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AN INTERLUDE

 

 

 

HE was going down to Merehurst for the Lants’ dance. It was rather a bore; but Mrs. Lant had asked him to all her best things in town, and had made a point of his going to this. It would soon be over, he reflected; besides, disguise it as he would, he still liked dancing. He was seven-and-twenty, tall and supple: three years more, and he would probably be as cynical as most men; meanwhile why not enjoy life?

            All the way he was haunted by a girl’s face, fair and blue-eyed, and with a divinely beautiful flush upon it. He could see her so well, that he amused himself by imagining she sat opposite him in the railway carriage: in the space he outlined her head, her slight figure, her white dress. It had seemed to him that she always wore white dresses of soft stuff, that draped and made her look statue-like, as some sweet Greek girl had looked, perhaps, two thousand years ago. It was many months since he had seen her; he counted them up while the train whirled on as though with some strange instinct it knew that it was rushing towards her, and feared lest he were doubting. He had only seen her half-a-dozen times altogether, but from the first moment she had fascinated him, and compelled him to remember her. He knew little enough about her, whence she came or who she was; only that she was doing her first season in town, though she was not so very young, two-and-twenty perhaps: yes, that at most. She had talked well for a woman, and they had sat out at dances, or hung about conservatories, discussing poetry, and subtle sympathies, and dreamy but very mild metaphysics, as people sometimes do in these days when they are half in love and do not know it, but would like to think themselves mystical. He remembered their last conversation; it was of modern poetry, Tennyson, Browning, and Swinburne. “Tennyson will live as a poet,” she had said, “and Browning as a dramatist, and Swinburne as a force.” He had not quite followed her meaning, but he thought there was discrimination in the remark. He wondered if it was all her own, or the outcome of some conversation she had heard; if one came to investigate talk nowadays, it was surprising how little of it was first-hand.

            He could not in the least define what her power had been, but it was odd how often he thought of her even now; not for long together, he was too loyal to another woman for that—just for a moment she would flit through his mind and vanish, but he faces and forms he had known all his life became crowding of life, but hers remained clear-cut in the conceited fool and an idiot, in some vague way he knew that she had not been indifferent to him. When they met there had come over her face an expression of restfulness: they seemed to begin half-finished in their thoughts, or in some dream parted it was with the unspoken knowledge that between them there would be a chapter of life in the future.

            A chapter of life with her—some day, some hour when the barriers would be broken down, and they might stand face to face, not fearing to speak the words that were already in their hearts? It was maddening joy to think of—but it could never be; the future was all laid out before him, dull and commonplace; there was no shirking it to go seeking after romance and folly and dreams of greater happiness than that which is the lot of ordinary men and women. And then he tried hard to think of the sedate damsel of six-and-twenty to whom he had been engaged these three years. She was looking after her father’s household in a London suburb, content enough to wait till her lover had saved enough money out of his Fellowship, and it pleased him to take her to wife. Content enough: well, so was he. Lena Graves was not woman to stir one’s pulses or make one’s life go quickly; but middle age would pass serenely enough into old age with her, and old age would be unrippled even by exciting memories: it was worth foregoing a few of the fires of youth to gain that prospect. Middle age and old age, sure and certain to come unless death for ever shut the door on them; he wondered if they were as emotionless and easy-going as they seemed, or if their physical aspects belied them.

 

            Of course she was at the Lants’ dance that evening. Her appearance was only the natural sequence to his thoughts; he understood that as he saw her enter with the flash of youth in her eyes, and the proud look of triumphant happiness he remembered so well last year.

            “You!” she exclaimed, and the sound of her voice sent all thoughts of any other woman a hundred miles away. “I thought you had vanished for evermore.”

            “Yes, it is I, and why not? Why should I have vanished for evermore?” he asked joyfully, for the sight of her face filled his whole soul.

            “I did not know you were coming, or that you knew Mrs. Lant.”

            “Was it necessary to announce it?” he asked with the happy masterfulness of a lover.

            “No.”

            “It did not occur to me that you would be here, but I knew we should soon meet again,” he told her as they went slowly round to a waltz that seemed full of messages and memories.

            “Why?” she asked, as they stopped at last and leant back against the dado of books that ran along one end of the room.

