5

It was nearly eleven that night when Ashurst put down the pocket “Odyssey” which for half an hour he had held in his hands without reading, and slipped through the yard down to the orchard. The moon had just risen, very golden, over the hill, and like a bright, powerful, watching spirit peered through the half-naked boughs of an ash tree’s. In among the apple trees it was still dark, and he stood making sure of his direction, feeling the rough grass with his feet. A black mass close behind him stirred with a heavy grunting sound, and three large pigs settled down again close to each other, under the wall. He listened. There was no wind, but the stream’s whispering chuckle had gained twice its daytime strength. One bird, he could not tell what, cried “Pip-pip,” “Pip-pip,” with perfect monotony; he could hear an owl hooting. Ashurst moved a step or two, and again stopped, aware of a dim living whiteness all round his head. On the dark unstirring trees innumerable flowers and buds all soft and blurred were being bewitched to life by the moonlight. He had the oddest feeling of actual companionship, as if a million white moths or spirits had floated in and settled between dark sky and darker ground, and were opening and shutting their wings on a level with his eyes. In the still, scentless beauty of that moment he almost lost memory of why he had come to the orchard. He moved on through the thicket of stems and boughs till he reached the big apple tree. No mistaking that, even in the dark, nearly twice the height and size of any other, and leaning out towards the open meadows and the stream. Under the thick branches he stood still again, to listen. The same sounds exactly, and a faint grunting from the sleepy pigs. He put his hands on the dry, almost warm tree trunk. Would she come – would she? And among these quivering, haunted, moon-witched trees he was seized with doubts of everything! All was unearthly here, fit for no earthly lovers; fit only for god and goddess, faun and nymph, not for him and this little country girl. Would it not be almost a relief if she did not come? But all the time he was listening. And still that unknown bird went “Pip-pip,” “Pip-pip,” and there rose the busy chatter of the little trout stream. The blossom on a level with his eyes seemed to grow more living every moment, seemed with its mysterious white beauty more and more a part of his suspense. He plucked a fragment and held it close – three blossoms. Sacrilege to pluck fruit-tree blossom – soft, sacred, young blossom – and throw it away! Then suddenly he heard the gate close, the pigs stirring again and grunting; and leaning against the trunk, he pressed his hands to its mossy sides behind him, and held his breath. Then he saw her quite close – her dark form part of a little tree, her white face part of its blossom; so still, and peering towards him. He whispered: “Megan!” and held out his hands. She ran forward, straight to his breast. When he felt her heart beating against him, Ashurst knew to the full the sensations of chivalry and passion. Because she was not of his world, because she was so simple and young and headlong, adoring and defenceless, how could he be other than her protector, in the dark! Because she was all simple Nature and beauty, as much a part of this spring night as was the living blossom, how should he not take all that she would give him, how not fulfill the spring in her heart and his! And torn between these two emotions he clasped her close, and kissed her hair. How long they stood there without speaking he did not know. The stream went on chattering, the owls hooting, the moon kept growing whiter; the blossom all round them and above brightened in suspense of living beauty. Their lips had sought each other’s, and they did not speak. The moment speech began all would be unreal! Spring has no speech, nothing but rustling and whispering. Spring has so much more than speech in its unfolding flowers and leaves, and the coursing of its streams, and in its sweet restless seeking! While her heart beat against him, and her lips quivered on his, Ashurst felt nothing but simple rapture – Destiny meant her for his arms, Love could not be flouted! But when their lips parted for breath, division began again at once. Only, passion now was so much the stronger, and he sighed:

“Oh! Megan! Why did you come?” She looked up, hurt, amazed.

“Sir, you asked me to.”

“Don’t call me ‘sir,’ my pretty sweet.”

“What should I be calling you?”

“Frank.”

“I could not. Oh, no!”

“But you love me – don’t you?”

“I could not help loving you. I want to be with you – that’s all.”

“All!”

So faint that he hardly heard, she whispered: “I shall die if I can’t be with you.”

Ashurst took a powerful breath.

“Come and be with me, then!”

“Oh!”

Intoxicated by the awe and rapture in that “Oh!” he went on, whispering:

“We’ll go to London. I’ll show you the world. And I will take care of you, I promise, Megan. I’ll never hurt you!”

“If I can be with you – that is all.”

He stroked her hair, and whispered on:

“Tomorrow I’ll go to Torquay and get some money, and get you some clothes that won’t be noticed, and then we’ll escape. And when we get to London, soon perhaps, if you love me well enough, we’ll be married.”

He could feel her hair shiver with the shake of her head.

“Oh, no! I could not. I only want to be with you!”

Drunk on his own chivalry, Ashurst went on murmuring, “It’s I who am not good enough for you. Oh! Megan, when did you begin to love me?”

“When I saw you in the road, and you looked at me. The first night I loved you; but I never thought you would love me.”

She slipped down suddenly to her knees, trying to kiss his feet.

A shiver of horror went through Ashurst; he lifted her up and held her fast – too upset to speak.

She whispered: “Why won’t you let me?”

“It’s I who will kiss your feet!”

Her smile brought tears into his eyes. The whiteness of her moonlit face so close to his, the faint pink of her opened lips, had the living unearthly beauty of the apple blossom.

And then, suddenly, her eyes widened and stared past him painfully; she tore herself from his embrace, and whispered: “Look!”

Ashurst saw nothing but the brightened stream, the beech trees glistening, and behind them all the wide loom of the moonlit hill. Behind him came her frozen whisper: “The gipsy bogle!”

“Where?”

“There – by the stone – under the trees!”

Exasperated, he jumped over the stream, and ran towards the beech clump. Prank of the moonlight! Nothing! In and out of the boulders and thorn trees, muttering and cursing, yet with a kind of terror, he rushed and stumbled. Absurd! Silly! Then he went back to the apple tree. But she was gone; he could hear a rustle, the grunting of the pigs, the sound of a gate closing. Instead of her, only this old apple tree! He pressed himself against the trunk. What a substitute for her soft body; the rough moss against his face – what a substitute for her soft cheek; only the scent, as of the woods, a little the same! And above him, and around, the blossoms, more living, more moonlit than ever, seemed to glow and breathe.

