THE doubts and the joys of the future broke upon Guy with so wide and commingled a vision, that before the others got home and even before Janet came in with tea he hurried away from that nursery, where over the half-stilled echoes of childhood he had heard the sigh of Pauline's assent. The practical side of what he had done could be confronted to-morrow, and with a presage of hopelessness the word might have lain heavily upon his mind, if on the instant of sinking it had not been radiantly winged with the realization of the indestructible spirit that would henceforth animate all the to-morrows of time. No day could now droop for him, whatever the difficulties it brought, whatever the hazards, when he had Pauline and Pauline's heart: and like disregarded moments the years of their life went tumbling down into eternity, as the meaning of that sighed out assent broke upon his conscience with fresh glory. "You'll tell your mother to-night?" he asked. "I think Margaret will know when she sees your shining eyes." "Are my eyes shining?" "Ah, don't you know they are, when you look into mine?" Guy could have proclaimed that he and she were stars flashing to one another across a stupendous night; but there were no similes that did not seem tawdry when he threw them round Pauline. "Child, child, beloved child," he whispered; and his voice faltered for the pitiful inadequacy of anything that he could call her. What words existed, with whatever "Good-bye." He bent over and touched her hand with his lips. Then the Rectory stairs had borne him down like a feather: the Rectory door had assumed a kind of humanity, so that the handle seemed to relinquish his grasp with an affectionate unwillingness. Out in the drive, where the purple trees were washed by the February dusk, he stood perplexed at himself because in a wild kiss he had not crushed Pauline to his heart. Had it been from some scruple of honour in case her father and mother should not countenance his love? Had it sprung out of some impulse to postpone for a while a joy that must be the sharpest he would ever know? Or was it that in the past he had often kissed too lightly so that now, when he really loved, he could not imagine the kiss unpassionate and fierce that would seal her immortally to love, yet leave her still a child? As he paused in that golden February dusk, Guy rejoiced he had told his love in such an awe of her girlhood; and when from the nursery window Pauline blew one kiss and vanished like a fay at mortal trespassing, he floated homeward upon the airy salute, weighing no more than a seed of dandelion to his own sense of being. Upon his way he observed nothing, neither passer-by nor carts in the muddy roads. As he crossed the bridge, the roar of the water into the mill-pool was inaudible, nor did he hear his melodious Guy was under the cloud of a reaction when he rang the Rectory bell on the morning after. The door looked less amicable, and the dragon-headed knocker stared balefully while he was waiting to be let in. He wondered for whom of the family he ought to ask, but Mrs. Grey came nervously into the hall and invited him into the drawing-room. "Pauline has gone over to Fairfield," she began in jerky sentences. "Charming ... yes, charming, you came this morning." The sun had not yet reached the oriel of the drawing-room, that with shadows and fragrance was welcoming Guy where he sat in a winged armchair beside the fire. Time was seeming to celebrate the momentousness of his visit by standing still as in a picture, and he knew that every word and every gesture of Mrs. Grey would in his memory rest always enambered. He was glad, and yet in the captivating quiet a little sorry, that she began to speak at once: "Of course Pauline told me about yesterday. And of course I would sooner she were in love with a man she loved than with a man who had a great deal of money. But of course you mustn't be engaged at once. At least you can be engaged; you are engaged. Oh, yes, of course, if you weren't engaged, I shouldn't allow you to see each other, Mrs. Grey's eyes were wet, and Guy was so full of affectionate gratitude that it was only by blinking very hard at a small picture of Pauline hanging beside the mantelpiece he was able to keep his own dry. "I have a nicer picture than that, which I will give you," Mrs. Grey promised. "The one that I am fondest of, the one I keep beside my bed. Perhaps you would like a picture of her when she was seventeen? She's just the same now, and really I think she'll always be the same." "You are too good to me, Mrs. Grey," he sighed. "We are all so fond of you ... even the Rector, though he is not likely to show it. Pauline is perhaps more like me. Her impulsiveness comes from me." "Ought I to talk to the Rector about our engagement?" Guy asked. "Oh, no, no ... it would disturb him, and I don't think he'll admit that you are engaged. In fact he said something about children: but I would rather ... at least, of course, you are children. But Margaret says you can't be quite a child or you would not be in love with Pauline. And now if you go along the Fairfield road, you'll meet her. But that is only an exception. Not often. I think to-day she might be disappointed if you didn't meet her. And come to lunch, of course. Poetry is a little precarious, but at any rate for the present we needn't talk about the future. I wish your mother were still alive. I think she would have loved Pauline." "She would have adored her," said Guy fervently. "And your father? Of course you'll bring him to tea, when