of " 'core, 'core"; but encores were unheard of in the Mclnally regime and Madame, having taken her bow with fluttering wings, retired gracefully and turned into her caravan to see if little Katie Maginty, her grandchild, had gone to sleep.
Mary clapped her hands enthusiastically and turned to Denis.
"What's your opinion now?" she enquired earnestly, as though daring him to belittle such a heavenly creature. They sat very close together on the thin wooden form, their hands clasped, their fingers interlocked, and Denis, looking at her entranced upturned face, pressed her fingers as he replied, meaningly:
"I think you're wonderful!" It was the height of repartee! Mary laughed outright, but at the sound of her own laughter, so unusually gay and unrestrained, inversely there arose in her mind, as if by contrast, the picture of her home, and suddenly chilled, as though she had been plunged into icy water, she shivered and lowered her head.
But with an effort she thrust away her despondency; comforted by Denis' nearness she looked up again to see that Magini was holding the stage. A white screen had been lowered and now the magic lantern at the back of the tent flashed upon it the title: "Tender and True" or "The Mariner's Maid." The jingling piano struck up the opening bars of the ballad and Magini began to sing, while as he sang the honeyed words, richly coloured slides were shown upon the screen, demonstrating the touching vicissitudes attending the progress of true love. The meeting of the sailor and the miller's daughter by the mill stream, the parting, the lonely mariner in his hammock, the trials of the noble-hearted seaman on the deep, and the no less lachrymal tribulations of his beloved at home, the still horrors of the shipwreck, the stark heroism of the rescue, flashed in turn before the breathless gaze until the final reunion of the well-deserving lovers, with clasped hands by that same mill stream the first slide repeated gave relief and satisfaction to the entire audience.
He next sang, by special request, "Juanita", dealing with the seductive charms of a lady, darker and more passionate than the sailor's dovelike affinity, and holding a wilder and more dangerous appeal.
When he concluded, the cheering from the back benches was vociferous and prolonged and it was some time before he could be heard to announce his last number as "The Land of Love", a favorite song, he informed his audience, of Giro Pinsuti's. In contrast to the others it was simple, melodious and touching, and although the vocalist had never been farther south than the limits of Mclnally's
circuit at Dumfries, he sang with a pure and natural voice. As the soft waves of sound floated through the dark tent Mary felt herself swept towards Denis in a rush of throbbing tenderness and pathy. The sublime elevation of her emotion filled her eyes with tears. No one had ever treated her like Denis. She loved him. Raised far above the level of her confined and monotonous existence by the glitter of the evening and the glamour of the music, she would, if he had demanded it, have died willingly for this young godlike creature whose side was pressed against her side in a bitter sweet union: sweet because she adored him, and bitter because she must leave him.
The song was ended. With a start she realised that the performance was over, and linked by an understanding silence she passed with Denis out of the tent into the fresh night air. Now it was dark, the ground illuminated by flares, the crowd diminished but still gaily surging, yet for these two, filled by a deeper enchantment, the attraction of the fair had waned. They looked around undecidedly.
"Shall we do any more of this?" asked Denis slowly. Mary shook her head. The evening had been so wonderful she felt it should have lasted for ever; but it was over, finished, and the hardest task of all was to say good-bye to him. She would have to walk back, a weary way out of that land of love, and now, alas! it was time for the journey to begin.
"Come for a little stroll then," he urged. "It's not late yet, Mary. Well not go far."
She could not leave him! With a premonitory sadness rising in her throat at the very thought of her departure, she felt blindly that she must be with him a little longer. She wished to delay the sad reaction from this excitement and enchantment; she wanted his presence always, to soothe her and comfort her. The poignancy of her present feeling for him hurt her like a wound in her side and its potency drove from her mind the thought of her home, her father, every deterring thought that might have prevented her accompanying him.
"Come, Mary dear," he pleaded. "It's still early."
"For a little way then," she consented in a whispered tone. The path they took followed the winding bank of the Leven with the rippling river on one side and on the other meadows of dewy pasture land. A full moon, that shone like a burnished plate of beaten silver, hung high in the sky, amongst a silver dust of stars, and was bosomed in the mysterious depths of the dark water beneath.
At times thin pencils of misty cloud streaked this white nimbus that lay so far above and yet so deeply within the river, like ghostly fingers shielding from the eyes a luminance too brilliant to endure.
As they walked, silent in the beauty of the silvery radiance, the air, cool with the dew-drenched freshness of night and sweet with the scents of lush grass and wild mint, encompassed them softly and settled upon them like a caress.
Before them two large grey moths pursued each other along the pathway, fluttering fantastically among the tall sedges and rushes of the bank, silently circling and crossing, flitting, but always following each other, always together. Their wings shone in the white light like large sailing motes within a moonbeam and the whisper of their flight fell upon the quietude like the downward flutter of a falling leaf.
The river too, was almost silent, gurgling and sucking softly at its banks, and the low purling song of the stream became part of the stillness of the night.