6

Descending from the train at Torquay station, Ashurst wandered uncertainly along the front, for he did not know this particular seaside town. He strode along in his rough Norfolk jacket, dusty boots, and shabby hat, without noticing that he looked quite different from its inhabitants. He was seeking a branch of his London bank, and having found one, found also the first obstacle to his mood. Did he know anyone in Torquay? No. In that case, if he would wire to his bank in London, they would be happy to oblige him on receipt of the reply. That suspicious breath from the matter-of-fact world somewhat tarnished the brightness of his visions. But he sent the telegram.

Nearly opposite to the post office he saw a shop full of ladies’ garments, and examined the window with strange sensations. He went in. A young woman came forward; she had blue eyes and a faintly puzzled forehead. Ashurst stared at her in silence.

“Yes, sir?”

“I want a dress for a young lady.”

The young woman smiled. Ashurst frowned, the peculiarity of his request struck him with sudden force.

The young woman added hastily:

“What style would you like – something modish?”

“No. Simple.”

“What figure would the young lady be?”

“I don’t know; about two inches shorter than you, I should say.”

“Could you give me her waist measurement?”

Megan’s waist!

“Oh! anything usual!”

“Just a moment!”

While she was gone he stood disconsolately staring at the models in the window, and suddenly it seemed to him incredible that Megan – his Megan could ever be dressed in something else than the rough tweed skirt, coarse blouse, and tam-o’-shanter cap he was used to seeing her in. The young woman had come back with several dresses in her arms. There was one whose colour he liked, a dove-grey, but to imagine Megan clothed in it was beyond him. The young woman went away, and brought some more. But on Ashurst there had now come a feeling of paralysis. How choose? She would want a hat too, and shoes, and gloves; but they would commonise her, as Sunday clothes always commonised village folk! Why should she not travel as she was? Ah! She would be too conspicuous; this was a serious elopement. And, staring at the young woman, he thought: ‘I wonder if she guesses, and thinks me a blackguard?’

“Do you mind putting aside that grey one for me?” he said desperately at last. “I can’t decide now; I’ll come in again this afternoon.”

The young woman sighed.

“Oh! certainly. It’s a very tasteful costume. I don’t think you’ll get anything that will suit your purpose better.”

“I expect not,” Ashurst murmured, and went out.

Freed again from the suspicious matter-of-factness of the world, he took a long breath, and went back to dreams. In fancy he saw the trustful, pretty creature who was going to join her life to his; saw himself and her slipping away at night, walking over the moor under the moon, he with his arm round her, and carrying her new garments, till, in some far-off wood, when dawn was coming, she would take off her old things and put on these, and an early train at a distant station would bear them away on their honeymoon journey, till London swallowed them up, and the dreams of love came true.

“Frank Ashurst! Haven’t seen you since Rugby, old chap!”

Ashurst’s frown dissolved; the face, close to his own, was blue-eyed, suffused with sun. And he answered:

“Phil Halliday, by Jove!”

“What are you doing here?”

“Oh! nothing. Just looking round, and getting some money. I’m staying on the moor.”

“Are you lunching anywhere? Come and lunch with us; I’m here with my young sisters. They’ve had measles.”

Hooked in by that friendly arm Ashurst went along, up a hill, down a hill, away out of the town, while the optimistic voice of Halliday explained how “in this mouldy place the only decent things were the bathing and boating,” and so on, till presently they came to a group of houses a little above and back from the sea, and made their way to the hotel.

“Come up to my room and have a wash. Lunch’ll be ready in a moment.”

When he followed Halliday into the sitting room for lunch, three faces, very fair and blue-eyed, were turned suddenly at the words: “This is Frank Ashurst, these are my young sisters.”

Two were indeed young, about eleven and ten. The third was perhaps seventeen, tall and fair-haired too, with pink-and-white cheeks just touched by the sun, and eyebrows, rather darker than the hair, running a little upwards from her nose to their outer points. The voices of all three were like Halliday’s, high and cheerful; they stood up straight, shook hands with a quick movement, looked at Ashurst critically, away again at once, and began to talk of what they were going to do in the afternoon. A regular Diana and attendant nymphs! After the farm this lively, eager talk, this cool, clean, natural refinement, was queer at first, and then so natural that what he had come from became suddenly remote. The names of the two little ones seemed to be Sabina and Freda; of the eldest, Stella.

Soon the one called Sabina turned to him and said:

“I say, will you come shrimping with us? – it’s awful fun!”

Surprised by this unexpected friendliness, Ashurst murmured:

“I’m afraid I’ve got to get back this afternoon.”

“Oh!”

“Can’t you put it off?”

Ashurst turned to the new speaker, Stella, shook his head, and smiled. She was very pretty! Sabina said regretfully: “You might!” Then the talk switched off to caves and swimming.

“Can you swim far?”

“About two miles.”

“Oh!”

“I say!”

“How jolly!”

The three pairs of blue eyes, fixed on him, made him conscious of his new importance – the sensation was agreeable. Halliday said:

“I say, you simply must stop and have a bathe. You’d better stay the night.”

“Yes, do!”

But again Ashurst smiled and shook his head. Then suddenly he found himself being catechised about his physical achievements. He had rowed – it seemed – in his college boat, played in his college football team, won his college mile; and he rose from table a sort of hero. The two little girls insisted that he must see “their” cave, and they set forth chattering like magpies, Ashurst between them, Stella and her brother a little behind. In the cave, damp and darkish like any other cave, the great feature was a pool with possibility of creatures which might be caught and put into bottles. Sabina and Freda, who wore no stockings on their brown legs, exhorted Ashurst to join and help them. He too was soon bootless and sockless. Time goes fast for one who has a sense of beauty, when there are pretty children in a pool and a young Diana on the edge, to receive with wonder anything you can catch! Ashurst never had much sense of time. It was a shock when, pulling out his watch, he saw it was well past three. No cashing his cheque today – the bank would be closed before he could get there. Watching his expression, the little girls cried out at once:

“Hurrah! Now you’ll have to stay!”

