by R. A. Dick
“Have you children?” he asked with a surprised lift to his eyebrows.
“Two, a boy and a girl—I’m a widow.” She hastily added, “The kettle is boiling.” Why should he be interested in whether her husband were living or not?
“You look too young to be a widow.” He rose and, taking the kettle from the hob, made the tea.
“But there are many widows much younger than I am,” said Lucy.
“I don’t refer to years as much as experience,” he said. “You haven’t even a married look.”
“Is there one?” asked Lucy.
“Definitely,” he replied, “like a well-set jelly.”
“And don’t I look well set?” she asked, smiling.
“You don’t look set at all.”
“That sounds very untidy—and wobbly.” Lucy laughed.
“You are very sweet.”
“I don’t think you should say things like that,” Lucy said, blushing. “I don’t even know your name.”
“My name is Miles Fairley Blane—and you are very sweet.”
“Don’t be absurd,” said Lucy.
“I don’t think you should speak to me like that,” he said, “I don’t even know your name.”
“My name is Mrs. Muir,” said Lucy, “and if that tea is for me, will you please put some hot water in it, I don’t like it too strong.”
“Her name is Mrs. Muir and she likes weak tea,” he said gravely. “I am beginning to know you very well, but not as well as I hope to.”
“It was strange how that rain came on,” Lucy said primly, “it was so fine when I left home.”
“I ordered a rainstorm, the weather prophet is a friend of mine,” Miles said. “Perhaps I will ask him to make it a flood, then you will never leave me.”
“Oh!” Lucy gasped. “I—I think I’d better be going now.”
“No, you can’t go, it’s much too wet, and if I had an umbrella I shouldn’t lend it to you.”
“I must go,” said Lucy, rising to her feet.
“No, no, don’t leave me,” he said, “it’s quite all right. You needn’t be afraid of me.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” said Lucy.
“Then prove it by sitting down and finishing your tea. I’m so bored here, and you will save me from jumping over the cliff.”
“If you are bored, why do you stay?” asked Lucy.
“God knows!” said Miles gloomily.
“Why did you come here?” went on Lucy. “You must have known it would be lonely.”
“I came because I wanted peace and a chance to get to know myself,” he replied, “and the devil of it is that there seems so little to know, and I’m bored—bored—bored.”
“I’m sorry,” said Lucy.
“Then prove it by sitting down and talking to me,” he pleaded.
“Well, I really can stay only for a little while,” Lucy said, seating herself on the edge of her chair. “What do you do when you are not here being bored?”
“I live in London,” he answered.
“Yes, but what do you do?”
“I paint a bit, and write a bit, and play golf and squash and ride, and play bridge and poker.”
“Have you no profession?”
“Oh, I was more or less trained as a barrister, but the Law Courts depress me.”
“I gather that you don’t have to work for a living,” said Lucy.
“No.”
“Well, why don’t you work for someone else?”
“If I could find someone worth while I might,” Miles said softly.
“You could do so much good,” said Lucy.
“How and where?” he asked.
“Well, you could go and live in the slums, or into Parliament,” Lucy said earnestly, and broke off as she noticed a twinkle in his eyes, spreading to a hidden smile that made a pulse beat in his cheek.
“You’re laughing at me,” she said accusingly.
“I’m not, I swear I’m not,” he declared. “You are doing me a lot of good, I feel a better man already.”
But Lucy was not convinced. “You are laughing inwardly,” she said, “and I thought you were in earnest and really wanted advice.”
“I’ve never met anyone quite like you before,” he said.
“I’m very ordinary,” said Lucy.
“Oh, no, you’re not, my dear,” said Miles gently, but with such conviction in his voice that she hastily rose to her feet once more and crossed over to the window.
“The rain is stopping,” she said, with her back to the room and Miles.
The clouds were indeed rolling away, leaving a pale golden sky in the west. The sun’s rays slanting down made a shimmering curtain of the drops still dripping from the sodden thatched eaves of the cottage. On the beach below the sea was coming in with crested green waves, curving over like powerful steel springs before they shattered themselves in a flurry of white, swirling froth, that sucked and dragged at the grey pebbles, rattling the loose stones back into the hidden engine of the seas. Two gulls were balancing with outstretched wings, riding the wind as if it were their steed. Far out, a faint smudge of black smoke on the horizon showed where a steamer had sailed. Looking out at the vast coolness of the ocean and the sky, the hot little room seemed cramped and unreal.
“We’ve been talking a great deal of nonsense,” she said gravely, “but thank you for saving my dog, and for your hospitality.”
He had come up beside her as she spoke, and looked down at her with equal gravity as he replied, “I meant what I said just now, I have never met anyone quite like you. You make me think of the spring, and primroses—a new beginning to life.”
She looked up at him for a moment, and their eyes met with such apparent honesty, that it seemed to make yet another bond between them. Their glance held, till Tags, leaping up in sudden fright from his dreams, broke it. He jumped up at Lucy, demanding her sympathy and attention, but she, bewildered by the sudden turmoil of her feelings towards this stranger, went quickly to the door, and, opening it before Miles could prevent her, darted out into the fresh coolness of the rain-washed evening. She ran away up the cliff path, eager to get back to her own familiar places.
V
But if she thought she could be rid of Miles Blane so easily, she was mistaken. It was not difficult for him to find out where she lived, and he called on her the next afternoon and the next. He lay in wait for her on her walks, and the beach and the cliff and the woodland were not her private property. She could not avoid him, and presently she had no wish to do so.