They had walked some distance and now the fair-ground was marked only by a faint glare in the sky extinguished by the moon, and the brassy music by a weak whisper on the breeze obliterated by the stillness; yet Mary and Denis knew nothing of the music or the moon, and though unconsciously they absorbed the beauty around them they were aware only of each other. That she should be for the first time alone with Denis and isolated from the world filled Mary with a tremulous happiness, set her heart beating in a wild and joyous sweetness.
Denis, too, the sophisticated young man of the town, was overwhelmed by an emotion that was strange and new. The easy currents of conversational small talk which made him always the life and soul of a party, the blandishments that flowed naturally from his lips, were dried up at the source. He was silent as a mute at a funeral, and, he told himself, as dismal. He felt that his reputation was at stake, that he must make some remark, no matter how trivial. Yet while
he cursed himself inwardly for a dolt, a blunderer, a simpleton, imagining that he was estranging Mary by his dumb stupidity, his tongue still remained dry and his quick brain so flooded by his emotions that he could not speak.
Outwardly they both walked placidly and sedately, but inwardly there surged in each a tide of pent-up feelings, and because they did not speak this feeling grew more intense.
In Mary's side there came an actual pain. They were so close together that the sense of intimacy filled her with inexpressible yearning, an unfathomable longing which found its only ease in the firm clasp upon her arm that linked her pulsating body to his and soothed her like a divine balm.
At length they stopped suddenly, involuntarily, turned, and faced each other. Mary lifted her face to Denis. The small oval of her features in the pallor of the moonlight showed a spiritual translucency. He bent and kissed her. Her lips were soft and warm and dry and they offered themselves to his like an oblation. It was the first time she had kissed any man, and although she was perfectly innocent and entirely ignorant, yet the instincts of nature throbbed within her
and she pressed her lips close against his.
Denis was overwhelmed. His mild experience as a gallant had encompassed nothing like this, and, feeling as if he had received a rare and wonderful gift, without knowing what he did, he dr
opped spontaneously upon his knees beside Mary and, clasping his arms around her, pressed his face in homage against her dress. The smell of the rough worn serge of her skirt was fragrant to him; he felt her legs, so pathetically slender and immature, tremble slightly under his touch. Clasping her hand he drew her down beside him. Now he could see the little hollow in her neck and from it a tiny blue vein running down. As he took off her hat a ringlet of hair fell over her smoothly pale brow, and first he kissed that awkwardly, humbly, with a clumsiness which did him credit, before he laid his lips upon her eyes and closed them with his kisses.
Now they were in each other's arms, sheltered by rushes and bushes of broom, the soft grass plastic beneath them. The contact of their bodies gave them a delicious warmth so that there was no need of speech, and in silence they left the world, knowing and caring nothing but for each other. Her head lay back on his arm, and between her parted lips her teeth shone in the moonlight like small white seeds.
Her breath was like new milk. Again he saw in the arch of her neck the small vein threaded under the smooth skin, like a tiny rivulet through virgin snow, and caressingly he stroked it, gently tracing with his finger tips its lovely downward passage. How firm and round her breasts were, each like a smooth and perfect unplucked fruit enclosed within his palm for him to fondle! The pressure of his hand sent the hot colour into her face, and though her breath came faster, yet she suffered him. She felt these small virgin breasts, the consideration of which had never before invaded the realm of her consciousness, grow turgid, as if an ichor from her blood had filled them, and all her puny strength surged into them as though from her nipples drops might well forth to an invisible suckling.
Then her mind was dazzled, and, as she lay with closed eyes in his embrace, she forgot everything, knew nothing, ceased to be herself, and was his. Her spirit rushed to meet his swifter than a swallow's flight and together uniting, leaving their bodies upon the earth, they soared into the rarer air. Together they floated upwards as lightly as the two moths and as soundlessly as the river. No dimension contained them, no tie of earth restrained the ecstasy of their flight.
The lights in the fair-ground went out one by one; an old frog, its large, sad eyes jewelled in the moonlight, broke through the grasses beside them, then noiselessly departed; a dim white mist sheathed the radiance of the river like breath upon a mirror; then, as the lace veils of vapour loomed over the land, crepuscular shadows filled the hollows of the meadows and the earth grew faintly
colder as though its heat had been chilled by the rimed air. With the falling mist all sound was blotted out and the stillness became absolute until after a long time a trout jumped upstream and splashed heavily in its pool.
At the sound, Mary stirred slowly, and consciousness of the world
half returning, she whispered softly:
"Denis, I love you. Dear, dear Denis! But it's late, very late! We must go."
She lifted her head heavily, moved her drugged limbs slowly, then, like a flash, the recollection of her father, her home, her position here, invaded her mind. She started up, terrified, horrified with herself.
"Oh! What have I done? My father! What will become of us?" she cried. "I'm mad to be here like this."
Denis stood up.
"No harm will come to you, Mary," he said, as he essayed to soothe her. "I love you! I will take care of you."
"Let me go then," she replied, while tears ran down her pale cheeks. "Oh! I must be back before he gets in or I’ll be shut out all night. I'd have no home!"
"Don't cry, dear Mary," he entreated; "it hurts me to see you cry. It's not so very late not eleven o'clock yet! Besides, I am responsible for everything; all the blame is mine."