Ashurst did not answer. He was seeing again Megan’s face, when at breakfast time he had whispered: “I’m going to Torquay, darling, to get everything; I shall be back this evening. If it’s fine we can go tonight. Be ready.” He was seeing again how she quivered and hung on his words. What would she think? Then he pulled himself together, conscious suddenly of the calm scrutiny of this other young girl, so tall and fair and Diana-like, at the edge of the pool, of her wondering blue eyes under those brows which slanted up a little. If they knew what was in his mind – if they knew that this very night he had meant! Well, there would be a little sound of disgust, and he would be alone in the cave. And with a curious mixture of anger, chagrin, and shame, he put his watch back into his pocket and said abruptly:

“Yes; I’ll have to stay till tomorrow.”

“Hurrah! Now you can bathe with us.”

It was impossible not to yield a little to the contentment of these pretty children, to the smile on Stella’s lips, to Halliday’s “Excellent, old chap! I can lend you things for the night!” But again a spasm of longing and remorse throbbed through Ashurst, and he said moodily:

“I must send a wire!”

They went back to the hotel. Ashurst sent his wire, addressing it to Mrs. Narracombe: “Sorry, detained for the night, back tomorrow.” Surely Megan would understand that he had too much to do; and his heart grew lighter. It was a lovely afternoon, warm, the sea calm and blue, and swimming was his great passion; the favour of these pretty children flattered him, the pleasure of looking at them, at Stella, at Halliday’s sunny face; the slight unreality, yet extreme naturalness of it all – as of a last peep at normality before he took this plunge with Megan! He got his borrowed bathing dress, and they all set forth. Halliday and he undressed behind one rock, the three girls behind another. He was first into the sea, and at once swam out with the bravado of justifying his self-given reputation. When he turned he could see Halliday swimming along shore, and the girls flopping and dipping, and riding the little waves, in the way he was accustomed to despise, but now thought pretty and sensible, since it gave him the distinction of the only deep-water fish. He wondered if they would like him, a stranger, to come into their splashing group; he felt shy, approaching that slim nymph. Then Sabina asked him to teach her to float, and between them the little girls kept him so busy that he had no time even to notice whether Stella was accustomed to his presence, till suddenly he heard a startled sound from her: She was standing submerged to the waist, leaning a little forward, her slim white arms stretched out and pointing, her wet face puckered by the sun and an expression of fear.

“Look at Phil! Is he all right? Oh, look!”

Ashurst saw at once that Phil was not all right. He was splashing and struggling out of his depth, perhaps a hundred yards away; suddenly he gave a cry, threw up his arms, and went down. Ashurst saw the girl launch herself towards him, and cried out: “Go back, Stella! Go back!” He had never swum so fast, and reached Halliday just as he was coming up a second time. It was a case of cramp, but to get him in was not difficult, for he did not struggle. The girl, who had stopped where Ashurst told her to, helped as soon as he was in his depth, and once on the beach they sat down one on each side of him to rub his limbs, while the little ones stood by with scared faces. Halliday was soon smiling. It was – he said – rotten of him, absolutely rotten! If Frank would give him an arm, he could get to his clothes all right now. Ashurst gave him the arm, and as he did so caught sight of Stella’s face, wet and flushed and tearful, all broken up out of its calm; and he thought: ‘I called her Stella! Wonder if she minded?’

While they were dressing, Halliday said quietly, “You saved my life, old chap!”

“Rot!”

Clothed, but not quite in their right minds, they went up all together to the hotel and sat down to tea, except Halliday, who was lying down in his room. After some slices of bread and jam, Sabina said:

“I say, you know, you are a brick!” And Freda added:

“Rather!”

Ashurst saw Stella looking down; he got up in confusion, and went to the window. From there he heard Sabina mutter: “I say, let’s swear blood bond. Where’s your knife, Freda?” and out of the corner of his eye could see each of them solemnly prick herself, squeeze out a drop of blood and dabble on a bit of paper. He turned and made for the door.

“Don’t be a stoat! Come back!” His arms were seized; imprisoned between the little girls he was brought back to the table. On it lay a piece of paper with a figure drawn in blood, and the three names Stella Halliday, Sabina Halliday, Freda Halliday – also in blood, running towards it like the rays of a star. Sabina said:

“That’s you. We shall have to kiss you, you know.”

And Freda echoed:

“Oh! Yes!”

Before Ashurst could escape, some wettish hair dangled against his face, something like a bite descended on his nose, he felt his left arm pinched, and other teeth softly searching his cheek. Then he was released, and Freda said:

“Now, Stella.”

Ashurst, red and rigid, looked across the table at a red and rigid Stella. Sabina giggled; Freda cried:

“Hurry up – it spoils everything!”

A queer, ashamed eagerness shot through Ashurst: then he said quietly:

“Shut up, you little demons!”

Again Sabina giggled.

“Well, then, she can kiss her hand, and you can put it against your nose. It is on one side!”

To his amazement the girl did kiss her hand and stretch it out. Solemnly he took that cool, slim hand and laid it to his cheek. The two little girls broke into clapping, and Freda said:

“Now, then, we shall have to save your life at any time; that’s settled. Can I have another cup, Stella?” Tea was resumed, and Ashurst, folding up the paper, put it in his pocket. The talk turned on the advantages of measles, tangerine oranges, honey in a spoon, no lessons, and so forth. Ashurst listened, silent, exchanging friendly looks with Stella, whose face was again of its normal sun-touched pink and white. It was soothing to be so taken to the heart of this jolly family, fascinating to watch their faces. And after tea he talked to Stella in the window seat and looked at her water-colour sketches. The whole thing was like a pleasurable dream; importance and reality suspended. Tomorrow he would go back to Megan, with nothing of all this left save the paper with the blood of these children, in his pocket. Children! Stella was not quite that – as old as Megan! Her talk was quick, rather shy, yet friendly, and about her there was something cool and virginal. At dinner, to which Halliday, who had swallowed too much sea-water, did not come, Sabina said:

“I’m going to call you Frank.”

Freda echoed:

“Frank, Frank, Franky.”

Ashurst grinned and bowed.

“Every time Stella calls you Mr. Ashurst, she’s got to pay a forfeit. It’s ridiculous.”

