FORGET-ME-NOT!

That night Eve could not sleep. She thought of her wonderful adventure. Who was that strange boy? And who was Martin? And, what was the link between these two and Jasper?

Towards morning, when she ought to have been stirring, she fell asleep, and laughed in her dreams. She woke with the sun shining in on her, and her father standing by her bed, watching her.

After the visions in which she had been steeped full of fair forms and brilliant colours, it was a shock to her to unclose her eyes on the haggard face of her father, with sunken eyes.

‘What is it, papa?’

‘My dear, it is ten o’clock. I have waited for my breakfast. The tea is cold, the toast has lost its crispness, and the eggs are like the tea—cold.’

‘O papa!’ she said sorrowfully, sitting up in bed; ‘I have overslept myself. But, you will not begrudge me the lovely dreams I have had. Papa! I saw a pixy yesterday.’

‘Where, child?’

‘On the Raven Rock.’

He shut his eyes, and put his hand over his mouth. Then he heaved a deep sigh, said nothing, turned, and went out of the room.

Eve was the idol of her father’s heart. He spoiled her, by allowing her her own way in everything, by relieving her of every duty, and heaping all the responsibilities on the shoulders of his eldest daughter.

Eve was so full of love and gaiety, that it was impossible to be angry with her when she made provoking mistakes; she was so penitent, so pretty in her apologies, and so sincere in her purpose of amendment.

Eve was warmly attached to her father. She had an affectionate nature, but none of her feelings were deep. Her rippling conversation, her buoyant spirits, enlivened the prevailing gloom of Mr. Jordan. His sadness did not depress her. Indeed, she hardly noticed it. Hers was not a sympathetic nature. She exacted the sympathy of others, but gave nothing more in return than prattle and laughter.

She danced down the stairs when dressed, without any regret for having kept her father waiting. He would eat a better breakfast for a little delay, she said to herself, and satisfied her conscience.

She came into the breakfast-room in a white muslin dress, covered with little blue sprigs, and with a blue riband in her golden hair. The lovely roses of her complexion, the sparkling eyes, the dimple in her cheeks, the air of perfect content with herself, and with all the world, disarmed what little vexation hung in her father’s mood.

‘Do you think Bab will be home to-day?’ she asked, seating herself at the tea-tray without a word of apology for the lateness of her appearance.

‘I do not know what her movements are.’

‘I hope she will. I want her home.’

‘Yes, she must return, to relieve you of your duties.’

‘I am sure the animals want her home. The pigeons find I am not regular in throwing them barley, and I sometimes forget the bread-crumbs after a meal. The little black heifer always runs along the paddock when Bab goes by, and she is indifferent to me. She lows when I appear, as much as to say, Where is Miss Barbara? Then the cat has not been himself for some days, and the little horse is in the dumps. Do you think brute beasts have souls?’

‘I do not know.’ Then after a pause, ‘What was that you said about a pixy?’

‘O papa! it was a dream.’ She coloured. Something rose in her heart to check her from confiding to him what in her thoughtless freedom she was prepared to tell on first awaking.

He pressed her no further. He doubtless believed she had spoken the truth. She had ever been candid. Now, however, she lacked courage to speak. She remembered that the boy had said ‘I come to you with a message.’ He had disappeared without giving it. What was that message? Was he gone without delivering it?

Mr. Jordan slowly ate his breakfast. Every now and then he looked at his daughter, never steadily, for he could look fixedly long at nothing.

‘I will tell you all, papa,’ said Eve suddenly, shaking her head, to shake off the temptation to be untrue. Her better nature had prevailed. ‘It was not a dream, it was a reality. I did see a pixy on the Raven Rock, the maddest, merriest, ugliest imp in the world.’

‘We are surrounded by an unseen creation,’ said Mr. Jordan. ‘The microscope reveals to us teeming life in a drop of water. Another generation will use an instrument that will show them the air full of living things. Then the laugh will be no more heard on earth. Life will be grave, if not horrible. This generation is sadder than the last because less ignorant.’

