On the one hand, he thought, there is that absurd Mr. Clavering,—simple, pure-minded, a veritable monk of God,—driven almost insane with Desire, and on the other, here is Gladys,—naturally as selfish and frivolous a young pagan as one could wish to amuse oneself with,—driven almost insane with self-oblivious love! They were like earthquakes and avalanches, like whirlpools and water-spouts, he thought, these great world-passions! They could overwhelm all the good in one person, and all the evil in another, with the same sublime indifference, and in themselves—remain non-moral, superhuman, elemental!
In the light of this vision, Luke could not resist a hurried mental survey of the various figures in his personal drama. He wondered how far his own love for James could be said to belong to this formidable category. No! He supposed that both he and Mr. Quincunx were too self-possessed, or too epicurean, ever to be thus swept out of their path. His brother was clearly a victim of these erotic Valkyries, so was Ninsy Lintot, and in a lesser degree, he shrewdly surmised, young Philip Wone. He himself, he supposed, was, in these things, amourous and vicious rather than passionate. So he had always imagined Gladys to have been. But Gladys had been as completely swept out of the shallows of her viciousness, by this overpowering obsession, as Mr. Clavering had been swept out of the shallows of his puritanism, by the same power. If that fantastic theory of Vennie Seldom’s about the age-long struggle between the two Hills—between the stone of the one and the wood of the other—had any germ of truth in it, it was clear that these elemental passions belonged to a region of activity remote from either, and as indifferent to both, as the great zodiacal signs were indifferent to the solar planets.
Luke had just arrived at this philosophical, or, if the reader pleases, mystical conclusion, when they emerged upon the Roman Road.
Ascending an abrupt hill, the last eminence between Hullaway and far-distant ranges, they found themselves looking down over an immense melancholy plain, in the centre of which, on the banks of a muddy river, stood the ancient Roman stronghold of Rogerstown, the birth-place, so Luke always loved to remind himself, of the famous monkish scientist Roger Bacon.
The sun had already disappeared, and the dark line of the Mendip Hills on the northern horizon were wrapped in a thick, purple haze.
The plain they looked down upon was cut into two equal segments by the straight white road they were to follow,—if Luke was serious in his intention,—and all along the edges of the road, and spreading in transverse lines across the level fields, were deep, reedy ditches, bordered in places by pollard willows.
The whole plain, subject, in autumn and winter, to devastating floods, was really a sort of inlet or estuary of the great Somersetshire marshes, lying further west, which are collectively known as Sedgemoor.
Gladys could not refrain from giving vent to a slight movement of instinctive reluctance, when she saw how close the night was upon them, and how long the road seemed, but she submissively suppressed any word of protest, when, with a silent touch upon her arm, her companion led her forward, down the shadowy incline.
Their figures were still visible—two dark isolated forms upon the pale roadway—when, hot and panting, Mr. Clavering arrived at the same hill-top. With a sigh of profound relief he recognized that he had not lost his fugitives. The only question was, where were they going, and for what purpose? He remained for several minutes gloomy and watchful at his post of observation.
They were now nearly half a mile across the plain, and their receding figures had already begun to grow indistinct in the twilight, when Mr. Clavering saw them suddenly leave the road and debouch to the left. “Ah!” he muttered to himself, “They’re going home by Hullaway Chase!”
This Hullaway Chase was a rough tract of pasturage a little to the east of the level flats, and raised slightly above them. From its southern extremity a long narrow lane, skirting the outlying cottages of the village, led straight across the intervening uplands to Nevilton Park. It was clearly towards this lane, by a not much frequented foot-path over the ditches, that Gladys and Luke were proceeding.
To anyone as well acquainted as Clavering was with the general outline of the country the route that the lovers—or whatever their curious relation justifies us in calling them—must needs take, to return to Nevilton, was now as clearly marked as if it were indicated on a map.
“Curse him!” muttered the priest, “I hope he’s not going to drown her in those brooks!”