Ashurst looked at Stella, who grew slowly red. Sabina giggled; Freda cried:

“She’s ‘smoking’ – ‘smoking!’ – Yah!”

Ashurst reached out to right and left, and grasped some fair hair in each hand.

“Look here,” he said, “you two! Leave Stella alone, or I’ll tie you together!”

Freda gurgled:

“Ouch! You are a beast!”

Sabina murmured cautiously:

“You call her Stella, you see!”

“Why shouldn’t I? It’s a jolly name!”

“All right; we give you leave to!”

Ashurst released the hair. Stella! What would she call him – after this? But she called him nothing; till at bedtime he said, deliberately:

“Good-night, Stella!”

“Good-night, Mr. – Good-night, Frank! It was jolly of you, you know!”

“Oh-that! Bosh!”

Her quick, straight handshake tightened suddenly, and as suddenly became slack.

Ashurst stood motionless in the empty sitting-room. Only last night, under the apple tree and the living blossom, he had held Megan to him, kissing her eyes and lips. And he panted, swept by that rush of remembrance. Tonight it should have begun – his life with her who only wanted to be with him! And now, twenty-four hours and more must pass, because of not looking at his watch! Why had he made friends with this family of innocents just when he was saying good-bye to innocence, and all the rest of it? ‘But I mean to marry her,’ he thought; ‘I told her so!’

He took a candle, lighted it, and went to his bedroom, which was next to Halliday’s. His friend’s voice called, as he was passing:

“Is that you, old chap? I say, come in.”

He was sitting up in bed, smoking a pipe and reading.

“Sit down a bit.”

Ashurst sat down by the open window.

“I’ve been thinking about this afternoon, you know,” said Halliday rather suddenly. “They say you go through all your past. I didn’t. I suppose I wasn’t far enough gone.”

“What did you think of?”

Halliday was silent for a little, then said quietly.

“Well, I did think of one thing – rather odd – of a girl at Cambridge that I might have – you know; I was glad I hadn’t got her on my mind. Anyhow, old chap, I owe it to you that I’m here; I should have been in the big dark by now. No more bed, or baccy; no more anything. I say, what do you suppose happens to us?”

Ashurst murmured:

“Go out like flames, I expect.”

“Phew!”

“We may flicker, and cling about a bit, perhaps.”

“Hm! I think that’s rather gloomy. I say, I hope my young sisters have been decent to you?”

“Awfully decent.”

Halliday put his pipe down, crossed his hands behind his neck, and turned his face towards the window.

“They’re not bad kids!” he said.

Watching his friend, lying there, with that smile, and the candle-light on his face, Ashurst shuddered. Quite true! He might have been lying there with no smile, with all that sunny look gone out for ever! He might not have been lying there at all, but “sanded” at the bottom of the sea, waiting for resurrection on the ninth day, was it? And that smile of Halliday’s seemed to him suddenly something wonderful, as if in it were all the difference between life and death – the little flame – the all! He got up, and said softly:

“Well, you ought to sleep, I expect. Shall I blow out?”

Halliday caught his hand.

“I can’t say it, you know; but it must be rotten to be dead. Good-night, old boy!”

Ashurst squeezed the hand, and went downstairs. The hall door was still open. The stars were bright in a very dark blue sky, and by their light some lilacs had that mysterious colour of flowers by night which no one can describe. Ashurst pressed his face against a spray; and before his closed eyes Megan started up, with the tiny brown spaniel pup against her breast. “I thought of a girl that I might have – you know. I was glad I hadn’t got her on my mind!” He jerked his head away from the lilac, and began walking up and down over the grass, a grey phantom coming to substance for a moment in the light from the lamp at either end. He was with her again under the living, breathing whiteness of the blossom, the stream chattering by, the moon glinting steel-blue on the bathing-pool; back in the rapture of his kisses on her upturned face of innocence and humble passion, back in the suspense and beauty of that pagan night. He stood still once more in the shadow of the lilacs. Here the sea, not the stream, was Night’s voice; the sea with its sigh and rustle; no little bird, no owl, no nightjar called; but a piano tinkled, and the white houses cut the sky with solid curve, and the scent from the lilacs filled the air. A window of the hotel, high up, was lighted; he saw a shadow move across the blind. And most queer sensations stirred within him, a sort of twining and turning of a single emotion on itself, as though spring and love, bewildered and confused, seeking the way, were baffled. This girl, who had called him Frank, whose hand had given his that sudden little clutch, this girl so cool and pure – what would she think of such wild, unlawful loving? He was sitting on the grass cross-legged, with his back to the house, motionless as some carved Buddha. Was he really going to break through innocence? Sniff the scent out of a wild flower, and – perhaps – throw it away? “Of a girl at Cambridge that I might have – you know!” He put his hands to the grass, one on each side, palms downwards, and pressed; it was just warm still – the grass, soft and firm and friendly. ‘What am I going to do?’ he thought. Perhaps Megan was at her window, looking out at the blossom, thinking of him! Poor little Megan! ‘Why not?’ he thought. ‘I love her! But do I really love her? or do I only want her because she is so pretty, and loves me? What am I going to do?’ The piano tinkled on, the stars flickered; and Ashurst stared before him at the dark sea, as if spell-bound. He got up at last, rather chilly. There was no longer light in any window. And he went in to bed.

Out of a deep and dreamless sleep he was awakened by the sound of thumping on the door. A shrill voice called:

“Hi! Breakfast’s ready.”

He jumped up. Where was he —? Ah!

He found them already eating marmalade, and sat down in the empty place between Stella and Sabina, who, after watching him a little, said:

“I say, do hurry up; we’re going to start at half-past nine.”

“We’re going to Berry Head, old chap; you must come!”

Ashurst thought: ‘Come! Impossible. I shall be getting things and going back.’ He looked at Stella. She said quickly:

“Do come!”

“It’ll be no fun without you,” said Sabina.

Freda got up and stood behind his chair.

“You’ve got to come, or else I’ll pull your hair!”

Ashurst thought: ‘Well – one day more – to think it over! One day more!’ And he said:

“All right!”

“Hurrah!”