‘O papa! He was not a pixy at all. I have seen him before, when Mr. Jasper was thrown. Then he was perched like an ape, as he is, on the cross you set up, where my mother first appeared to you. He was making screams with his fiddle.’

Mr. Jordan looked at her with flickering, frightened eyes. ‘It was a spirit—the horse saw it and started—that was how Jasper was thrown,’ he said gravely.

‘Here Jasper comes,’ said Eve, laughing; ‘ask him.’ But instead of waiting for her father to do this, she sprang up, and danced to meet him with the simplicity of a child, and clapping her palms, she asked, ‘Mr. Jasper! My father will have it that my funny little pixy was a spirit of the woods or wold, and will not believe that he is flesh and blood.’

‘My daughter,’ said Mr. Jordan, ‘has told me a strange story. She says that she saw a boy on the—the Raven Rock, and that you know him.’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Whence comes he?’

‘That I cannot say.’

‘Where does he live?’

‘Nowhere.’

‘Is he here still?’

‘I do not know.’

‘Have you seen him before?’

‘Yes—often.’

‘That will do.’ Mr. Jordan jerked his head and waved his hand, in sign that he did not wish Jasper to remain.

He treated Jasper with rudeness; he resented the loss of Eve’s money, and being a man of narrow mind and vindictive temper, he revenged the loss on the man who was partly to blame for the loss. He brooded over his misfortune, and was bitter. The sight of Jasper irritated him, and he did not scruple at meals to make allusions to the lost money which must hurt the young man’s feelings. When Barbara was present, she interposed to turn the conversation or blunt the significance of her father’s words. Eve, on the other hand, when Mr. Jordan spoke in a way she did not like to Jasper or Barbara, started up and left the room, because she could not endure discords. She sprang out of the way of harsh words as she turned from a brier. It did not occur to her to save others, she saved herself.

Barbara thought of Jasper and her father, Eve only of herself.

When Jasper was gone, Mr. Jordan put his hand to his head. ‘I do not understand, I cannot think,’ he said, with a vacant look in his eyes. ‘You say one thing, and he another.’

‘Pardon me, dearest papa, we both say the same, that the pixy was nothing but a real boy of flesh and blood, but—there, let us think and talk of something else.’

‘Take care!’ said Mr. Jordan gloomily; ‘take care! There are spirits where the wise see shadows; the eye of the fool sees farther than the eye of the sage. My dear Eve, beware of the Raven Rock.’

Eve began to warble the air of the serenade in ‘Don Giovanni’ which she had heard the boy Watt sing.

Then she threw her arms round her father’s neck. ‘Do not look so miserable, papa. I am the happiest little being in the world, and I will kiss your cheeks till they dimple with laughter.’ But instead of doing so, she dashed away to pick flowers, for she thought, seeing herself in the glass opposite, that a bunch of forget-me-not in her bosom was what lacked to perfect her appearance in the blue-sprigged muslin.

She knew where wild forget-me-nots grew. The Abbot’s Well sent its little silver rill through rich grass towards the wood, where it spilled down the steep descent to the Tamar. She knew that forget-me-not grew at the border of the wood, just where the stream left the meadow and the glare of the sun for its pleasant shadow. As she approached the spot she saw the imp-like boy leap from behind a tree.

He held up his finger, put it to his lips, then beckoned her to follow him. This she would not do. She halted in the meadow, stooped, and, pretending not to see him, picked some of the blue flowers she desired.

He came stealthily towards her, and pointed to a stone a few steps further, which was hidden from the house by the slope of the hill. ‘I will tell you nothing unless you come,’ he said.

She hesitated a moment, looked round, and advanced to the place indicated.

‘I will go no farther with you,’ said she, putting her hand on the rock. ‘I am afraid of you.’

