dullest words. And there came something that thrust a hand through my breast and caught about my heart, and forced tears down my cheeks. Oh to have shown them what I beheld!

Little Anne saw me through the broken panel of the Earl’s pew, and put her fingers to my knee to feel the thrilling. But I thrust them away, for the child is a bastard and as ugly as a toad--yet not so ugly neither, but foreign (her mother came of the Rouvigny’s) and pale and quiet. She is downtrodden by madam the Countess. May be I was hard upon her.

The lass blenched, for had she not but yesternight slyly given me her father’s present--a golden guinea--to buy colours for my work? What if she give me no more! Alack! So after the _Amen_ was mumbled I stole with her to the pools amongst the groove-hillocks, and showed her rush-tips covered with hoar above the ice. As we stood she put her arm about my neck and said: ‘We are both lonely, none loves us.’ And I fell angry again and struck her face. ‘I am not lonely, I shall be famous,’ I cried; ‘but you, Mistress Craven-spirit, are fit for naught but nursing madam’s brats.’

_May 1, 1703._--Too terrible Fortune, prisoning me in an iron cage; from between whose bars I see thy wheel turning, turning, turning! To-day is my twentieth birthday, and I have done no work for all these years. Creations enow have stirred my brain. I see heroes in jewelled harness; ruddy-hued and beautiful dames. They play their parts, yet when I take the crayon, ’tis to depict a crowd of malkins. God, never was being so ill-fated!

Anne brought me a purse woven of her own coarse hair; it held eight crowns and a posy-ring. Yesterday I had threatened to leave this accursed house and never send word. She hath now sold all her trinkets. The office of secretary to such a dotard as the Earl I loathe; and the continual buzzing of my hummer-bee-uncle frets my very soul.

I walked with Anne on Danman’s Moor, and the strong wind blew a colour into her hollow cheeks. Moreover, her eyes looked very big and lustrous. But she wore such a faded gown as any village alewife would have scorned; and the looseness made her shoulders seem huckled. Withal on her lips was such a smile as I shall give Christ’s Mother in my masterpiece. As I gazed the rosiness deepened, and she murmured in a voice half-moan, ‘Is there aught worthy there?’ So, being malicious of humour, I praised that smile, and saw her bosom rise and fall like a wild beast’s panting apart from the hunters.

_Jan. 9, 1704._--At last I have left Hambleton. There was no money there, and my lord strove to repress my ambition with his eternal ‘Thy uncle on his death-bed wished it so. For, leaving thee not a penny, he commended thee to my care. The chaplainship shall be thine, an’ I need no secretary-work save what thou canst do at odd times. Alas! nine daughters have I to dower!’ And Anne had given me all, so I rolled my pictures in a bundle and am come to seek the patronage of our great men, who, as I have learnt, are ever ready to help on struggling Wits.

_July 27, 1704._--O Heaven, that this world should be so cruel! Flouted in rich fools’ antechambers; turned roughly from door after door! Shame devours me to-day; for though poverty no longer pricks me I have sold my honour. Twenty golden pieces earned with bloody sweat lie on the table. The signs were delivered scarce two hours since. The first I wrought had some solace, for the Angel was a careful presentment of Lucy, as sweet a maid as England holds. But twelve years old, and yet with the wit and loveliness of Sheba’s queen, how she shrivels her base-born half-sister! A hundred times since I came to this town has her proud excellence disquieted my slumbers. The beauty that daunts a man’s the beauty for me.

Accursed be this vile place where art and genius crouch together in the alleys!

_Septr. 30, 1704._--The last page I may write in this poor journal shall contain naught of anger. Once I read that he conquers who strives with circumstance. No greater fallacy was ever writ. The last coin is spent; utter ruin in store. The certainty of my gift hinders me from pandering again to the vulgar. Life and I nearly parted at the great humiliation. Those terrible pictures, to whose doing desperation forced me, haunt me like ghosts. I dared not pace the streets lest I should see my handiwork swinging over the causey. It is better for me to die.