At the station he wrote a second telegram to the farm, and then tore it up; he could not have explained why. From Brixham they drove in a very little wagonette. There, squeezed between Sabina and Freda, with his knees touching Stella’s, they played “Up, Jenkins”; and the gloom he was feeling gave way to frolic. In this one day more to think it over, he did not want to think! They ran races, wrestled, paddled – for today nobody wanted to bathe – they sang songs, played games, and ate all they had brought. The little girls fell asleep against him on the way back, and his knees still touched Stella’s in the narrow wagonette. It seemed incredible that thirty hours ago he had never set eyes on any of those three flaxen heads. In the train he talked to Stella of poetry, discovering her favourites, and telling her his own with a pleasing sense of superiority; till suddenly she said, rather low:

“Phil says you don’t believe in a future life, Frank. I think that’s dreadful.”

Bewildered, Ashurst muttered:

“I don’t either believe or not believe – I simply don’t know.”

She said quickly:

“I couldn’t bear that. What would be the use of living?”

Watching the frown of those pretty brows, Ashurst answered:

“I don’t believe in believing things because one wants to.”

“But why should one wish to live again, if one isn’t going to?”

And she looked full at him.

He did not want to hurt her, but an itch to dominate pushed him on to say:

“While one’s alive one naturally wants to go on living for ever; that’s part of being alive. But it probably isn’t anything more.”

“Don’t you believe in the Bible at all, then?”

Ashurst thought: ‘Now I shall really hurt her!’

“I believe in the Sermon on the Mount, because it’s beautiful and good for all time.”

“But don’t you believe Christ was divine?”

He shook his head.

She turned her face quickly to the window, and there sprang into his mind Megan’s prayer, repeated by little Nick: “God bless us all, and Mr. Ashes!” Who else would ever say a prayer for him, like her who at this moment must be waiting – waiting to see him come down the lane? And he thought suddenly: ‘What a scoundrel I am!’

All that evening this thought kept coming back; but, as is not unusual, each time with less poignancy, till it seemed almost a matter of course to be a scoundrel. And – strange! – he did not know whether he was a scoundrel if he meant to go back to Megan, or if he did not mean to go back to her.

They played cards till the children were sent off to bed; then Stella went to the piano. From over on the window seat, where it was nearly dark, Ashurst watched her between the candles – that fair head on the long, white neck bending to the movement of her hands. She played fluently, without much expression; but what a Picture she made, the faint golden radiance, a sort of angelic atmosphere hovering about her! Who could have passionate thoughts or wild desires in the presence of that white-clothed girl with the seraphic head? She played a thing of Schumann’s called “Warum?” Then Halliday brought out a flute, and the spell was broken. After this they made Ashurst sing, Stella playing him accompaniments from a book of Schumann songs, till, in the middle of “Ich grolle nicht,” two small figures in blue dressing-gowns crept in and tried to hide themselves beneath the piano. The evening broke up in confusion, and what Sabina called “a splendid rag.”

That night Ashurst hardly slept at all. He was thinking, tossing and turning. The intense domestic intimacy of these last two days, the strength of this Halliday atmosphere, seemed to ring him round, and make the farm and Megan – even Megan – seem unreal. Had he really made love to her – really promised to take her away to live with him? He must have been bewitched by the spring, the night, the apple blossom! This May madness could but destroy them both! The notion that he was going to make her his mistress – that simple child not yet eighteen – now filled him with a sort of horror. He muttered to himself: “It’s awful, what I’ve done – awful!” And the sound of Schumann’s music throbbed and mingled with his feverish thoughts, and he saw again Stella’s cool, white, fair-haired figure and bending neck, the queer, angelic radiance about her. ‘I must have been – I must be – mad!’ he thought. ‘What came into me? Poor little Megan!’ “God bless us all, and Mr. Ashes! I want to be with you – only to be with you!” And burying his face in his pillow, he smothered down a fit of sobbing. Not to go back was awful! To go back – more awful still!

Emotion, when you are young, and give real vent to it, loses its power of torture. And he fell asleep, thinking: ‘What was it – a few kisses – all forgotten in a month!’

Next morning he got his cheque cashed, but avoided the shop of the dove-grey dress; and, instead, bought himself some necessaries. He spent the whole day in a queer mood. Instead of the hankering of the last two days, he felt nothing but a blank – all passionate longing gone, as if quenched in that outburst of tears… After tea Stella put a book down beside him, and said shyly:

“Have you read that, Frank?”

It was Farrar’s “Life of Christ.” Ashurst smiled. Her anxiety about his beliefs seemed to him comic, but touching. Infectious too, perhaps, for he began to have an itch to justify himself, if not to convert her. And in the evening, when the children and Halliday were mending their shrimping nets, he said:

“At the back of orthodox religion, so far as I can see, there’s always the idea of reward – what you can get for being good; a kind of begging for favours. I think it all starts in fear.”

She was sitting on the sofa making knots with a bit of string. She looked up quickly:

“I think it’s much deeper than that.”

Ashurst felt again that wish to dominate.

“You think so,” he said; “but wanting the ‘quid pro quo’ is about the deepest thing in all of us! It’s quite hard to get to the bottom of it!”

She wrinkled her brows in a puzzled frown.

“I don’t think I understand.”

He went on obstinately:

“Well, think, and see if the most religious people aren’t those who feel that this life doesn’t give them all they want. I believe in being good because to be good is good in itself.”

“Then you do believe in being good?”

How pretty she looked now – it was easy to be good with her! And he nodded and said:

“I say, show me how to make that knot!”

With her fingers touching his, he felt soothed and happy. And when he went to bed he wilfully kept his thoughts on her, wrapping himself in her fair, cool sisterly radiance, as in some garment of protection.