            “I felt it; I knew that we were getting nearer to each other all to-day.”

            “Presentiments are no evidence. A thousand come to nothing and we forget them, just one on the average of chances proves itself true; we remark it, call it wonderful, and encourage more.”

            “Ah, this sounds like the talk of a year ago. Do you remember?”

            Is there not already a link of some kind between the man and woman who can say those last words to each other?

            “I have read more since then, thought more—felt more,” the las words seemed to be said against her will.

            “Let us go over to that recess and sit down,” he whispered; “then we can talk of time and all it has done to us—or may do.”

            “‘ Draw back the blinds, and see the fields beyond, ’” she began. “Do you remember our Browning talk that night at the Fances’ ball?” she asked abruptly breaking off.

            “Perfectly, I was thinking of it to-day in the train. You said he would live as a dramatist. I thought he was greater as a poet.”

            “So do I now; that is one of the feelings that has grown out of the year’s thinking.”

            “We read ‘In a Balcony’ together one afternoon”—

            “I know,” she interrupted eagerly. “He is a poet for men and women, not for youth.”

            “We are man and woman now,” he said, half strangely, thinking that in the bygone year they had stood on a threshold as novices awaiting their call. Now the curtain had drawn up, and their turn had come to play. Through his mind there went swiftly the lines:

 

“That woman yonder, there’s no use of life

  But just to obtain her, heap earth’s woes in one

 And bear them—make a pike of all earth’s joys

 And spurn them as they help or help not this.”

 

            “Do you know—” he began, and then shut his mouth firmly. For a moment his face looked hard; with an effort he wrenched his thoughts from her. He turned his eyes away, and tried to forget that she was beautiful. What did beauty or anything in the world that had to do with her matter to him? Yet still she held him by a spell. “I had no notion that you lived at Merehurst,” he said, trying to get back to the commonplaces of life.

            “My mother and I have a little lonely house a mile away.”

            “But I met you in town.”

            “ I was staying with some cousins—just for dissipation. I was twenty-one that year, and it was supposed to be right that I should go to parties.”

            “Did you have a good time?”

            “Perfect;” and they talked of bygone gaieties and people they had met, knowing all the time that it was but the preface to keener talk to come. When would it begin? The evening was already half done.

            “How long do you stay?” she asked.

            “Till to-morrow—at least I was going back then, but now—now you must decide. Shall I see you to-morrow if I stay?”

            “Yes—come and see my mother—”

            “It is you I want to see, that I long to be with—” he stopped short, realizing again that he was saying too much. She looked at him and answered with words beyond her understanding of him—as though they had been spoken by some other self that had already a knowledge of the morrow.

            “Don’t let us rush at things or force Fate’s hand,” she said; “it is a pity not to take the hours at they come—and live through them.”

            “It is all that I may do,—let us live through these.”

 

 

            It was nearly midnight.

            “I must go,” she said; “it is late—for the country.”

            “Who is your chaperon?”

            “I don’t possess one.”

            “Are you here alone?”

            “Why not? It is different from London.”

            “How are you going to get back?”

            She considered a moment.

            “I shall walk.”

            “Walk!”

            “And why not?” she asked again. “This is not London, but the far-off country-side. It is only a mile, and the night is fine. Do you admire the view?” she said the last words with the little laugh that had caught him the first time they met—at some theatricals at South Kensington, where she had taken a small part and he had been prompter, but only prompted them to forget, she had told him afterwards.

            “I don’t understand,” he said, puzzled; “scenery is not the strong point of the present aspect,” and he looked at the dozen couples still going round to the playing of the scratch band from the nearest town.

            “I was quoting from the Walrus and the Carpenter,” she answered. “I thought you were second classic of your year—yet not to know so hackneyed a quotation.”

            “Of course; that is the reason. Only unacademic people ever do any reading. But are you really going to walk?”

            “Yes. I walked here—in thick shoes.”

            “Is a maid coming for you?”

            “No,” and she shook her head; “no maid.”

            “Let me take you back?” His heart stood still, but there was no hesitation in her answer.

            “Yes, certainly. You will protect me in case of tramps or tipsy revellers from the village inn.”

            “Are we to start now?”

            “This minute.” She went to her hostess. “Thank you so much for this lovely dance.”