To Anne I bequeath all good and tender wishes, for she alone would aid me in my early strugglings. In this my last hour I fully acknowledge her kindness....

_Oct. 1, 1704._--Dolt that I was to lose courage! At last the goddess hath smoothed her frown. When I rose at the sound of knocking ’twas to find a cloaked and hooded woman at my door. The domino fell open and discovered Anne’s face, haggard and stained with tears. In her hands she carried a heavy bag. ‘My Aunt Rouvigny is dead,’ she cried, ‘and since she might leave me naught by will this she gave me in private. None knows of it save myself. It is yours--all lies before you now. Take the road to Fame.’ And though we had not met for so long, she waited for no word.

Dear heart, to resign that fortune for my sake! When I have seen all that Europe boasts, and studied the works of the dark masters, I will return and make her my wife. Here is a copy of what I writ to her at Hambleton:--

‘Mistress, I entreat you would be pleased to receive my very great thanks for the largeness of your generosity. I have warmer dreams of my work than ever, and with travel and the instruction of Italian artists I hope to do wondrous pictures. You have been my staff, and when the day comes that I already foresee, I shall cast myself a willing slave at your feet.--I am your humble Servant,

PLINY WITHERTON.’

* * * * *

[The journal contains an accurate narrative of adventures on the Continent. Anne’s gift was a thousand guineas. The relation of Witherton’s amours in France and Italy is worthy of Smollett. Anne’s constancy is noted at intervals. Her father and the tyrannical Countess had died, and left her guardian of their nine children, and she spent the years at Hambleton fostering the estate.

Witherton suffered anguish before the Titians at Venice, and swooned in the Sistine Chapel. English art being what it was, his work won him some notice in Rome. Success strengthened his imagination, and his creations became more virile.

At the Russian Court, whither he travelled from Italy, he was made painter-in-chief, and found his emoluments so large, and his position so vastly improved, that at the end of the fifth year he returned to England, with the intention of fulfilling his promise to Anne.]

* * * * *

_Jan. 1, 1710._--’Tis no longer the Hambleton of my boyhood; ’tis a centre of wretchedness and parsimony! Then all was lavishness--open house--the whole world welcome. Even whilst the leather hung rotting from the walls, came tuns of wine and rare fruits for each season. Now a new order ruleth;--to the deuce with such cheeseparing! ‘Mistress orders the fish from our own ponds; mistress orders the gorcocks to be killed on Danman’s Moor.’ The meanness of habit that sickened me in earlier times has now reached head.

And yesternight I made her understand. In the days before the _cognoscenti_ acknowledged my genius, we had been wont to watch the New Year in from the windows of the Grecian temple that lies a quoit’s-cast from the hill-walk.

When we had supped together she rose from the table, and courtesied with an old maid’s awkwardness.

‘You play hoodman-blind when I am by,’ she said. ‘Do you not see my gown? From Firenze you wrote that purple becomes pale faces best.’

But one at table had worn damassin of pale green, woven with gold and silver arabesks--Lady Lucy, a debonair maid, rosy-lipped and eyed like Venus--and I had sight for no other.

Mistress drew me to the bay, and pointed to the clearing beyond the pines where seven squares of light fell on the frosty grass.

‘In your honour, O painter mine, a fire has burned there all week, and now five hundred candles are lighted! When we went before ’twas as downtrodden children. To-night let us sit and watch and listen to the bells.’

She laid her hand on my arm, and drawing over her shoulders the rich furs I had brought as a spousal gift, passed with me from the house. When we reached the temple steps, she ran forward and flung the valves open, so that, even ere we entered, we were bathed in the glow. Inside much reparation had been done: the walls shone in white and gold, and the ceiling-fresco of ‘Aurora pursuing Night’ was newly cleaned and restored. The chamber was warm and sweet with burning logs. We closed the door and sat on the pigskin stools by the fire, the length of the hearth lying betwixt.

Drifting against the glass came the noise of Edale Bells. The lads were drunk as ever, lashing out the old tempestuous jangle.