he comes to stay with you. That will be charming ... yes, charming. Now hurry, or you'll miss her." Guy had no words to tell Mrs. Grey of the devotion she had inspired; but all the way down the Fairfield road he blessed her and hoped that somehow the benediction would make itself manifest. Then, far away, coming over the brow of a hill he saw Pauline. It was one of those hills with a suggestion of the sea behind them, so sharply are they cut against the sky. This was one of those hills that in childhood had thrilled him with promise of the faintly imaginable; and even now he always approached such a hill with a dream and surmise of new beauty. Yet more wonderful than any dream was the reality of Pauline coming towards him over the glistening road. She was shy when he met her, and the answers she gave to his eager questions were so softly spoken that Guy was half afraid of having exacted too much from her yesterday. Did she regret already the untroublous time before she knew him? Yet it was better that she should walk beside him in still unbroken enchantment, that the declaration of his love should not have damaged the wings seeming always unfolded for flight from earth: so would he wish to keep her always, that never this Psyche should be made a prisoner by him. The elusive quality of Pauline which was shared in a slighter degree by her sisters kept him eternally breathless, for she was immaterial as a cloud that flushes for an instant far away from the sunset. And yet she was made with too much of earth's simple beauty to be compared with clouds. Her sisters had the ghostly serenity and remoteness that might more appropriately be called elusive. Pauline gave more the effect of an earthly thing that transcends by the perfection of its substance even spirit; and rather was she seeming, though poised for airy regions, still sweetly content with earth. Yet once again Guy found his comparisons poor enough when he looked at Pauline, and he exclaimed despairingly: "There are no words for you. I wanted to say to your mother what I thought about you. Oh, she was so charming." "She is a darling," said Pauline. "And so is Father." They were come to the stile where he and Margaret had watched their footprints on the snow. "And Margaret was very sympathetic, you know," he went on. "Really, if it hadn't been for her, I should never have dared to tell you I loved you. We talked about her and Richard...." "Margaret does love him. She does," Pauline declared. "Only she will ask herself questions all the time." How she changed when she was speaking of Richard, thought Guy a little jealously. Why could she not say out clearly like that her love for him? "You do love me this morning?" he asked. She was standing on the step of the stile, and he offered his hand to help her down. "Won't you say 'I love you'?" But only with her eyes could she tell him, and as, her finger-tips on his, she jumped from the step, she was imponderable as the blush upon her cheeks. "In the summer," said Guy, "you and I will be on the river together. Will you be shy when Summer comes?" "Monica says I'm not nearly shy enough." "What on earth does Monica expect?" They were under the trees of Wychford Abbey, and Guy told her of the days he had spent here, thinking of her and of the hopelessness of her loving him. "I could not imagine you would love me. Why do you?" She shook her head. "One day we'll explore the inside of the house together, shall we?" "Oh, no, I hate that place. Oh, no, Guy, we'll never go there. Come quickly, I hate that house. Margaret loves it and says I'm morbid to be afraid. But I shudder when I see it." They hurried through the dark plantation; and Guy under the influence of Pauline's positive terror felt strangely as if, were he to look behind, he would behold the house leering at them sardonically. People too eyed them, as they went down High Street and turned into Rectory Lane. Guy had a sensation of all the inhabitants hurrying from their business in the depths of their old houses to peer through the casements at Pauline and him; and he was glad when they reached the Rectory drive and escaped the silent commentary. When she was at home again Pauline's spirits rose amazingly; and all through lunch she was so excited, that her mother and sisters were continually repressing her noisiness. Guy on the contrary felt woefully self-conscious and was wondering all the while with how deep a dislike the Rector was regarding him and if after lunch he would not call him aside and solemnly expel him from the house. As they got up from the table, the Rector asked if Guy were doing anything particular that afternoon and on receiving an assurance that he was not, the Rector asked if he would help with the sweet-peas that still wanted sorting. Guy in a bodeful gloom said he would be delighted. "I shall be in the garden at two," said the Rector. "Shall I come as well and help?" Pauline offered. "No, I want you to take some things into the town for me," said the Rector. Guy's heart sank at this confirmation of his fears. Out in the hall Margaret took him aside. "Well, are you happy?" "Margaret, you've been beyond words good to me." "Always be happy," she said. Even Monica whispered to him that he was lucky, and Guy was so deeply impressed at being whispered to by Monica that it gave him a little courage for his interview. He joined the Rector in the garden punctually at two, and worked hard with labels and classifications. "A7," the Rector read out. "A lavender twice as big as Lady Grizel Hamilton. D21. An