He let his gaze wander across the level expanse at his feet. How could he get close to them, he wondered, so as to catch even a stray sentence or two of what they were saying.
His passion had reached such a point of insanity that he longed to be transformed into one of those dark-winged rooks that now in a thin melancholy line were flying over their heads, so that he might swoop down above them and follow them—follow them—every step of the way! He was like a man drawn to the edge of a precipice and magnetized by the very danger of the abyss. To be near them, to listen to what they said,—the craving for that possessed him with a fixed and obstinate hunger!
Suddenly he shook his cane in the air and almost leaped for joy. He remembered the existence, at the spot where the lane they were seeking began, of a large dilapidated barn, used, by the yeoman-farmer to whom the Chase belonged, as a rough store-house for cattle-food. The spot was so attractive a resting-place for persons tired with walking, that it seemed as though it would be a strange chance indeed if the two wanderers did not take advantage of it. The point was, could he forestall them and arrive there first?
He surveyed the landscape around him with an anxious eye. It seemed as though by following the ridge of the hill upon which he stood, and crossing every obstacle that intervened, he ought to be able to do so—and to do so without losing sight of the two companions, as they unsuspiciously threaded their way over the flats.
Having made his resolution, he lost no time in putting it into action. He clambered without difficulty into the meadow on his right, and breaking, in his excitement, into a run, he forced his way through three successive bramble-hedges, and as many dew-drenched turnip-fields, without the least regard to the effect of this procedure upon his Sunday attire.
Every now and then, as the contours of the ground served, he caught a glimpse of the figures in the valley below, and the sight hastened the impetuosity of his speed. Once he felt sure he observed them pause and exchange an embrace, but this may have been an illusive mirage created by the mad fumes of the tempestuous jealousy which kept mounting higher and higher into his head. Recklessly and blindly he rushed on, performing feats of agility and endurance, such as in normal hours would have been utterly impossible.
From the moment he decided upon this desperate undertaking, to the moment, when, hot, breathless and dishevelled, he reached his destination, only a brief quarter of an hour had elapsed.
He entered the barn leaving the door wide-open behind him. In its interior tightly packed bundles of dark-coloured hay rose up almost to the roof. The floor was littered with straw and newly-cut clover.
On one side of the barn, beneath the piled-up hay, was a large shelving heap of threshed oats. Here, obviously, was the sort of place, if the lovers paused at this spot at all, where they would be tempted to recline.
Directly opposite these oats, in the portion of the shed that was most in shadow, Clavering observed a narrow slit between the hay-bundles. He approached this aperture and tried to wedge himself into it. The protruding stalks of the hay pricked his hands and face, and the dust choked him.
With angry coughs and splutters, and with sundry savage expletives by no means suitable to a priest of the church, he at length succeeded in firmly imbedding himself in this impenetrable retreat. He worked himself so far into the shadow, that not the most cautious eye could have discerned his presence. His sole danger lay in the fact that the dust might very easily give him an irresistible fit of sneezing. With the cessation of his violent struggles, however, this danger seemed to diminish; for the dust
subsided as quickly as it had been raised, and otherwise, as he leant luxuriously back upon his warm-scented support, his position was by no means uncomfortable.
Meanwhile Luke and Gladys were slowly and deliberately crossing the darkening water-meadows.
Gladys, whose geographical knowledge of the district was limited to the immediate vicinity of her home had not the remotest guess as to where she was being led. For all she knew Luke might have gone crazy, like his brother, and be now intending to plunge both himself and her into the depths of some lonely pool or weir. Nevertheless, she continued passively and meekly following him, walking, when the path along the dyke’s edge narrowed, at some few paces behind him, with that peculiar air of being a led animal, which one often observes in the partners of tramps, as they plod the roads in the wake of their masters.