            “But wait, dear, I must find some one to give you a lift; you can’t go alone,” Mrs. Lant said.

            “Mr. Langdon is going to see me home. I shall not be left a prey to the chances of a lonely road; and I like walking—it is nearer; the drive by the road is so long.” She left the room with the air of triumphant happiness with which she had entered it. She looked back for a moment as she went through the doorway. “I shall never forget this night,” she thought.

            He watched her put on her things—a soft white shawl, a big straw hat. Her satin slippers were in her left hand.

            “Let me take them,” he said; and then they set forth, down the winding drive bordered thickly with firs and laurels, and out at the gateway, through which the carriages with their flaring lamps were driving swiftly to pick up departing guests. On for a bit in silence. The road was dark and lonely, a little uneven. They almost groped their way at first, unable to see well after the bright rooms they had left.

            “You must be tired. You have had a journey from town,” she said presently, as if to make talk.

            “Oh, no,” he laughed. “Besides, it was worth the immense fatigue.”

            “I was nearly not going to-night,” she said. “But my mother insisted. It is lonely for her alone. I never liked to leave her, if it can be helped.”

            “I might have known you were coming.”

            “Why?”

            “Mrs. Lant was talking of you half an hour before. She did not mention your name, but I ought to have recognized the description.”

            “What did she say?” He hesitated a minute, then went a little nearer to her. She had been walking on one side the road and he on the other.

            “She said—I had better not tell you. You might be angry.”

            “Oh, no,” she answered, with a shade of impatience in her voice; “I don’t easily get angry—it is so foolish.”

            “She said you were lovely—that it was impossible to forget you.” He said the last words in a low voice, almost as if he were repeating them to himself. She made no answer, but pulled up by a gate at the side of the road, and stood leaning over it. For a moment they looked at the field that gradually stretched itself before them out of the darkness.

            “I am glad Mrs. Lant thinks me lovely,” she said presently, without a shade of vanity in her voice, “but it would be terrible never to be forgotten; it opens a vista of eternal unrest. Luckily beauty is mortal. A little age, a few dragging years, and I shall be forgotten with the plainest.” Her manner was distant—her words repelled him.

            “This too is like the talk of a year ago,” he said. “Do you remember our attempts at philosophy? But it is an odd way of looking at things.”

            “It is my own way.” And she opened the gate with a little impetuous movement that sent it swinging back. “This is a short way to our house,” she explained. “It is longer by the road. I like going through gateways, too. Do you?” She was a step in advance of him, and looked back as she spoke.

            “But you would not have come this way alone?”

            “Yes I should. There is no one to look after me,” she said quickly, as if to make him understand the situation. “I live alone with my mother, who is a chronic invalid. We have only two maids—that is the whole establishment, and the house is small and lonely. I could not let her be left alone with one maid, while the other went round to bring me home from parties.”

            “Are there no flys?”

            “Oh, yes. But four-and-sixpence. That is too extravagant.” They were crossing the field, they were nearly at the other end from that at which they had entered. The shadows had lifted, had carried themselves farther on, and instead there was about them a soft greyness that was like a dream or the scenery of one. “I remember your saying las year—” she had turned to speak; she stumbled and nearly fell. He sprang forward and caught her. She drew back almost with a start; they stood for a moment looking at each other half hesitating, then went on.

            “It was so stupid of me to stumble, but I never see well in the dark.” He held out his hand almost unconsciously. It touched hers; he felt that she was trembling.

            “Let me see for you,” he said, and drew the hand though his arm. “You will be safe now,” and he could not help the tenderness in his voice.

            “Yes,” and she gave a sigh that seemed to come from a sense of security.

            “Yet you were going back alone?”

            “There is a wood after this,” she said, not heeding his remark; “it is just at the end of the field. It sounds quite romantic.”

            “But would you have gone through the wood alone?” All power to talk seemed to be leaving him, he was so content to watch her in the dim light, to listen to her voice.

            “There’s no danger or romance either in our poor wood, though I can fancy anything as I scurry along,” she said. “Besides, there’s a fascination in danger. One’s heart beats while one hold one’s breath for fear; one’s soul stays at home, is with one keenly if one can imagine there is a chance that the next minute a vagrant’s blunderbuss may hurl it out of one’s body for ever.”