orange that will not burn. Humph! I don't believe it. Do you believe that, Birdwood?" The gardener shook his head. "There never was an orange as didn't burn like a house on fire the moment the sun set eyes on it." "Of course it'll burn, and anyhow there's no such thing as an orange sweet-pea. If there is, it's Henry Eckford." "Henry isn't orange," said Birdwood. "Leastways not an orange like you get at Christmas." "More buff?" "Buff as he can be," said Birdwood. "What do you think, Mr. Hazlenut?" he went on, turning to Guy and winking very hard. "I really don't know him ... it...." said Guy. "O5," the Rector began again. "A cream and rose picotee Spenser. Yes, I daresay," he commented. "And with about as much smell as distilled water." So the business went on, with Guy on tenterhooks all the while for his own summing-up by the Rector. He thought the moment was arrived when Birdwood was sent off on an errand and when the Rector getting up from his kneeler began to shake the trowel at him impressively. But all he said was: "Tingitana's plumping up magnificently. And we'll have some flowers in three weeks—the first I shall have had since the Diamond Jubilee. Sun! Sun!" Guy jumped at the apostrophe, so nearly did it approximate to 'son-in-law.' But of this relation nothing was said, and now Pauline was calling out that tea was ready. "Go in, my dear fellow," said the Rector. "I've still a few things to do in the garden. By the way was your father at Trinity, Oxford?" "No, he was at Exeter." "Ah, then, I didn't know him. I knew a Hazlewood at Trinity." The Rector turned away to business elsewhere, and Guy was left to puzzle over his casual allusion. Perhaps he ought to have raised the subject of being in love with Pauline, for which purpose the Rector may have given him an opening. Or did this enquiry about his father portend a letter to him from the Rector about his son's prospects? He certainly ought to have said something to make the Rector realize how much tact would be necessary in approaching his father. Pauline called again from the nursery window, and Guy hurried off to join the rest of the family at tea. In the drawing-room Mrs. Grey, Monica and Margaret all seemed anxious to show their pleasure in Pauline's happiness; and Guy in the assurance this old house gave him of a smooth course for his love ceased to worry any longer about parental problems and was content to live in the merry and intimate present. He realized how far he was advanced in his relation to the family when Brydone, the doctor's son, came in to call. Guy took a malicious delight in his stilted talk, as for half-an-hour he tried to explain to Monica, a grave and abstracted listener, how the pike would in March go up the ditches and the shallow backwaters and what great sport it was to snare them with a copper noose suspended from a long pole. After tea Guy and Pauline, as if by an impulse that occurred to both of them simultaneously, begged Margaret to come and talk in the nursery. She seemed pleased that they wanted her; and the three of them spent the time till dinner in looking at the old familiar things of childhood; at photographs of Monica and Margaret and Pauline in short frocks; at tattered volumes scrawled in by the fingers of little girls. "I wish I'd known you when you were small," sighed Guy. "How wasted all these years seem." The gong went suddenly, and Margaret said that of course to-night he would stay to dinner. So once again he was staying to dinner and now on such terms as would make this an occasion difficult to forget. As he waited alone in the lamplit nursery, while Margaret and Pauline were dressing, he kissed Pauline in each faded picture stuck in those gay scrap-books of Varese. Nor did he feel the least ashamed of himself, although at Oxford his cynicism had been the admiration even of Balliol, where there had been no one like him for tearing sentiment into dishonoured rags. When the Rector came in to dinner, carrying with him a dusty botanical folio that swept all the glass and silver from his end of the table to huddle in the centre, Guy tried to make out if he were very much depressed by his not having yet gone home. "Dear me," said the Rector. "I was sure I had seen it in here." "Seen what, Francis?" asked his wife. "A plant you wouldn't know. A Cilician crocus." "Isn't Father sweet?" said Pauline. "Because of course Mother never knows any plant." "What nonsense, Pauline. Of course I know a crocus." Toward the end of dinner Mrs. Grey said rather nervously: "Francis dear, wouldn't you like to drink Pauline's health?" "Why, with pleasure," said the Rector. "Though she looks very well." Pauline jumped in her chair with delight at this, but Mrs. Grey waved her into silence and said: "And Guy's health too?" The Rector courteously saluted him; but the guest feared there was an undernote of irony in the bow. After dinner when Monica, Margaret and Pauline were preparing for a trio, Mrs. Grey said confidentially to Guy: "You mustn't expect Francis—the Rector to realize at once that you and Pauline are engaged. And of course it isn't exactly an engagement yet. You mustn't see her too often. You're both so young. Indeed, as Francis said, children really." Then the trio began, and Guy in the tall Caroline chair lived every note that Pauline played on her violin, demanding of himself what he had done to deserve her love. He looked round once at Mrs. Grey in the other chair, and marked her beating time while like his own her thoughts were all for Pauline. In the heart of that music Guy