Next day he found they had arranged to go by train to Totnes, and picnic at Berry Pomeroy Castle. Still in that resolute oblivion of the past, he took his place with them in the landau beside Halliday, back to the horses. And, then, along the seafront, nearly at the turning to the railway station, his heart almost leaped into his mouth. Megan – Megan herself! – was walking on the far pathway, in her old skirt and jacket and her tam-o’-shanter, looking up into the faces of the passers-by. Instinctively he threw his hand up for cover, then pretended to be clearing dust out of his eyes; but between his fingers he could see her still, moving, not with her free country step, but wavering, lost-looking, pitiful-like some little dog which has missed its master and does not know whether to run on, to run back – where to run. How had she come like this? – what excuse had she found to get away? – what did she hope for? But with every turn of the wheels bearing him away from her, his heart revolted and cried to him to stop them, to get out, and go to her! When the landau turned the corner to the station he could stand it no more, and opening the carriage door, muttered: “I’ve forgotten something! Go on – don’t wait for me! I’ll join you at the castle by the next train!” He jumped, stumbled, but recovered his balance, and walked forward, while the carriage with the astonished Hallidays rolled on.

From the corner he could only just see Megan, a long way ahead now. He ran a few steps, checked himself, then began walking. With each step nearer to her, further from the Hallidays, he walked more and more slowly. How did it change anything – this sight of her? How make the going to her, and that which must come of it, less ugly? For there was no hiding it – since he had met the Hallidays he had become gradually sure that he would not marry Megan. It would only be a wild love-time, a troubled, remorseful, difficult time – and then – well, then he would get tired, just because she gave him everything, was so simple, and so trustful, so dewy. And dew – wears off! The little spot of faded colour, her tam-o’-shanter cap, wavered on far in front of him; she was looking up into every face, and at the house windows. Had any man ever such a cruel moment to go through? Whatever he did, he felt he would be a beast. And he uttered a groan which made a woman turn and stare. He saw Megan stop and lean against the sea-wall, looking at the sea; and he too stopped. Quite likely she had never seen the sea before, and even in her distress could not resist that sight. ‘Yes – she’s seen nothing,’ he thought; ‘everything’s before her. And just for a few weeks’ passion, I shall be cutting her life to ribbons. I’d better go and hang myself rather than do it!’ And suddenly he seemed to see Stella’s calm eyes looking into his, the wave of fluffy hair on her forehead stirred by the wind. Ah! it would be madness, would mean giving up all that he respected, and his own self-respect. He turned and walked quickly back towards the station. But memory of that poor, bewildered little figure, those anxious eyes searching the passers-by, struck him too hard again, and once more he turned towards the sea.

The cap was no longer visible; that little spot of colour had vanished in the stream of the noon promenaders. And impelled by the passion of longing, the dearth which comes on one when life seems to be whirling something out of reach, he hurried forward. She was nowhere to be seen; for half an hour he looked for her; then on the beach threw himself face downward in the sand. To find her again he knew he had only to go to the station and wait till she returned from her fruitless quest, to take her train home; or to take train himself and go back to the farm, so that she found him there when she returned. But he lay inert in the sand, among the indifferent groups of children with their spades and buckets. Pity at her little figure wandering, seeking, was almost merged in the spring-running of his blood; for it was all wild feeling now – the chivalrous part, what there had been of it, was gone. He wanted her again, wanted her kisses, her soft, little body, all her quick, warm, pagan emotion; wanted the wonderful feeling of that night under the moonlit apple boughs; wanted it all with a horrible intensity, as the faun wants the nymph. The quick chatter of the little bright trout-stream, the rocks of the old “wild men”; the calling of the cuckoos, the hooting of the owls; and the red moon peeping out of the velvet dark at the living whiteness of the blossom; and her face just out of reach at the window, lost in its love-look; and her heart against his, her lips answering his, under the apple tree – all this besieged him. Yet he lay inert. What was it which struggled against pity and this feverish longing, and kept him there paralysed in the warm sand? Three flaxen heads – a fair face with friendly blue-grey eyes, a slim hand pressing his, a quick voice speaking his name – “So you do believe in being good?” Yes, and a sort of atmosphere as of some old English garden, with pinks, and cornflowers, and roses, and scents of lavender and fair, untouched, almost holy – all that he had been brought up to feel was clean and good. And suddenly he thought: ‘She might come along the front again and see me!’ and he got up and made his way to the rock at the far end of the beach. There, with the spray biting into his face, he could think more coolly. To go back to the farm and love Megan out in the woods, among the rocks, with everything around wild and fitting – that, he knew, was impossible. To transplant her to a great town, to keep, in some little flat or rooms, one who belonged so wholly to Nature – the poet in him shrank from it. His passion would be soon gone; in London, her very simplicity, her lack of all intellectual quality, would make her his secret plaything – nothing else. The longer he sat on the rock, with his feet dangling over a greenish pool from which the sea was ebbing, the more clearly he saw this; but it was as if her arms and all of her were slipping slowly, slowly down from him, into the pool, to be carried away out to sea; and her face looking up, her lost face with begging eyes, and dark, wet hair – possessed, haunted, tortured him! He got up at last and made his way down into a cove. Perhaps in the sea he could get back his control – lose this fever! And stripping off his clothes, he swam out. He wanted to tire himself so that nothing mattered and swam recklessly, fast and far; then suddenly, for no reason, felt afraid. Suppose he could not reach shore again – or he got cramp, like Halliday! He turned to swim in. The red cliffs looked a long way off. If he were drowned they would find his clothes. The Hallidays would know; but Megan perhaps never – they took no newspaper at the farm. And Phil Halliday’s words came back to him again: “A girl at Cambridge I might have – glad I haven’t got her on my mind!” And in that moment of unreasoning fear he vowed he would not have her on his mind. Then his fear left him; he swam in easily enough, dried himself in the sun, and put on his clothes. His heart felt sore, but no longer ached; his body cool and refreshed.

When one is as young as Ashurst, pity is not a violent emotion. And, back in the Hallidays’ sitting-room, he felt much like a man recovered from fever. Everything seemed new and clear; the tea, the buttered toast and jam tasted absurdly good; tobacco had never smelt so nice. And walking up and down the empty room, he stopped here and there to touch or look. He took up Stella’s work-basket, fingered the cotton reels and a brightly-coloured plait of sewing silks. He sat down at the piano, playing tunes with one finger, thinking: ‘Tonight she’ll play; I shall watch her while she’s playing; it does me good to watch her.’ He took up the book, which still lay where she had placed it beside him, and tried to read. But Megan’s little, sad figure began to come back at once, and he got up and leaned in the window, listening to the thrushes in the gardens, gazing at the sea, dreamy and blue below the trees. A servant came in and cleared the tea away, and he still stood, breathing in the evening air, trying not to think. Then he saw the Hallidays coming through the gate, Stella a little in front of Phil and the children, with their baskets, and instinctively he drew back. His heart, too sore and disconcerted, shrank from this meeting, yet wanted its friendly solace – bore a grudge against this influence, yet longed for its cool innocence, and the pleasure of watching Stella’s face. From against the wall behind the piano he saw her come in and stand looking a little blank as though disappointed; then she saw him and smiled, a swift, brilliant smile which warmed yet irritated Ashurst.

