CHAPTER XIX
"Write them upon the table of thine heart!"--_The Bible_.
Leonie's wrist watch very softly chimed midnight, announcing in gentletones the birth of her wedding-day, as she sat with her chin in herhands staring out to sea.
She frowned and pulled savagely at the band until it broke; there was afaint crash, and a faint splash, as the watch, hurtling through theair, ricocheted from a rock into a pool as the girl stretched her armsabove her head, leant back, and closed her eyes.
Her last midnight swim, the last time she would slip the bathing dressover her beautiful virgin body, the last time she would revel infreedom, oh! the last time of anything decent, and pure, and sweet.
She had not lost her heart or her head, in fact she had gone throughnone of those amorous gymnastics which seem necessary to the cardiacstate of being in love.
She _loved_, and she knew it, and confessed it on her knees at night,and when she walked, or swam, or rode, or carried her food on her back,or braided her hair in the day. She was loved and she knew it, andthanked her God when she lay down to sleep at night, and when sheshopped, or placated her petulant relation, or played bridge or thepiano equally badly, or got wet through in the storm, and tanned by thewind.
Many times Sir Walter had almost been on the verge of giving her herdesire.
_Almost_! Because it only needed two things to make him toe the lineof sensual infatuation; the first being the graciousness of every lineof her beautiful person when she met him by chance; and the second, theungraciousness of her distinctly unpleasant manner upon the sameoccasion, over both of which he promised himself as he inwardly ragedat her frequent, prolonged and unexplained absences, he would shortlyhave full control.
The month had slipped by so quickly, the month in which she hadindifferently left to her aunt and fiance the choosing of hertrousseau, and the arrangement of the ceremony; also the honeymoon,that subsequent insight into purgatory which she was to endure as bestshe could in an isolated, thatched cottage t'other side of HartlandPoint.
A month during which she had walked, and talked, and walked again withJan Cuxson, who caused her heart to thud heavily even though he did nottouch her hand in greeting, or parting, or at any other time.
They had gathered _laver_--that most delectable vegetable-seaweed--atthe base of the Woolacombe rocks; dug and scratched for the elusivecowrie shell in the sands of Barricane Beach; devoured Mrs. Parker'steas of bread and butter and cream, jam and cake, laid on snow-whitecloth upon trestle table; and watched their flat-pebbled ducks anddrakes skip more or less successfully across the waters.
They had tramped to Croyde, George Ham, Saunton, and all the otherlovely spots, and whistled over the lighthouse wall at Bull Point to beregaled by tea on a tray, handed over by one of the perfectly charmingfamily of Howgego, which comprises the lighthouse keeper, his wife, andhis bonny daughter.
All this had been done by stealth.
Creeping about the cottage in stockinged feet at dawn, polishing thehigh boots before retiring to bed until they shone again; packing thehaversack, creeping out of the cottage, vaulting the wall to the leftto evade the gate which either jammed or creaked, and away up the steepincline, also to the left, and to wherever love listed.
Upbraidings at night are quite bearable when the heart is aglow, andthe future dimmed by present happiness; but upbraidings in the earlymorning are quite intolerable when the outlook into the future shows ablack abyss through the medium of an empty stomach.
She had seized upon every passing moment, wringing the uttermost out ofit that she might have something put by with which to fill in theblanks of the drear future, the vacuum where should have been atumultuously throbbing heart of love, and a pulse of life and passion.
Also did she glean and garner, so as to be tucked in stray corners,memories of a flower in a hedgerow, a boat on the wing, a look in adog's eyes, and the indescribable smell of a mixture of tobacco, seaair, and leather; and all the other little genuine antique, and evernew odds-and-ends of the collection labelled Love in the heart museum.
Not a word had she said about the wedding.
Cowardly? Yes, indeed! But if a prisoner were given a bottle ofchampagne to drink just before his death by hanging, it's odds on thatinstead of merely tasting a few drops he would drink the whole bottle,and go to his doom with the exultant thought of something nice, anyway,having happened to cheer him on his final exit.
She simply radiated love, and allowed neither the frequent upbraidingsof her distracted aunt, nor the hourly approach of the fatal day to dimthe sunlight of the hour in hand.
"Never you worry," she said one day, when her aunt had waylaid andimplored her to have her wedding-dress fitted, "We'll pin it withsafety-pins if it doesn't hang right, and as long as I'm at the churchdoor on time, nothing else really matters. And I've given you my wordon that."
And she had vaulted the wall and taken a short cut through the golfcourse until she had come up behind the man who loved her; and he,reading the trouble in her strange eyes, had drawn her hands to hisheart and held them tight.
How often had they stood in the shade of the fir trees in the heat ofthe day, with the intoxicating smell of the pines in their nostrils,and the soothing sound of the humming of many bees in their ears.
They had stood so still, so close, and so very much alone.
Oh! he loved her and her ways!
Loved the rarity of her beauty, and the vitality of her body, loved theextreme care she took not to allow her fingers to touch his whenpassing a cup or a hefty sandwich.
Revelled in the surge of colour which swept her face when sometimes hecaught and steadied her on a rock; and the way in which, when sittingon the sand, she would suddenly scrunch up her knees with her arms forno apparent reason, and bury her scarlet mouth, and the eyes whichbetrayed her, in the rough tweed of her skirt.
He exulted in the little half-catch of her breath, the little happylaugh, the extra polish he knew she put on her boots just for his sake;and, above all, that perfect sense of virgin woman which emanated fromher, allied to the promise of a passion which most inhabitants of anorthern clime would have utterly misconstrued and misunderstood.
Yes! He revelled and he exulted in every minute of every hour spentwith her; blinded with love, led astray by the thought of months aheadin which he felt that Fate surely would find a way out for them, he letthe time slip by, up to the moment when Leonie said good-bye quitegravely, shaking her head without a smile at the usual invitation tomeet on the morrow.
Leonie of the Jungle Page 19