‘We are crowned,’ she said. ‘We have ever fought side by side, and now we are victors.’

I looked at her, and saw that the frost had pinched her face and reddened her eyes. Then I gazed at Aurora, juicy and fresh. On the hearth lay a withered leaf that had tapped in after us: on the table a great yellow rose. And I was moved by these things to speak the truth.

‘Anne, let it be all over between us. We have grown apart; life together would be miserable.... I have my art, and you would bind me to earth. From this night we will be cordial friends; lovers we have never been.... I cannot love you.’

After a while she turned her eyes from mine and bowed her head. ‘Better so,’ she murmured. ‘I am not worthy.’

For an hour she sat in silence, flushing and twining her hands....

CRYSTALLA’S LETTER TO THE _Spectator_.

_Jan. 19, 1712._

_Mr._ Spectator,

As I have dwelt in these wilds since my birth, and, though an Earl’s daughter, have never been permitted to show myself in London, a description of my face and figure must needs give you pleasure. ’Tis not my own, but that of Pictor, read to me from this Journal.

‘Of a full, ripe beauty, such as none but Virgins of high birth possess. A face neither round nor oval, but something between, touched with the softness of an apricock’s sunside. Eyes lupin-coloured; in sober moments half-hid behind velvet lashes, but when roused sparkling azure fire. Lips such as a god might pasture on. Shoulders pure and white and smoothly dimpled; and a waist of most admirable shape. A foot so arched that Philip, her pet sparrow, cowers ’neath the instep.’

Methinks, sir, if you but saw me, spite of your melancholy, you also would fall in love. Though I be modest, I protest that the picture is nowise over-coloured. The simple country folk are so enamoured of my person that the louts line the way to church, and swear when ’tis fine, ‘’Tis Crystalla’s weather.’

That your humble servant may receive advice concerning the disposal of her person, she begs to lay her case before you. For two years she has been courted by an aged nobleman, who offers her a position of highest rank, and such wealth as only pertains to princes. There are many stains on his character, but he is old and not like to live long.

And now Pictor himself comes forward and sighs at my feet. He is a man of great fame, and, moreover, one attached by old kindness to my family. He is strangely ugly, being livid-skinned and orange-tawny-haired; but, notwithstanding, it has never fallen to me to meet a man of so many attractions. Maybe his stealthiness charms me, for he is like a cat treading softly and creeping from all manner of places; and I vow I would rather wed him than the handsomest man made since Adam.

He hath had love passages with a poor relation of mine, whom my parents, in return for fancied services, made guardian of my sisters and myself. She is a vixen and a shrew, who fancies to keep us within bounds; but I’ll have none of her! Pictor, coming from a foreign land, brought her many gifts, utterly forgetting your handmaid, but their meeting was the quaintest and coldest thing (on his side) that I have yet beheld.

When he saw me his humour changed, and he put himself forward to delight, and his witless creature wept for very joy. With time, however, I saw his distaste grow and grow, till I could scarce forbear twitting both.

Now I see her going quietly about her work, but sighing in odd corners as if her heart would break.

So, dear Mr. Spectator, I desire you to inform me whether, being an Earl’s daughter, it would be great folly in me to choose the painter and flout the duke. The one holds me in chains of fascination; the other, though I don’t hate him, wakens no tender feeling.

I am, Sir, your dutiful and obedient servant and admirer,
CRYSTALLA.

_P.S.--I entreat you let me know soon._

MY FRIEND

They have just told me that I cannot live beyond midnight. But this is no confession of guilt. Knowing that I was soon to see an unknown land, and that the friend I had won (the first and the last) loved me so dearly that he would be unhappy unless his hand were clasping mine--did I sin in my desire that he should go forth, and be waiting for me?

A fortnight ago I met him in the street. His head was hanging, his gait dejected, he was talking to himself. I stood watching him. As he approached, long before he really saw me, a change came over him: his figure grew erect, his face sharpened, his lips closed. He smiled strangely as our eyes met, and I felt exultant in the knowledge that such spontaneous gladness should never degenerate. I took his hand, and held it so long that the townsfolk looked and laughed.