“You never came after us, Frank.”

“No; I found I couldn’t.”

“Look! We picked such lovely late violets!” She held out a bunch. Ashurst put his nose to them, and there stirred within him vague longings, chilled at once by a vision of Megan’s anxious face lifted to the faces of the passers-by.

He said shortly: “How jolly!” and turned away. He went up to his room, and, avoiding the children, who were coming up the stairs, threw himself on his bed, and lay there with his arms crossed over his face. Now that he felt the die really cast, and Megan given up, he hated himself, and almost hated the Hallidays and their atmosphere of healthy, happy English homes.

Why should they have chanced here, to drive away first love – to show him that he was going to be no better than a common seducer? What right had Stella, with her fair, shy beauty, to make him know for certain that he would never marry Megan; and, tarnishing it all, bring him such bitterness of regretful longing and such pity? Megan would be back by now, worn out by her miserable seeking – poor little thing! – expecting, perhaps, to find him there when she reached home. Ashurst bit at his sleeve, to smother a groan of remorseful longing. He went to dinner gloomy and silent, and his mood threw a dinge even over the children. It was a melancholy evening, for they were all tired; several times he caught Stella looking at him with a hurt, puzzled expression, and this pleased his evil mood. He slept miserably; got up quite early, and wandered out. He went down to the beach. Alone there with the serene, the blue, the sunlit sea, his heart relaxed a little. Conceited fool – to think that Megan would take it so hard! In a week or two she would almost have forgotten! And he well, he would have the reward of virtue! A good young man! If Stella knew, she would give him her blessing for resisting that devil she believed in; and he uttered a hard laugh. But slowly the peace and beauty of sea and sky, the flight of the lonely seagulls, made him feel ashamed. He bathed, and turned homewards.

Stella herself was sitting on a camp stool, sketching. He stole up close behind. How fair and pretty she was, bent diligently, holding up her brush, measuring, wrinkling her brows.

He said gently:

“Sorry I was such a beast last night, Stella.”

She turned round, startled, flushed very pink, and said in her quick way:

“It’s all right. I knew there was something. Between friends it doesn’t matter, does it?”

Ashurst answered:

“Between friends – and we are, aren’t we?”

She looked up at him, nodded vehemently, and her upper teeth glinted again in that swift, brilliant smile.

Three days later he went back to London, travelling with the Hallidays. He had not written to the farm. What was there he could say?

On the last day of April in the following year he and Stella were married…

* * *

Such were Ashurst’s memories, sitting against the wall among the gorse, on his silver-wedding day. At this very spot, where he had laid out the lunch, Megan must have stood outlined against the sky when he had first caught sight of her. Of all queer coincidences! And there moved in him a longing to go down and see again the farm and the orchard, and the meadow of the gipsy bogle. It would not take long; Stella would come back in an hour, perhaps.

How well he remembered it all – the little crowning group of pine trees, the steep-up grass hill behind! He paused at the farm gate. The low stone house, the yew-tree porch, the flowering currants – not changed a bit; even the old green chair was out there on the grass under the window, where he had reached up to her that night to take the key. Then he turned down the lane, and stood leaning on the orchard gate – grey skeleton of a gate, as then. A black pig even was wandering in there among the trees. Was it true that twenty-six years had passed, or had he dreamed and awakened to find Megan waiting for him by the big apple tree? Unconsciously he put up his hand to his grizzled beard and brought himself back to reality. Opening the gate, he made his way down through the nettles till he came to the edge, and the old apple tree itself. Unchanged! A little more of the grey-green lichen, a dead branch or two, and for the rest it might have been only last night that he had embraced that mossy trunk after Megan’s escape, while above his head the moonlit blossom had seemed to breathe and live. In that early spring a few buds were showing already; the blackbirds shouting their songs, a cuckoo calling, the sunlight bright and warm. Incredibly the same – the chattering trout-stream, the narrow pool he had lain in every morning, splashing the water over his flanks and chest; and out there in the wild meadow the beech clump and the stone where the gipsy bogle was supposed to sit. And an ache for lost youth, a hankering, a sense of wasted love and sweetness, gripped Ashurst by the throat. Surely, on this earth of such wild beauty, one was meant to hold rapture to one’s heart, as this earth and sky held it! And yet, one could not!

He went to the edge of the stream, and looking down at the little pool, thought: ‘Youth and spring! What has become of them all, I wonder?’

And then, in sudden fear of being seen, he went back to the lane, and musingly returned to the crossroads.

Beside the car an old, grey-bearded man was leaning on a stick, talking to the chauffeur. He broke off at once, as though guilty of disrespect, and touching his hat, prepared to limp on down the lane.

Ashurst pointed to the narrow green mound. “Can you tell me what this is?”

The old fellow stopped; on his face had come a look as though he were thinking: ‘You’ve come to the right shop, mister!’

“It is a grave,” he said.

“But why out here?”

The old man smiled. “That’s a tale, as you may say. And not the first time as I’ve told it – plenty of people ask about that bit of turf. ‘Maid’s Grave’ we calls it, here.”

Ashurst held out his pouch. “Have a fill?”

The old man touched his hat again, and slowly filled an old clay pipe. His eyes, looking upward out of a mass of wrinkles and hair, were still quite bright.

“If you don’t mind, sir, I’ll sit down, my leg’s hurting a bit today.” And he sat down on the mound of turf.

“There’s always a flower on this grave. And it isn’t so very lonesome, neither; lots of people go by now, in their new motor cars and things – not as it was in the old days. She’s got company up here. It was a poor soul, killed herself.”