            “You are a strange creature,” he said, more to himself than to her. In some odd way he was wondering if this walk would ever end; he felt as if it were the whole of his life, the reason for which he had been born, that after it nothing else would be worth doing, that though the years would have to be they would all date from this sweet night and be filled with memories of the girl beside him.

            “Am I strange?” she answered; “it is only because I have been so much alone. I have to make my own ways of thinking from sheer ignorance of how other people make theirs.”

            “It is better to make them oneself,” he said. They had entered the wood, the trees whispered and stirred in strange depths of blackness about them; the pathway was narrow, almost insensibly they drew a little nearer together; it was all like an enchantment, to each unsuspected by the other. “It is better to make your own ways of thinking, of living, of feeling,” the last word came slowly. “I know that you do, it is why you are so unlike other women.”

            “How do you know that I am unlike other women?” she asked. “We have only met half-a-dozen times, and our talk has been like hat about us, a stream of froth and bubbles, and ours a part of it.”

            “Six times—once was enough—” he stopped. His brain was whirling; he tried with desperation to think of the woman far away, but he could only remember that her eyes were dull, her hair faded, that there were no tones of her voice to which his heart vibrated. And this girl—sweetest joy her every word held out to him, yet he never for moment mistook the end. “There are some people,” he went on, almost incoherently it seemed to himself, “where histories are in their eyes, their movements—who betray their nature; who—” he broke off for a moment, then went on again. “It does not take much time or vast space—or many words to tell one—” He stopped and listened to himself while he spoke, as though he were listening to another person. The touch of her hand on his arm bewildered him; the dark branches moving dreamily above parted here and there, so that he could see her face more clearly beneath the deep grey sky.

            “I know what you mean,” she answered, in so low a voice that he stopped to catch her every word. “There are some things one knows and hears and sees with another sense—”

            “Do you understand what it is,” he asked, interrupting her, “to stand in the darkness and see through a chink the light that means life and happiness—and yet to know that you cannot break down the barrier between?” He stopped again, not knowing how to go on. She looked up at the trees.

            “I suppose if we could climb so high, and a star fell out from the sky, and we looked through the little hole it left, we should see heaven while we shivered with cold and hunger in this world, and knew we could never get through to the other. What nonsense we are talking,” she said with a sudden change of voice—and they were silent. He looked down at her again.

            “I wonder why we met?” he whispered.

            “For this, perhaps,” she said, dreamily; “for this walk home together.”

            “Home?” He repeated the word half wonderingly. The home of their life’s joy, of their keenest future memories, was with them as they went down the pathway through the wood. “Is it worth it?”

            “Worth what?” she asked, not catching his meaning.

            “This walk—to-night—is it worth what it will cost us? Oh, my darling, my lovely one, is it worth it?” He stopped and waited for her answer as though upon it hung life or death.

            “Yes,” she whispered, “yes, it is worth it.”

            He put his arms round her. “My dear one, my darling, if you knew what it is to hear you say it, it is the whole world;” and he kissed her with a wild happiness at his heart that had yet across it the flick of a whip that was torture. “Kiss me just once,” he entreated, “and then—and then—but you make me forget all things.”

            “What would you remember?” she asked, and raised her face. There was a look of shy happiness upon it, in the frightened eyes a sense of security, in the hands that still touched his shoulder, a clinging that showed how satisfied she was—how trusting. With a jerk it brought him to his senses; with something like desperation he drew back.

            “Are we nearly there?” he asked in a broken voice. “Is it far?” She looked at him in astonishment, the blood mounted to her face, her cheeks burnt with shame. “Have we much farther to go?” He hurried her on a few steps, then she spoke—with an effort, for she could not understand him.

            “We are nearly there. See, here is a gate; it is the little one at the end of our garden. We have a long straggling garden, it reaches down to the wood.” He was not listening to her, he was going through a mental struggle of which she guessed nothing. They entered the garden; the gate closed with a sharp click. They went on a few yards in silence, then she stopped. He divined instantly that here they were to part. Her power over him came back and made him reckless.

            “Are we to meet again?” he asked supplicatingly.