The expanse they traversed in this manner was possessed of a peculiar character of its own, a character which that especial hour of twilight seemed to draw forth and emphasize. It differed from similar tracts of marsh-land, such as may be found by the sea’s edge, in being devoid of any romantic horizon to afford a spiritual escape from the gloom it diffused.
It was melancholy. It was repellant. It was sinister. It lacked the element of poetic expansiveness. It gave the impression of holding grimly to some dark obscene secret, which no visitation of sun or moon would ever cajole it into divulging.
It depressed without overwhelming. It saddened without inspiring. With its reeds, its mud, its willows, its livid phosphorescent ditches, it produced uneasiness rather than awe, and disquietude rather than solemnity.
Bounded by rolling hills on all sides save one, it gave the persons who moved across it the sensation of being enclosed in some vast natural arena.
Gladys wished she had brought her cloak with her, as the filmy white mists rose like ghosts out of the stagnant ditches, and with clammy persistence invaded her unprotected form.
It was one of those places that seem to suggest the transaction of no stirring or heroic deeds, but of gloomy, wretched, chance-driven occurrences. A betrayed army might have surrendered there.
Luke seemed to give himself up with grim reciprocity to the influences of the spot. He appeared totally oblivious of his meek companion, and except to offer her languid, absent-minded assistance across various gates and dams, he remained as completely wrapped in reserve as were the taciturn levels over which they passed.
It was with an incredible sense of relief that Gladys found herself in the drier, more wholesome, atmossphere of Hullaway Chase. Here, as they walked briskly side by side over the thyme-scented turf, it seemed that the accumulated heat of the day, which, from the damp marsh-land only drew forth miasmic vapours, flung into the fragrant air delicious waftings of warm earth-breath. With still greater relief, and even with a little cry of joy, she caught sight of the friendly open door of the capacious barn, and the shadowy inviting heap of loose-flung oats lying beneath its wall of hay.
“Oh, we must go in here!” she cried, “what an adorable place!”
They entered, and the girl threw upon Luke one of her slow, long, amorous glances. “Kiss me!” she said, holding up her mouth to him beseechingly.
The faint light of the dying day fell with a pale glimmer upon her soft throat and rounded chin. Luke found himself disinclined to resist her.
There were tears on the girl’s cheek when, loosening her hold upon his neck, she sank down on the idyllic couch offered them, and closed her eyes in childish contentment.
Luke hung over her thoughtfully and sadly. There is always something sad,—something that seems to bring with it a withering breath from the ultimate futility of the universe,—about a lover’s recognition that the form which formerly thrilled him with ecstasy, now leaves him cold and unmoved. Such sadness, chilly and desolate as the hand of death itself, crept over the stone-carver’s heart, as he looked at the gently-stirring breast and softly-parted lips of his beautiful mistress. He bent down and kissed her forehead, caressing her passively yielded fingers.
She opened her eyes and smiled at him, the lingering smile of a soothed and happy infant.
They remained thus, silent and at rest, for several moments. It was not long, however, before the subtle instinct of an enamoured woman made the girl aware that her friend’s responsiveness had been but a momentary impulse. She started up, her eyes wide-open and her lips trembling.
“Luke!” she murmured, “Luke, darling,—” Her voice broke, in a curious little sob.
Luke gazed at her blankly, thankful that the weight of weary foreknowledge upon his face was concealed from her by the growing darkness.
“I want to say to you, my dear love,” the girl went on, her bosom rising and falling in pitiful embarrassment, and her white fingers nervously scooping up handful after handful of the shadowy grain.
“I want to say to you something that is—that is very serious—for us both, Luke,—I want to tell you,—”
Her voice once more died away, in the same inarticulate and curious gurgle, like the sob of water running under a weir.
Luke rose to his feet and stood in front of her. “It’s all right,” he said calmly. “You needn’t agitate yourself. I understand.”