‘Gabriel,’ I said, ‘I have been dreaming of you again. I thought we had gone together to spend Sunday on the Naze of Blakelow.’ A warm flush of pleasure spread over his face. ‘Yes,’ I went on, ‘and you said in my dream that it was the last of the vignettes’ (he had a way of calling our short holidays ‘vignettes’), ‘and I replied that this was on a grander scale.’ He laughed, though I am sure he did not understand. ‘If only you _would_ go,’ he made answer, ‘I feel that I should be so much better for the mountain air. I am out of tune with all the world but you. I can start soon--in two hours, if you will.’ So we met later. I looked on his dark face, and my heart leaped out to him. I forgot the acrimony of living with those whose only feeling for me was one of relationship; forgot the Dead Sea apples of my past, and felt joyful beyond expression: often pressing my hand to my heart, where the toy I carried nestled in its scarlet sheath.

Something in his face told me that he was sad. ‘You are not happy now?’ I said. ‘I am not,’ he replied. ‘I am envious of you. Your life is so free: you have no business affairs to drag you to earth. But I shall be happy soon; it is good to be with you.’ As for myself, I never was happier. My spirits rose quickly; from the far recesses of my brain I brought the wildest thoughts to lay before him. Flashes of inspiration that only showed in his presence (sparks of divine fire, perhaps) spun themselves into one glittering string for his sake.

We were to sleep at the Eagle, a hostelry whose prosperity began dwindling with the decline of coaching. It lies eighteen miles from our town, midway between the hamlets Ashstraw and Glosboro. Neither of us had been there before; but the guide-book was explicit. The weather was dull; but it took no hold on me. We left the precincts of the town and reached the great moorland with its bridle-path. When the dense smoke of the furnaces had given place to fresh, heather-scented air, I essayed a question.

‘Are you still depressed?’

‘No,’ he cried, with his brown eyes full of mirth.

‘Then you are perfectly happy?’ said I. (It was always gratifying to be assured of this.)

‘I cannot be otherwise when I have left the town with you,’ he said.

And at this I took his arm, for it was always less painful to myself when I walked close to him. We began to talk of our dreams. Circumstances had bound him to a profession that chafed his very core; but Nature had given him aspirations, and miraged him a future as great (if as worthless) as my own.

How daring I grew! Farther and farther I had ventured down the heretical abyss. Gabriel’s face gleamed with amazement: he drank it all in greedily. Was it not curious that I, who knew how fast the end was nearing, should have dared to relax my hold upon those snatches of hope which are as straws to the drowning man? After a time I turned the discussion--if you may call a monologue discussion--to my favourite theme, which is death. I had grown so morbid that I could pile horror upon horror. I gloated on the orthodox eternity: I drew brave pictures of my childhood’s Satan in his environment of fire and gloom. But after the sunset rain came down in torrents. In five minutes we were wet to the skin. My clothes were old, my shoes let water; I had no umbrella, but walked under Gabriel’s. Just before twilight the path left the heath, and descended abruptly to the grass-grown coach-road that runs along the side of the hill they call the Silver Patines. Evening fell. The rain hissed on the heather, and the wind, catching the few gnarled thorns, drew from them a dull, sonorous cry. The river, somewhat in flood, rushed over jagged stones; a few moorland sheep were sheltering under the rocks that lined his banks. Owls, so unfamiliar with man that they rattled their wings well-nigh in our faces, went whirring through the air. They started a train of abstract reasoning in me as to the doctrine of transmigration.

‘Ah, Pythagoras’s metempsychosis!’ I said to myself. I am certain that my tongue was silent; yet Gabriel smiled. I was slightly hurt, and, drawing my arm away, walked to the other side of the road, refusing to shelter beneath the umbrella. Soon came the knowledge that his smile contained no touch of contempt, but was only a glad movement for that he knew himself in such sympathy with me as to apprehend my unvoiced fancy. I hastened to his side, and begged him to forgive. But the charm was broken for a time. My thoughts had withered, my words were grown unpregnant. So his happiness fled, there came a sequence of those drossy moments when silence is loathsome, yet must be. We felt them keenly. My head grew hot with grief: I it was who had snapped the golden cord. We had not walked much further before Gabriel stopped and leaned his cheek on the wet stones of the wall. ‘I wish that I were dead,’ he murmured. ‘I am tired.’

