Chapter XII: IL Penseroso

Once more the two sat together in the high bower overlooking the glen. No churlish weather had, in all the short course of their idyll, marred its perfection, and still the sun shone and the air breathed honied upon their happy meetings. But on this occasion the girl was pensive and quiet as Brion had never known her to be before, and for some reason the fact disturbed him. She was never anything but physically tranquil--a pretty pacific creature whose graces were all on the side of soft rounded ease and caressing movements; yet her young brain lacked nothing in bright activity, and it was her present failure to respond in kind to his livelier mood which filled the boy with an inexplicable feeling like foreboding. He was made so uneasy at last by her unresponsiveness that he was driven to rally her upon it:--

‘What ails you, Joan, that you are so silent?’

She did not answer for a moment, but sat looking down sidelong, idly plucking at the blades of grass.

‘Joan?’ he persisted.

She just raised her lids in a swift glance at him, then drooped them again, and a flush came to her cheek.

‘We have been good friends, have we not, Brion?’ she said, her face still half averted from him.

‘Have been, Joan! Why not are, and will be?’

Her fingers grew busier at their plucking.

‘How can I tell? Maids must come to marry.’

He started and sat quite rigid, as if some paralysing thing had stung him. His lips repeated the word mechanically, as he stared before him:--

‘To marry?’

‘It is the common lot, you know,’ she murmured.

He made a desperate effort to steady his wits and his voice.

‘But you are so young.’

She gave a great sigh: ‘Heigho! it is age that lacks suitors.’

‘You have a suitor, Joan?’

‘My father says so.’

‘And you?’

‘What is there for me to say?’

He turned on her with a sudden violence. A heat had sprung to his face. ‘And you never told me? Is this to be the end between us, then?’

Her hand at the grass was busier than ever.

‘That is not for me to answer.’

‘For whom is it?’ he cried. And his passion went out of him, and he spoke in sad measured tones: ‘I had not once dreamed of this; I had lived in our friendship, seeing no end to it. You don’t know what you have been to me, Joan. Well, here is the end. I might have foreseen it but for my blind folly. How could I dream for one moment that the daughter of the rich City knight would take aught but a passing interest in this young portionless neighbour of hers. It should be my full content to know that she hath deigned to use me to kill some idle hours. God be with you, Mistress Medley’--and he jumped to his feet.

‘Brion,’ said the girl, ‘you are very cruel. And you may sneer in your pride at my father for his riches; but it is they bestow power and authority. What he bids me do I must do, since he may command the life he gave me; yet, despite your wounding words, I would rather die than do that bidding of his which made me false to you.’

She turned away, as he stared at her; but there was a sign of that in her eyes which he had never seen there yet, and which went to his very heart. Impulsively he flung himself on his knees beside her, and put an arm about her shoulders.

‘No, you are cruel,’ she said, resisting him.

But he would not be denied. ‘Dear Joan; I love you so. Think what it must have meant to me to hear you. Tell me only one thing. I will not ask you who it is. I know naught about your private matters, nor, by my troth, seek to know. This privacy of ours is passing sweet, and it is enough for me. But one thing only: tell me you do not favour this same suitor.’

She was easily coaxed. She had no real will to repel him, but allowed herself to be drawn back into his arms, where he won a lovely smile from wet eyes.

‘Become _his_ wife!’ she said, with a little catch in her breath, ‘I would liefer be a wild man’s squawk.’

Brion did not respond: for all his tragic mood, an irresistible spasm seized him.

‘What is the matter?’ she asked, surprised. ‘Are you laughing?’

He shook all through as he held her; and suddenly he gasped.

‘O, God a’ mercy, Joan--that word! Where did you learn it?’

‘From a Mr Richard Grenville, a Border Captain, that lay once at the Chase. He spake much of savage lands across the seas, and of those that inhabit there. The wives are so called, Brion: i’faith I know they are.’

‘O! Very well, if you know.’

‘He told, too, of many strange things he had seen, both men and beasts; amongst others of a bird called a pelican that hath seventeen stomachs, and will feed its young, when they are starving, on its own hump.’

‘Hump! A bird with a hump!’

‘It is true, Brion; really it is.’

‘I am sure it is, Joan; and I call that an unlucky bird; for methinks it might seldom happen that all the seventeen were in one agreement, unless for pain. But let that pass; and, as to the wives, why I say you shall be no wild man’s squawk, though I have to marry you myself.’

‘Will you marry me, Brion?’

‘O, Joan, you are an artless darling! What shall I say; what can I do!’ He clutched at his young forehead. ‘I may not ask: my tongue is tied: I will not know; yet, not knowing, how can I answer? “Maids must come to marry,” quotha! But whom, whom? Not a wild man’s loathed alternative? Whom did you mean, Joan? And must it be he or death? Ah, that we two were of an age to wed!’

‘Well, I will wait for you, an you ask me.’

‘Will you wait? Will you dare? May he not force you?’

‘He will not--no, never. I will throw myself from the _Lover’s Leap_ first.’

This was a great sheer crag on the Buckland side of Holne Chase, and known by name and sight to Brion.

‘Will you, Joan?’ he said. The threat was wild and tragic, yet he could not associate this loveling, so gentle-soft, with such a deed. Nor could she herself, it seemed, in grim earnest; for she added:--

‘But he will not force me--his way is colder. It will be, at the worst, “Take him, or never see my face again. I parley with no wilful child.” Then, an he drive me from his door, I will come to you.’

‘He could not be so base! The hard oak would refuse to close upon you; the skies would weep a flood to cast you back.’

The girl laughed, a little tearfully; and Brion laughed ruefully in response.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘he is your father, and, such as he appears, no figure of my conjuring. I have asked no questions of you, Joan, have I?’

‘No, Brion.’

‘Nor must, of that other, that villain suitor, I suppose?’

‘Nay, do not, I prithee. It were my shame to clepe him.’

The boy sighed:--

‘Well, we are together yet!’ And so for long time they sat in silence, their arms linked about one another, innocence in their caresses, since a common emotion had broken down the last reserves between them. Presently Joan spoke:--

‘You will always be my true knight, Brion?’

‘On my soul, Joan.’

‘Then, whatever may part us now, we shall keep one in love and faith?’

‘Why do you talk of parting? You are not going to leave me?’

‘Alack! the end comes always--even to summer days. I have heard talk of London; but I know not--only fear. Brion, will you never forget me?’

‘I live only for you, Joan, and ever shall. Your very name is music to my ears.’

She bent her head down, not answering for awhile.

‘Would you--would you love me even as now, if----’

‘If what?’

‘If you came to find me in some sort other than the blameless maid of your fancy?’

‘To be blameless is, methinks, to be insipid. I do not want you blameless, Joan, but only to be my loving dear.’

‘I shall always be that, Brion, if I live to a hundred.’

They were loath to part; but clung to one another and to these last moments, as if in some indefinite way they felt in them the running out of the golden sands. But the end had to come, and when at last they rose, each to go its road, in a passionate impulse the boy flung his arms about his comrade’s neck, and set his lips to hers in a long kiss which this time she made no effort to resist or to withdraw from.

_Alas, how easily things go wrong!_
_A sigh too much, or a kiss too long,_
_And there follows a mist and a weeping rain,_
_And life is never the same again._

‘Farewell, dear Joan--till to-morrow!’

‘Till to-morrow, dear Brion!’

It sounded in his ears like an empty echo.