IN THE GARDEN

Until the day of the sale of work at Under-edge Vicarage Coventry lived through the hours as one in a dream, dominated by the mental vision of a gentle girl, by his ardent longing for the moment when he should see her face again. He realised that he had actually fallen in love at first sight, admitted the fact to himself with grudging reluctance, seeing that hitherto he had scoffed at belief in such a possibility--like a person who suddenly sees a ghost after contemptuous denial of the supernatural.

He intended to make the girl his wife. She might not be accomplished or clever; her education must necessarily have been limited, reared, as she had been, so apart from the world. Yet if she were ignorant in the accepted sense of the word, she must also be innocent, guileless, unacquainted with evil--white and unsullied in thought and experience. He had no desire for an intellectual wife; in his opinion the more women knew the more objectionable they became. George Coventry was the kind of man who could contemplate matrimony only under conditions of supreme possession, mental as well as physical. What his wife learnt of life he must be the one to teach her; there must be no knowledge, no memory in her heart of which he might have reason to feel jealous in the most remote degree. There was something of the Sultan in his nature.

Perhaps he was not actively conscious of the stringency of his attitude towards the female sex; now, at least, he merely felt that he had "struck" the very kind of girl he should care to marry, and he harboured no manner of doubt in his mind but that Rafella Forte was all she appeared and all he conceived her to be--a sweet and simple creature, his ideal of a bride.

His instinct was not wrong. The vicar's daughter was a sweet and simple creature, oblivious, if not wholly ignorant, of evil--and of much besides. She made her own clothes, frequently she cleaned her own and her father's boots; she had driven in no vehicle more exalted than the village fly, had ridden nothing better than a donkey or a bicycle, had attended no entertainment more exciting than a local tea party or a penny reading. It was sinful, she thought, to powder one's nose, or to wear shoes with high heels, or to cut one's hair in a fringe--then a fashion that still was in favour. Her hats were kept on with elastic, and she seldom looked long at herself in the glass.

On the day of her sale, however, she looked at her reflection in the mirror rather more attentively than usual, just to make certain that her hair was as tidy as troublesome curls and waves would permit, that primrose soap and hot water had effectively cleaned her face after her busy morning, that her plain straw hat, bound by a white ribbon, and her linen collar were straight. She felt a trifle guilty because she desired to look her best, an ambition that was somehow entangled, quite unaccountably, with the prospect of meeting Captain Coventry again. She had never met anyone quite like Captain Coventry; he was so handsome and he seemed to be so nice. She looked forward with an odd and unwonted agitation to his arrival. She hoped, though she was teased by a slight suspicion to the contrary, that he was a good man, that he was a teetotaller, and did not smoke or play cards.

Then she went down into the garden, and became too deeply engrossed in the arrangement of her stall, and in consultations with early arrivals--the doctor's wife and the wives of one or two prominent farmers--as to the prices of their contributions, and at what time tea ought to be ready, and so forth, to concern herself further over his possible vices. She also forgot to consider his character when he drove up in a hired wagonette with his mother, a gracious old lady in black silk and a shawl, and his sister, a colourless person in a dust cloak, who might have been equally thirty or forty years of age. Rafella could think of nothing at the moment but the disturbing expression in Captain Coventry's eyes as he grasped her hand in greeting, his strong, brown face, his crisp moustache.

Further arrivals confused her, the schoolmaster and his family, parties of villagers, contingents from neighbouring parishes; she mixed up their names, could not confine her attention to their polite remarks; her usual calm self-assurance had fled, everything seemed curiously changed and unreal.

Coventry at once assumed the office of her chief assistant, and proved himself a valuable salesman. The women were attracted by his friendly manners and his good looks, the men were interested in his being a real soldier, in his having come from India. They called him "the Captain," and competed to have converse with him, even if it should entail the purchase of some useless article. His high spirits infected the company, and his marked attentions to the vicar's daughter caused general comment.

Rafella herself felt happy, extraordinarily elated; his open admiration gave her an unaccustomed sense of importance, and she was conscious of the notice it aroused. Animated, flushed, she looked a picture of exquisite maidenhood, in spite of her plain and homely toilet. In Coventry's eyes the virtuous simplicity of her attire only enhanced her charm. He felt he should hate to behold her in smart, up-to-date clothes.