“I see!” said Ashurst. “Cross-roads burial. I didn’t know that custom was kept up.”

“Ah! but it was a long time ago. We had a parson, he was very God-fearing then. Let me see… I were just on fifty when it happened. There’s no one knows more about it than what I do. She belonged close here; same farm as where I used to work. It belonged to Mrs. Narracombe, and it is Nick Narracombe’s now; I do a bit for him still, sometimes.”

Ashurst, who was leaning against the gate, lighting his pipe, left his hands before his face for long after the flame of the match had gone out.

“Yes?” he said, and to himself his voice sounded hoarse and queer.

“She was one in a hundred, poor maid! I put a flower here every time I pass. Pretty maid and good maid she was, though they wouldn’t bury her up to the church, nor where she wanted to be burried neither.” The old labourer paused, and put his hairy, twisted hand flat down on the turf beside the bluebells.

“Yes?” said Ashurst.

“In a manner of speaking,” the old man went on, “I think as it was a love-story – though there’s no one never knew for certain. You can’t tell what’s in a maid’s head but that’s what I think about it.” He drew his hand along the turf. “I was fond of that maid – don’ know if there was anyone as wasn’t fond of her. But she was to loving-hearted – that’s where it was, I think.” He looked up. And Ashurst, whose lips were trembling in the cover of his beard, murmured again: “Yes?”

“It was in the spring, about now as it might be, or a little later – blossom time – and we had a young college gentlemen staying at the farm – nice fellow too, with his head in the air. I liked him very well, and I never saw nothing between them, but to my thinking he turned the maid’s fancy.” The old man took the pipe out of his mouth, spat, and went on:

“You see, he went away suddenly one day, and never came back. They got his knapsack and bits of things down there still. That’s what stuck in my mind – he never sent for them. His name was Ashes, or something like that.”

“Yes?” said Ashurst once more.

The old man licked his lips.

“She never said nothing, but from that day she went kind of dazed looking; didn’t seem rightly there at all. I never knew a human creature so changed in my life – never. There was another young fellow at the farm – Joe Biddaford his name was, that was in love with her, too; I guess he used to plague her with his attention. She got to look quite wild. I’d see her sometimes in the evening when I was bringing up the calves; there she’d stand in the orchard, under the big apple tree, looking straight before her. ‘Well,’ I used to think, ‘I dunno what it is that’s the matter with you, but you’re looking pitiful!’”

The old man sucked at his pipe reflectively.

“Yes?” said Ashurst.

“I remember one day I said to her: ‘What’s the matter, Megan?’ – her name was Megan David, she came from Wales same as her aunt, old Missis Narracombe. ‘You’re fretting about something. I say. ‘No, Jim,’ she says, ‘I’m not fretting.’ ‘Yes, you are!’ I say. ‘No,’ she says, and the tears came rolling out. ‘You’re crying – what’s that, then?’ I say. She puts her hand over her heart: ‘It hurts me,’ she says; ‘but it will soon be better,’ she says. ‘But if anything should happen to me, Jim, I want to be buried under this apple tree.’ I laughed. ‘What’s going to happen to you?’ I say; ‘don’t you be foolish.’ ‘No,’ she says, ‘I won’t be foolish.’ Well, I know what maids are, and I never thought no more about it, till two days after that, about six in the evening I was coming up with the calves, when I saw something dark lying in the stream, close to that big apple tree. I said to myself: ‘Is that a pig – funny place for a pig to get to!’ and I went up to it, and I saw what it was.”

The old man stopped; his eyes, turned upward, had a bright, suffering look.

“It was the maid, in a little narrow pool there – where I saw the young gentleman bathing once or twice. She was lying on her face in the water. There was a plant of buttercups growing out of the stone just above her head. And when I came to look at her face, it was lovely, beautiful, so calm as a baby’s – wonderful and beautiful it was. When the doctor saw her, he said: ‘She couldn’t have never done it in that little bit of water if she hadn’t been in an ecstasy.’ Ah! and judging from her face, that was just how she was. It made me cry – so beautiful she was! It was June then, but she’d found a little bit of apple-blossom left over somewhere, and stuck it in her hair. That’s why I think she must’ve been in an ecstasy, to go to it jolly, like that. Why! there wasn’t more than a foot and half of water. But I tell you one thing – that meadow’s haunted; I knew it, and she knew it; and no one’ll persuade me as it isn’t. I told them what she said to me about being buried under the apple tree. But I think that turned them – made it look too much as if she’d had it in her mind deliberate; and so they buried her up here. Parson we had then was very particular, he was.”

Again the old man drew his hand over the turf.

“It is wonderful, it seems,” he added slowly, “what maids will do for love. She had a loving-heart; I guess it was broken. But we never knew nothing!”

He looked up as if for approval of his story, but Ashurst had walked past him as if he were not there.

Up on the top of the hill, beyond where he had spread the lunch, over, out of sight, he lay down on his face. So had his virtue been rewarded, and “the Cyprian,” goddess of love, taken her revenge! And before his eyes, dim with tears, came Megan’s face with the spray of apple blossom in her dark, wet hair. ‘What did I do that was wrong?’ he thought. ‘What did I do?’ But he could not answer. Spring, with its rush of passion, its flowers and song – the spring in his heart and Megan’s! Was it just Love seeking a victim! The Greek was right, then – the words of the “Hippolytus” as true today!

 

“For mad is the heart of Love,

And gold the gleam of his wing;

And all to the spell thereof

Bend when he makes his spring.

All life that is wild and young

In mountain and wave and stream

All that of earth is sprung,

Or breathes in the red sunbeam;

Yea, and Mankind. O’er all a royal throne,

Cyprian, Cyprian, is thine alone!”

 

The Greek was right! Megan! Poor little Megan – coming over the hill! Megan under the old apple tree waiting and looking! Megan dead, with beauty printed on her!

A voice said:

“Oh, there you are! Look!”

Ashurst rose, took his wife’s sketch, and stared at it in silence.

“Is the foreground right, Frank?”

“Yes.”

“But there’s something wanting, isn’t there?”

Ashurst nodded. Wanting? The apple tree, the singing, and the gold!

And solemnly he put his lips to her forehead. It was his silver-wedding day.