            “Again?” She repeated the word wonderingly. It was so strange a question to ask. Were the likely ever to part again? “But when are you going back to town—not to-morrow, now?”

            “I will stay if you tell me. I can’t go and leave you. I must see you again.” She moved a few steps on towards the house still hidden behind the trees.

            “Perhaps you had better go now,” she said. “There is a little winding path from here up to a side door by which I enter; you might not find your way back. You had better go.” She stopped, and her manner unwittingly betrayed that she was waiting for a tender good-night. He looked round the garden; even in the dim light he could tell that it was almost uncultivated, yet full of sweet-scented flowers.

            “Bushes and trees and shadows,” he said absently.

            “And all of them hung with dreams,” she answered. “See, there is the house. You must go, or I shall have to explain you, and to-night I want to think.” There was happiness in her voice.

            “I can’t let you go,” he said desperately, “till you have promised that we shall meet again. I can’t leave you like this.”

            “Of course we shall meet again.” She looked at him in wonder.

            “When?”

            “To-morrow. You won’t go to-morrow, now?”

            “Not if you wish me to stay.”

            “I do, I do.”

            “Do you long to see me, as I long to see you? Do you understand what you are to me?” he whispered.

            “Yes.” He took her face between his two hands and looked down at it.

            “You seem so happy,” he said wonderingly; “so content.”

            “I am,” she said softly.

            “Why?”

            She hesitated a moment; then she answered in a low voice that was full of joy, “Because you—you love me.” He took his hands away, he drew back and tried to speak; for a moment he could not, then the words came with almost dogged firmness.

            “I did not say that—I am engaged to be married.”

            “Engaged to be married?” she repeated, as though she did not comprehend the meaning of his words.

            “Did you not know? I thought you knew it last year.”

            “I heard it,” she answered with strange distinctness; “but I did not believe it—it did not seem as if it could be true. I have not even thought of it since. You cannot love her?” she said, bewildered.

            “I do,” he said firmly, and set his teeth together. In words at least he would be true; for did not words bind? All the rest mattered only to one’s self. A cold wind seemed to pass over her, she shivered and shook with it: it swept into her heart that felt it with a shock of pain.

            “That night at the Fanes’ ball you were with me all the evening, danced with no one else. Did you love her then?” she asked calmly.

            “Yes,” he answered; and then with sudden passion he went on, “You drive me mad. I cannot see you and withstand your fascination, but I am bound to her, and I love her.”

            “You love me too?” The tone was almost desperate.

            “No. I cannot love two women—”

            “You are very truthful,” she interrupted.

            “You fascinate me and carry me away as she does not, but I love her only, and I am going to marry her.”

            “I don’t want you to marry me,” she said, and laughed mockingly. “You will know that soon. But I love you.” Her voice grew soft and tender, and she she stretched out her hands piteously into the darkness. “But I love you,” she repeated. “Did I not let you kiss me just now, and kiss you back again? If I could do that and not love you, I should be—be--like the women who are—wicked. Did you think me that, since you treated me so? I am not indeed, and I love you. Oh, my dear, me dear!” He took her hands; she let him hold them as into steady herself, but she kept him far off, so that he could not reach her. A sob of agony was in her throat, her face was white and set. For a moment she looked at him helplessly; then with a great effort she seemed to catch up strength again and nerve to listen or to speak.

            “I am not worth your loving, my sweetest,” he said.

            “Perhaps not,” she answered wearily; “but still I do love you, and I am glad to know it. It is my justification for to-night—the only one the world holds, though it would not recognize even that.”

            “My dear one, you humiliate me. I feel like a scoundrel.”

            “You are a man, and human,” she said almost cynically. “Tell me again, I fascinated you so that you forgot all things?”

            “You did that,” he answered simply.

            “So much that you could not help coming back with me to-night—you could not resist coming in spite of—of—”

            “Yes, that is so.”

            “I understand—I understand it all perfectly. Now you must go.”

            “Say you forgive me—”

            “Oh, yes.”

            “And say that you love me once more.” She looked up, he eyes met his, her lips trembled.

            “I love you,” she repeated.

            “I am not worth it.”

            She gave a long sigh, as she answered, “No, no; perhaps not.” She laughed shrilly. Her voice startled him. “It would be triste enough if love went only to those worthy of it—so triste for those who need it most. Tell me,” she went on, with the swift change of manner so peculiar to her, and in the voice that always made his heart stir, “does she love you much?”