"No! No!" she cried. "It's all my fault, Denis. I should never have come. I disobeyed my father. I'll be the one to suffer."
Denis placed his arm around her trembling form and, looking again into her eyes, said firmly:
"You will not suffer, Mary! Before we go I want you to understand one thing. I love you. I love you above everything. I am going to marry you."
"Yes, yes," she sobbed. "Only let me get home. I must. My father will kill me! If he's not late to-night something terrible will happen to me to us both." She started off at a run up the path, slipping and stumbling in her anxiety to make haste, whilst he followed, trying to console and comfort her, uttering words of the most endearing tenderness. But, although at his words she ceased to weep, she still ran and did not speak again until they reached the edge of the town.
There she stopped abruptly.
"Don't come any farther, Denis," she panted. "This is enough! We might meet him my father."
“But it's so dark on the road," he said. "I'm afraid to leave you."
"You must go, Denis! He might come on us together."
"But the darkness?"
"I can't help that. I'll run all the way."
"It'll hurt you if you race home like that, Mary, and it's so black, the road seems so lonely now."
"Leave me! You must!" she cried. "I'll go myself! Good-bye!"
With a last touch of his hand she fled from him; her figure dissolved into the blackness and was gone.
As he gazed into the impenetrable gloom, vainly trying to follow her rapid flight, wondering if he should call to her or follow her, he raised his arms in perplexity, as though beseeching her to return to him, then slowly he lowered them and, after a long passivity, turned heavily upon his heel and took his dejected way towards his own home.
Meanwhile, in a panic of urgency, Mary forced her tired body along the road, the same road that she had so lightly traversed earlier on this same evening, having lived, it seemed to her, a whole century in time and experience during the space of these few intervening hours. It was unthinkable that she, Mary Brodie, should be at this time of night alone in the open streets; the sound of her solitary footsteps frightened her, echoing aloud like a reiterated accusation for her father, for every one to hear, shouting out the madness, the iniquity of her present situation. Denis wanted to marry her! He must be mad too madly unaware of her father and of the circumstances of her life. The echoes of her steps mocked her, whispering that she had been bereft of her senses to plunge herself in this predicament, making the very contemplation of her love for Denis a painful and grotesque absurdity.
As she neared her home, suddenly she became aware of another figure in front of her, and the dread that it might be her father filled her with numb apprehension. Although he frequently did not return from the club until after eleven o'clock, sometimes he was earlier, and as she drew nearer, silently gaining upon the figure, she felt that it must be he. But, all at once, a gasp of relief escaped her, as she perceived that it was her brother, and, abandoning her caution, she ran up to him, panting.
"Matt! Oh! Matt! Wait!" and stumbling against him, she clutched his arm like a drowning woman.
"Mary!" he exclaimed, starting violently, hardly able to believe his eyes.
"Yes! It's me, Matt, and thank God it's you! I thought it was Father, at first."
"But But what on earth are you out for at this time of night?" he cried, in shocked amazement. "Where have you been?"
"Never mind just now, Matt," she gasped. "Let us get in quick before Father. Please, Matt, dear! Don't ask me anything!"
"But what have you been up to? Where have you been?" he repeated. "What will Mamma think?"
"Mamma will think I've gone to bed, or that I'm reading in my room. She knows I often do that when I'm sitting up for you."
"Mary! This is a terrible escapade. I don't know what to do about it. It's shameful to find you out in the street at this time of night."
He moved on a few steps then, as a thought struck him, stopped abruptly. "I wouldn't like Miss Moir to know about this. It's disgraceful! Such a going-on by my sister might prejudice me in her eyes."
"Don't tell her, Matt! Don't tell anybody! Only let us get in. Where is your key?" Mary urged.
Muttering under his b
reath, Matthew advanced to the front steps, and while Mary gasped with relief to see that the outer door was unbolted, which meant that her father had not returned, he opened the door.
The house was still, no one awaited her, no recriminations or accusations were hurled at her, and realising that she was miraculously undiscovered, in a transport of thanksgiving Mary took her brother's hand, and in the darkness they crept noiselessly up the stairs.
Inside her own room she drew a deep breath, and as she felt her way securely about its known confines, the very touch of familiar objects reassured her. Thank God she was safe! Nobody would know! She tore off her clothes in the dark and crept into bed, when instantly the cool sheets soothed her warm weariness and the soft pillow caressed her aching head. Her hot, tired body relaxed in an
exquisite abandon, her trembling eyelids closed, her fingers uncurled from her palms, her head drooped towards her shoulder, and with her last waking thought of Denis, her breathing grew regular and tranquil. She slept.
III
JAMES BRODIE awoke next morning with the sun streaming in through his window. He had especially designated this room at the back of the house as his bedroom because, with an animal appreciation of sunshine, he loved the bright morning rays to strike in and waken him, to soak through the blankets into his receptive body and saturate his being with a sense of power and radiance. "There's no sun
like the morning sun," was one of his favourite sayings, one of his stock of apparently profound axioms which he drew upon largely in his conversation and repeated with a knowing and astute air. "The mornin' sun's the thing! We don't get enough o' it, but in MY room I’ve made sure o' all that's goin'."
Hatter's Castle Page 5