The girl covered her face with her hands. “But what shall I do? What shall I do?” she sobbed. “I can’t marry Ralph like this. He’ll kill me when he finds out. I’m so afraid of him, Luke—you don’t know,—you don’t know,—”
“He’ll forgive you,” answered the stone-carver quietly. “He’s not a person to burst out like that. Lots of people have to confess these little things after they’re married. Some men aren’t half so particular as you girls think.”
Gladys raised her head and gave her friend a long queer look, the full import of which was concealed from him in the darkness. She made a futile little groping movement with her hand.
“Luke,” she whispered, “I must just say this to you even if it makes you angry. I shouldn’t be happy afterwards—whatever happens—if I didn’t say it. I want you to know that I’m ready, if you wish, if—if you love me enough for that, Luke,—to go away with you anywhere! I feel it isn’t as it used to be. I feel everything’s different. But I want you to know,—to know without any mistake—that I’d go at once—willingly—wherever you took me!
“It’s not that I’m begging you to marry me,” she wailed, “it’s only that I love you, love you and want you so frightfully, my darling!
“I wouldn’t worry you, Luke,” she added, in a low, pitiful little voice, that seemed to emerge rather from the general shadowiness of the place than from a human being’s lips, “I wouldn’t tease you, or scold you when you enjoyed yourself! It’s only that I want to be with you, that I want to be near you. I never thought it would come to this. I thought —” Her voice died away again into the darkness.
Luke began pacing up and down the floor of the barn.
Once more she spoke. “I’d be faithful to you, Luke, married or unmmarried,—and I’d work, though I know you won’t believe that. But I can do quite hard work, when I like!”
By some malignity of chance, or perhaps by a natural reaction from her pleading words, Luke’s mind reverted to her tone and temper on that June morning when she insulted him by a present of money.
“No, Gladys,” he said. “It won’t do. You and I weren’t made for each other. There are certain things—many things—in me that you’ll never understand, and I daresay there are things in you that I never shall. We’re not made for one another, child, I tell you. We shouldn’t be happy for a week. I know myself, and I know you, and I’m sure it wouldn’t do.
“Don’t you fret yourself about Dangelis. If he finds out, he finds out—and that’s the end of it. But I swear to you that I know him well enough to know that you’ve nothing to be afraid of—even if he does find out. He’s not the kind of man to make a fuss. I can see exactly the way he’d take it. He’d be sorry for you and laugh at himself, and plunge desperately into his painting.
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br /> “I like Dangelis, I tell you frankly. I think he’s a thoroughly generous and large-minded fellow. Of course I’ve hardly seen him to speak to, but you can’t be mistaken about a man like that. At least I can’t! I seem to know him in and out, up hill and down dale.
“Make a fuss? Not he! He’ll make this country ring and ting with the fame of his pictures. That’s what he’ll do! And as for being horrid to you—not he! I know him better than that. He’ll be too much in love with you, too,—you little demon! That’s another point to bear in mind.
“Oh, you’ll have the whip-hand of him, never fear,—and our son,—I hope it is a son my dear!—will be treated as if it were his own.
“I know him, I tell you! He’s a thoroughly decent fellow, though a bit of a fool, no doubt. But we’re all that!
“Don’t you be a little goose, Gladys, and get fussed up and worried over nothing. After all, what does it matter? Life’s such a mad affair anyway! All we can do is to map things to the best of our ability, and then chance it.
“We’re all on the verge of a precipice. Do you think I don’t realize that? But that’s no reason why we should rush blindly up to the thing, and throw ourselves over. And it would be nothing else than that, nothing else than sheer madness, for you and I to go off together.
“Do you think your father would give us a penny? Not he! I detect in your father, Gladys, an extraordinary vein of obstinacy. You haven’t clashed up against it yet, but try and play any of these games on him, and you’ll see!
“No; one thing you may be perfectly sure of, and that is, that whatever he finds out, Dangelis will never breathe a word to your father. He’s madly in love with you, girl, I tell you; and if I’m out of the way, you’ll be able to do just what you like with him!”
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