            He was silent for a moment; then he answered, with the determination that was in his voice whenever he spoke of his position, “she adores me.”

            “Ah!” and she caught her breath. “I am glad. It is terrible thing to be half-loved.” She put out her hands. There was something in the movement that made him try to reach down to her, but she drew back. “Good-bye,” she said; “no, all that is finished,” she added quickly.

            “Not good-bye. I ought to go to-morrow, but I will stay if you—”

            “No, no.”

            “Why not?”

            “I shall be busy.” She spoke like a woman in a dream, and with a smile that was almost ghostly. It seemed as if more and more light gathered on her face, so that he might see it. “I shall be busy,” she said; “for Allan Williams comes in the evening.”

            “Who is he?”

            “The man I am going to marry;” and slowly her arms fell down to her sides.

            “The man you are going to marry!” he exclaimed, in amazement.

            “Yes.”

            “But not a moment ago you said that you loved me?”

            “And it is true—I do,” she answered steadfastly.

            “Well?”

            “I have cared for Allan these two years,—”     she did not say “loved,” but he did not notice it—betrayed the pain she was suffering, “and he makes love to no other woman in between; he is true to me—true to me, and I—”

            “And you?”

            “And I am going to marry him.”

            “Then why did you say you loved me?”

            “It was true—I did, I do. I think you should have loved me before you took me in your arms and kissed me; or, not loving me, should have pretended that you did, though you were false an hour later. If it had not saved me pain, it would have saved me shame and bitter humiliation.” She spoke in a sad, weary voice, that had not a spark of anger in it. “Now go,” she added.

            “I can’t understand you,” he said, staring at her as thought he wondered if they were both awake.

            “No,” she answered. “I know that. You never would, though you lived a thousand years.”

            “There is this other man?” he asked again, still incredulous.

            “Yes, and has been these two years past.”

            “And you love me?”

            “Yes. I have loved you a little for a long time. Last year at the Fanes’--that night—I loved you much. To-night, from the moment you stood beside me at the Warren, I have loved you more.”

            “And to-morrow?”

            “To-morrow I shall watch for Allan. He will come by the 7·5 train; all the evening he will tell me how much he loves me. We shall stroll about this garden together,” and she looked round dreamily; “we shall talk of our marriage and make plans. I shall bring him to stand just here where we have stood together to-night—oh, go—go,” she cried, drawing back almost as if she were recoiling from him, “you must go, and now—now! It is late. I will shut the gate after you, it must be locked.” In a moment they were by the gate; he turned to speak, she shook her head; he passed through the gateway and looked at her from the other side. He knew as he did so that her face—her face as he saw it now perhaps for the last time—would haunt him all his life.

            “Good-bye,” he said.

            “Good-bye,” she answered.

            “Tell me once more,” he said, lingering, “this other man?”

            “He will be all my life,” and she locked the gate.

            “And I?”

            “You—you are an interlude.” She took out the key and clutched it. “Good-bye,” she turned round to say once more, then slowly walked away. In a moment the trees had hidden her from his sight.

            She heard his footsteps growing fainter and fainter along the pathway through the wood. She stopped and listened to them curiously. She stood on the spot where they had lingered. He had put her shoes down a low bush. They made a white patch on the sombre green. She remembered that his hands had touched them, and kissed them.

            “Hetty,” she said to the servant who let her in, “I want a letter to go by the early post.”

            She sat down and wrote:—

 

“Dear Allan,—Come by the 7·5 train to-morrow.

It shall be as you wish; it is all one to me. If you care for me enough to have me on those terms, I am yours.—E. B.”

 

            She went up stairs and listened at her mother’s door, but all was still. She entered her own room, and with an unsteady hand put down the light. Her shoes fell to the ground, she looked at them as if unable to pick them up, and walking round them went to the window, opened it, and looked out towards the dark wood. She was trembling, and could not stand; she sank on her knees, grasping the casement for support. “Thank Heaven, I had some strength,” she said. “In the future, I suppose, I shall hate him—I shall scorn and loathe him, perhaps; but to-night—I love him.”

 

 

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