The stall was soon cleared, and tea tickets sold well--sixpence a head for the affluent in the vicarage dining-room, twopence for the more humble out in the garden at a long trestle table in charge of the schoolmaster's wife. It was not until most of the throng had departed that Coventry found a chance of speaking with Rafella alone. He ignored the timid remarks of his sister concerning the time, her fears that "mother might feel fatigued or take cold if they remained too late"; and he calmly requested Miss Forte to show him the kitchen garden.

"There is not much to see, I'm afraid," Rafella said shyly, yet willing enough to take him.

"The very sight of an English kitchen garden is refreshing to anyone from India," he informed her; and they wandered off together, leaving Mr. Forte to entertain Mrs. Coventry and her daughter and one or two lingering visitors in the faded, old-fashioned drawing-room.

Truly there was little to see, beyond cabbages and gooseberry bushes, and the cherished potato patch, in the kitchen garden; the box borders had grown high and thick, and sadly needed trimming. There was an empty greenhouse, frequented by toads, and in one corner stood a shaky summer-house, suggestive of earwigs and spiders, dust and cobwebs.

But to Coventry it was a garden of glamour and dreams. For him a delicious enchantment hung in the air, an infinite pleasure pervaded his being; he wondered how long it must be before he might dare to proclaim his passion, before he might hold this dear girl in his arms as his promised wife.

"How would you like to go to India?" he asked her, dallying with the prospect of taking her there, visualising her bright presence in his bungalow.

"India! Oh, I don't know," she said, surprised. "I have never thought of going anywhere."

"But--but you will marry some day," he suggested tentatively, "and then you will have to go away."

She blushed and laughed a little nervously.

"Oh, that is not at all likely; and even if it were, how could I leave my father? He has become so dependent on me since my darling mother's death."

His spirits sank. He had forgotten all about her father, and the filial sense of duty that would, of course, prevail with such a dear, good girl. He resigned himself to the prospect of struggle, opposition; nevertheless, he meant to win, though in the end the marriage might have to be delayed for a reasonable period.

"But your father would never stand in the way of your happiness, surely?" he argued.

"I shouldn't be happy," she maintained, "if I thought I was behaving selfishly."

"Of course, to a certain extent you are right," he agreed; "but, after all, there are limits to unselfishness. Every woman has a just claim to her own existence." (In the case of his sister this view had not occurred to him.)

"Do you think so?" she asked doubtfully, in deference to his superior masculine wisdom.

"Yes, I do. And if you look a little farther, ought she to sacrifice the happiness of the man who loves her, in addition to her own?"

She blushed again, more deeply, and glanced away from him over the ragged garden steeped in the languorous peace of a summer sunset. "You see"--she hesitated--"I know nothing about--love." The word was spoken timidly, with modest reluctance.

"Sooner or later you are bound to learn its meaning," he said, controlling his impulse to declare that he would teach her. He recognised the risk of precipitancy; she must not be alarmed. As it was, she turned uneasily aside avoiding his gaze; said they ought to go back, it was getting late, Mrs. Coventry would be waiting for him; nervously polite little sentences.

In silence he followed her along the path that led to the door in the garden wall, noting the grace of her slender form, the glint of the curls that lay on her neck, the cream of the skin beneath the curls.

When they arrived at the door he said abruptly:

"I watched you go through here that morning. You had no hat on, and you were singing a hymn."

He was trying to close the door that was warped and stiff, so he missed the puzzled astonishment in her eyes.

"But how could you have seen me? It was ever so long before you came to the house."

"It was why I came to the house." He banged the door impatiently and faced her. "It was why I came back," he added with emphasis. Colour flooded Rafella's face; he thought how adorably she blushed.

"Oh," she gasped; "but I thought it was because of a stone in your horse's shoe. Didn't you tell the truth?" she questioned severely.

He laughed, delighting in her naive sense of honesty. "There was a stone all right, I can assure you, and I blessed the excuse. All the same, I should have come back on some pretext or another. I could hardly have rung the front door bell and said I had observed a young lady with golden hair go through this door, and that I wanted to see her again. Now, could I?"

She turned away, confused, agitated, utterly unable to confront the tender banter in his eyes. But he had not quite done. As they went into the vicarage he asked boldly: "Can I come again, very soon, and talk to you in the garden?"

Though she made no answer he did not feel rebuffed.