was able to say anything and he could not resist leaning over and whispering to Mrs. Grey: "I adore her." "So do I," said the mother, breaking not a bar in her beat and gazing with soft eyes at that beloved player. When the music stopped, Guy felt a little embarrassed by the remembrance of his unreserved avowal; yet evidently it had seemed natural to Mrs. Grey, for when he was saying good-bye in the hall, she whispered to Pauline that she "Pauline, Pauline!" He saw her clear eyes in the February starshine and folding her close he kissed her mouth. When he woke, he was at home; and for hours he sat entranced, knowing that never again for as long as he lived would he feel upon his lips as now the freshness of Pauline's first kiss. The rest of that February went by with lengthening eves that died on the dusky riot of blackbirds in the rhododendrons. Here and there in mossy corners primroses were come too soon, seeming all aghast and wan to behold themselves out of the cloistral earth, while the buds of the daffodils were still upright and would not hang their heads till driven by the wooing of the windy March sun. The grey-eyed virginal month, that is of no season and must as often bear the malice of Winter's retreat as the ruffianly onset of Spring, had now that very seriousness which suited Guy's troth. Rules had been made with which neither he nor Pauline were discontented, and so through all that February Guy went twice a week to the Rectory and counted himself rich in Mrs. Grey's promise that he and Pauline should sometimes be allowed, when the season was full-fledged, to go for walks together. At present, however, the Rectory garden must be a territory large enough for their love. These first encounters were endowed with perhaps not much more than the excitement of what were in a way "Margaret," he said one day. "I don't know how you can bear to contemplate Pauline married. Why, when I think of myself, I'm simply dumb before the—what word is there—audacity is much too pale and, oh, what word is there?" "I don't think I could contemplate her married to anybody but you," said Margaret. "But why me?" "Why, because you are young enough to make love beautiful and right," Margaret told him. "And yet you seem old enough to realize Pauline's exquisite nature. So that one isn't afraid of her being squandered for a young man's experience." "But I'm not rich," said Guy, deliberately leading Margaret "Pauline wouldn't be happy with riches. They would oppress her. She isn't luxurious like me." So round and round, backward and forward, on and on the debate would go, until Margaret had arranged for Guy and Pauline a life so idyllic that Shelley would scarcely have found a flaw in her conception. Pauline, however demonstrative in the presence of her family, was still shy when she was alone with her lover. Her mirth was turned to a whisper, and her greatest eloquence was a speech of drooping silences and of blushes rising and falling. Guy never tired of watching these flowery motions that were the response of her cheeks to his love. Each word he murmured was a wind to stir her countenance or ruffle her eyes, so that they too responded with cloudy deeps and shadows and sudden veilings. Nothing more was mentioned of the practical side of the engagement, for Mrs. Grey, Monica and Margaret were all too delightfully enthralled with the progress of an idyll that was to each of them her own secret poem of Pauline in love; while as for the Rector he remained outwardly oblivious of the whole matter. March came crashing into this peace without disturbing the simple pattern into which the existence of Guy and Pauline had now resolved itself—a pattern, moreover, that belonged to Pauline's mother and sisters for their own pleasure in embroidery, so that the lovers were, as it might be, carried about from room to room. Sometimes indeed, when Guy came to the Rectory, there was a pretence of leaving him and Pauline alone; but mostly they were in the company of the others, and Guy was now as deep in the family life as if he were a son of the house. Since he and Pauline never went for walks together, perhaps Wychford speculation had died down—at any rate there was no Meanwhile, it began to dawn on Guy that the time was coming when he would have to make up his mind to do something definite, and on these bleak mornings of early March, as he watched the scanty snowflakes withering against the panes, he asked himself if there was any justification for staying on at Plashers Mead in the new circumstances of his life there. At night, however, when the wind piped and whistled round the house, he used to dream upon the firelight and shrink from the idea of abandoning all that Plashers Mead had stood for and all that now still more it must stand for in the future. If only a plan could be devised by which the house were secured against sacrilege; and half-fantastically he began to imagine a monastic academy for poets, of which he would be Warden. Perhaps Michael Fane would like this idea, and since he had money he might come forward with an offer of endowment. Then he and Pauline could be married; for £150 a year would be an ample income, if there were no rent to pay and no wages. He of course would earn his living as superintendent of the academic discipline; and really, as he dreamed over his plan, such an establishment would be an admirable corollary to Oxford. It might gain even a sort of official recognition from the University. Plainly some sort of institution was wanted where in these commercial days young