‘It matters not,’ answered the boy; ‘I can say what I want here.’

‘What is it? Be quick, I must go home.’

‘Oh, you little puss! Oh, you came out full of business! I can tell you, you came for nothing but the chance of hearing what I forgot to tell you yesterday. I must give the message I was commissioned to bear before I can leave.’

‘Who from?’

‘Can you ask? From Martin.’

‘But who is Martin?’

‘Sometimes he is one thing, then another; he is Don Giovanni. Then he is a king. There—he is an actor. Will that content you?’

‘What is his surname?’

‘O Eve! daughter of Eve!’ jeered the boy, ‘all inquisitiveness! What does that matter? An actor takes what name suits him.’

‘What is his message? I must run home.’

‘He stole something from you—wicked Martin.’

‘Yes; a ring.’

‘And you—you stole his heart away. Poor Martin has had no peace of mind since he saw you. His conscience has stung him like a viper. So he has sent me back to you with the ring.’

‘Where is it?’

‘Shut your blue eyes, they dazzle me, and put out your finger.’

‘Give me the ring, please, and let me go.’

‘Only on conditions—not my conditions—those of Martin. He was very particular in his instructions to me. Shut your eyes and extend your dear little finger. Next swear never, never to part with the ring I put on your finger.’

‘That I never will. Mr. Martin had no right to take the ring. It was impertinent of him; it made me very angry. Once I get it back I will never let the ring go again.’ She opened her eyes.

‘Shut! shut!’ cried the boy: ‘and now swear.’

‘I promise,’ said the girl. ‘That suffices.’

‘There, then, take the ring.’ He thrust the circlet on her finger. She opened her eyes again and looked at her hand.

‘Why, boy!’ she exclaimed, ‘this is not my ring. It is another.’

‘To be sure it is, you little fool. Do you think that Martin would return the ring you gave him? No, no. He sends you this in exchange for yours. It is prettier, Look at the blue flower on it, formed of turquoise. Forget-me-not.’

‘I cannot keep this. I want my own,’ said Eve, pouting, and her eyes filling.

‘You must abide Martin’s time. Meanwhile retain this pledge.’

‘I cannot! I will not!’ she stamped her foot petulantly on the oxalis and forget-me-not that grew beneath the rock, tears of vexation brimming in her eyes. ‘You have not dealt fairly by me. You have cheated me.’

‘Listen to me, Miss Eve,’ said the boy in a coaxing tone. ‘You are a child, and have to be treated as such. Look at the beautiful stones, observe the sweet blue flower. You know what that means—Forget-me-not. Our poor Martin has to ramble through the world with a heart-ache, yearning for a pair of sparkling blue eyes, and for two wild roses blooming in the sweetest cheeks the sun ever kissed, and for a head of hair like a beech tree touched by frost in a blazing autumn’s sun. Do you think he can forget these? He carries that face of yours ever about with him, and now he sends you this ring, and that means—”Miss, you have made me very unhappy. I can never forget the little maid with eyes of blue, and so I send her this token to bid her forget me not, as I can never forget her.”’

And as Eve stood musing with pouting lips, and troubled brow, looking at the ring, the boy took his violin, and with the fingers plucked the strings to make an accompaniment as he sang:—

A maiden stood beside a river,

And with her pitcher seemed to play;

Then sudden stooped and drew up water,

But drew my heart as well away.

And now I sigh beside the river,

I dream about that maid I saw,

I wait, I watch, am restless, weeping,

Until she come again to draw.

A flower is blooming by the river,

A floweret with a petal blue,

Forget me not, my love, my treasure!

My flower and heart are both for you.

He played and sang a sweet, simple and plaintive air. It touched Eve’s heart; always susceptible to music. Her lips repeated after the boy, ‘My flower and heart are both for you.’

She could not make up her mind what to do. While she hesitated, the opportunity of returning the ring was gone. Watt had disappeared into the bushes.