‘Then shall we go back?’ I said. ‘Perhaps it would be best. We are both wet through: the inn may be uncomfortable--the rooms damp.’

He turned and gave me his hand. ‘Go back?’ he gasped: ‘go back? Why--I wish--that I might pass--all my life thus!’

‘With the shadows and the rain and the wind’s howling,’ I added laughingly, ‘and no home, but inn after inn, strange bed after strange bed?’

‘No home, and you with me!’ he cried. ‘Ah! I could forget everything if you were with me.’

By now we could see nothing afar from us. At intervals a sound as of heavy hoofs a-splash on the road warned us to go warily. Ever and anon we waded tiny gullies. Thrice blasts of warm air, from the airt in which we were going, fluttered about my cheek and my hands. I fancied, and said, that these were disembodied souls hustled by the storm. Gabriel could not feel them; and when I said that another and yet another had touched me, held out his hands without avail. The wind piped with a shriller sound, changing its tone to one that mystified me, for we had passed the region of trees. Long-drawn sighs came first, then chords of broken melody, then whisperings as it were in a foreign tongue. Why, we were nearing some Druid stones! Ten yards to the right they stood, in a perfect circle, stately and tall, their bases hid in ling.

Again a change in the wind’s song: a thousand shrieks as though men were being tortured with sharp knives. I turned to Gabriel, and spoke; it seemed as if my voice leaped with the storm. ‘Gabriel,’ I cried. ‘What is it?’ His wan face came near to mine. ‘I hear nothing,’ he said. ‘Come, let us hurry; it is getting late--they may not let us in.’ And a change had come into his voice too; a troubled note, as if a dread had swept over him. ‘You are not afraid?’ I said lightly. He made no reply.

Suddenly, as I listened, the heavens were rent from end to end, and a flash of lightning leaped out: to laugh and dance and gambol on the hill-tops, and then skip hissing across the river.

A sacrificial hymn was beginning at the Circle--a naked and bleeding victim was bound to the altar--fire and water were there--the long-bearded priests shook their white robes--the sharp knife glittered--and my own stiletto waxed heavy, as it strove to draw me downwards. I lifted my hand: just to touch the smooth pearl handle! Again the skies opened, but with only a momentary gleam; one glance of the Almighty Eye. But it was not so swift as to prevent me from seeing the face of the Sacrifice. ‘They have taken him away,’ I faltered. ‘He was at my side an instant ago.’ Gabriel drew me away.

He was shivering. For the first time that night I thought of his health. ‘Let us run,’ I said. ‘Give me your hand.’ He lowered his umbrella (it was of small use now, for the wind had risen--risen!) and then, hand in hand like young children, we ran together. It was delightful; but we were tired. So our feet were soon stayed, and, standing at an abrupt turn of the valley, we were aware of a lonely light agleam in the darkness--the light of the first house we had remarked since our nightmare town. It disappeared ere we reached the threshold. A sign-board flapped uneasily, and we found that our journey was done. It was a vision of gables, with dormers and oriels; immense beams here and there upheld a sodden thatch; the chimney stacks, huddled and incongruously set, gave forth no friendly smoke. With a mad desire to harangue, I ascended the perron-staircase, and grasping its scrolled balustrade, began:--‘Friend Gabriel, who listenest with the night bats and the darkness--what is the soul?’ (Heedless of the pelting rain and Gabriel’s tender lungs: brute that I was!) ‘Nay,’ I continued, ‘rather what is the body? That I can define: husks--husks--a frippery of flesh!’ The light came again, this time at an upper window. I struck the door with my fist; but nobody heeded.