writers could retreat to learn their craft less suicidally than by journalism. What should he call his academy? With marriage as the reason for inventing this economy he could hardly give it too monastic a complexion. The louder the wind beat against the house, the more feasibly in the lamplit quiet within did the scheme present itself; and Michael Fane, who was always searching for an object in life, would Later, the shrilling wind from the East surrendered to the booming of the equinox. Louder than before the weather beat against Guy's house from the opposite quarter. Chimneys groaned like broken horns, and after a desperate gale even deaf Miss Peasey complained that she had heard the wind once or twice in the night and that her bedroom had seemed a bit draughty. Guy discovered that several tiles had been blown from the roof, so that through the lath and plaster above her head there was a sound of demoniac fife-playing. Then the wind dropped: the rain poured down: but at last on Lady Day morning Guy woke up to see a rich sky between white magnificent clouds, a gentle breeze, and a letter from his father. Fox Hall, Dear Guy, I send you this with the third instalment of the £150. Please let me have a prompter acknowledgement than last time when, I remember, you kept me waiting nearly three weeks. I No, I do not remember a man called Grey in my time at Oxford, but I do remember a man of the same name as ours at Trinity. He came to grief, I believe, later on. You must assure your friend that this was not myself. I am glad you find the Rector and his wife such pleasant people. Have they any children? I wish I could say as much for the new Vicar of Galton, who is a pompous nincompoop and has introduced a lot of this High Church frippery which so annoys some of the parents. Your friend is lucky to be able to afford so much leisure for gardening. I am of course far too busy to think about anything like that except in the summer holidays, when flowers would scarcely give me the change of air I want. This year I hope to come and see you for a week or two, and we shall be able to discuss the future. Don't work too hard and please oblige me by acknowledging the enclosed cheque. Your affectionate father Guy went out in the orchard to meditate upon the advisableness of telling his father at once about Pauline. If he were coming to stay here next August, he ought to know beforehand, for it would be horrid to have the atmosphere of Plashers Mead ruined by acrimonious argument. August, however, was still a long way off, and now there was going to be fine weather for a while, which must not be spoilt. Besides, perhaps in the end his father would not come, and anyway himself would be having to decide presently upon a more definite step. He would tell Pauline, Suddenly Guy heard his name called and looking up he saw across the mill-stream Margaret and Pauline standing in the churchyard. "We've been to church," said Pauline. "And a dead bat fell down nearly on to Father's head when he was giving the Blessing. So he and the sacristan have gone up in the tower to see what can be done about it." "Shall I come and help?" Guy suggested. "You won't be able to do any more than they will," said Margaret laughing. "But if you want to come and help, you'd better. Hasn't your canoe arrived yet?" Guy shook his head. "It's such a glorious morning that I could almost swim the river," he declared. "Oh, Margaret, don't let him," Pauline exclaimed. Guy said he would be in the churchyard before they were back in Rectory Lane to meet him, and with Bob barking at his heels he ran at full speed through the orchard, through the garden, over the bridge and down Rectory Lane just as the two girls reached the lych-gate. They all went into the big church, even Bob, though he slunk at their heels as modestly as might the Devil. High up over the chancel they could see the Rector and the shiny-pated sacristan leaning from the windows of the bell-ringers' chamber and scratching with wands at some blind arches where bats might most improbably lurk. "Let's go to the top of the tower," Guy proposed. "Father isn't on the top of the tower," said Margaret. "But you go up with Pauline. I'll wait for you." So Guy and Pauline went through a low door beaked by Normans centuries ago, and climbed the stone stairs until they reached the bell-ringers' chamber where they paused to greet the Rector, who waved a vague arm in greeting. The stairs grew more narrow and musty as they went higher; but all the way at intervals there were deep slits in the walls, framing thin pictures of the outspread country below the tower. Still up they went past the bell-ropes, past the great bells themselves that hung like a cluster of mighty fruit, until finally they came out through a small turret to meet the March sky. The spire, that rose as high again as they had already come, occupied nearly all the space and left only a yard of leaded roof on which to walk; but even so, up here where the breeze blew strongly, they seemed to stand in the very course of the clouds with the world at their feet. Northward they looked across the brown mill-stream; across Guy's green orchard; across the flashing tributary beyond; across the meadows, to where the Shipcot road climbed the side of the wold. Westward they looked to Plashers Mead and Miss Peasey flapping a table-cloth; to Guy's mazy garden and the grey Guy took Pauline's hand where it rested on the parapet. "Dearest, Spring is here," he said. "And this is our world that you and I are looking at to-day." |