Their favourite meeting place was in a little beech wood that lay in a cleft of the Downs behind Miles’ cottage. Here she came one afternoon in May, when the bluebells were beginning to flower in the security of the green spears of their leaves.
Miles was waiting for her. He was seated on a fallen tree trunk, leaning back against a living beech. His eyes were closed. He looked like some statue waiting to be brought to life, and the thought that she had the power to do this very thing moved her so, that she caught her breath with wonder, and stood silently gazing down at him. He sensed her nearness and rose, holding out his arms. With a little cry she ran forward into their encirclement. Tilting up her head, he kissed her very gently on the lips, and again less gently, and then with such ardour, that she felt herself being drawn out of ordinary living into some shared existence that she had never known before, and which seemed to make her one with all the first things on earth.
“Oh, my very dear,” he whispered, at last releasing her, “you—you are so different.”
It was not the word she had expected, and a little shiver went over her, a shadow on the warmth of her spirit; but he took her hand, and, moving back to the log, pulled her down beside him and put his arm about her, making her feel secure again.
“Happy?” he asked.
She nodded her head. It was difficult for her to say all she felt. Such feelings were so new to her that the words to express them stumbled on her tongue.
“I—I have never felt like this before,” she said.
“Nor I,” he admitted. “You are very special—so special that I never want you to go, and why should you? In my small house there is plenty of room for you. Come home with me, Lucy, and stay with me always.”
“You mean——”
“I mean that I love you and never want to be parted from you,” he interrupted quickly.
Turning her head, she looked up at him.
“Never?” she said. “You want us to be together for always?”
“Forever,” he said, and kissed her. “Oh, Lucy, come home with me, come with me now, and never leave me.”
“But there wouldn’t be room for the children in the cottage,” said Lucy.
“The children!” he said in sudden anger. “You don’t love me. If you did you’d forget they existed. If you felt as I do there’d be room for no one else in your thoughts.”
“I do love you,” she said in distress, “you know I do—how could I let you kiss me like that if I didn’t love you?”
“Like what?” he asked.
“As if—as if we were already married,” she whispered.
He looked at her oddly, and, moving his arm, reached into his pocket for a cigarette.
“You are very young,” he said. “I don’t think you really know much about love.”
“I do now,” she said proudly, “and loving you like this makes me love everything and everyone much more. I want us all to be happy, and the children wouldn’t be happy if I deserted them—of course I’d leave them behind on our honeymoon, but I’d make arrangements for them to be properly looked after till we came home.”
“Need you be so sentimental and so practical?” he said moodily. “I hate practical people, they take all the magic out of life.”
“But, Miles,” she said unhappily, “I couldn’t just abandon Anna and Cyril—you wouldn’t want me to do that.”
He flung his cigarette down and ground it viciously into the moss with the heel of his shoe.
“Yes, I would,” he answered savagely. “I want you to forget the existence of everyone but me. We love one another and can make our own world, but other people always butt in and spoil things. If you really loved me, you’d come home with me now, but you don’t love me enough to do as I ask, so I’m wasting my time.” He stood up and looked down at her. “Good-bye,” he said.
She rose swiftly and caught his arm. “Miles,” she said, “Miles, oh, please don’t talk to me like that—like a stranger. I love you and will do anything that you ask.”
“Anything?”
“Give me a little time,” she said, “to-morrow—I can arrange things for to-morrow.”
“Arrange things! You can’t arrange love—like booking seats at a pantomime—love should just happen.”
She gave a little sob and buried her face against the rough tweed of his coat. “Oh, Miles, I was so happy—don’t spoil things.”
“It’s you who are spoiling things,” he said. But he put his arms round her again and held her close. “Little silly,” he said gently, “don’t you realize that no one else matters in the world but you and me?”
“I think you must be a magician,” she said, half laughing through her tears. “You make it seem all wrong that I should consider my duty, and only right that I should abandon it.”
“Love is magical,” he said, “and the rightest thing in life,” and kissed her, so that her words of protest were made prisoners between their lips.
A stick cracked in the undergrowth behind them. In the stillness of that quiet place it sounded like a pistol shot. Lucy pushed him away and looked round in alarm.
“Someone is there,” she said, “someone is watching us.”
“It’s only a rabbit,” he said easily. “I can hear it scuttling away home to tell all the other rabbits that Mrs. Muir is behaving in a most depraved manner in the greenwood.”
“You are so absurd,” she said, smiling, “but it is getting late, and I must go home, too. You’ll be here to-morrow?”
“Yes,” he said, “I’ll be here to-morrow, though God knows why I come, when you are so hard-hearted.”
“Hard-hearted! If you could just see my heart!”
“What should I see?” he asked.
She smiled shyly up at him. “Perhaps I’ll show you to-morrow,” she whispered, and ran from him before he could prevent her.
At the edge of the clearing she glanced back to wave good-bye, but he was not looking. He had taken a letter from his pocket, and as she watched, he suddenly tore it into small fragments that fluttered down on the green moss like wind-blown petals of a dead flower. He strode away, slashing at the young bluebells with his stick.
From the first meeting she had had a curious reluctance in discussing the situation with Captain Gregg. She remained with the children until they were asleep, and, undressing in Anna’s room, crept quietly into her own and into bed. She pulled the blankets up about her ears, feigning deafness and sleep. She had no wish to speak of Miles Blane with Captain Gregg. It would be, she felt, humiliating to confess so soon that he had been right. But that night the captain refused to be put off.
“I must speak to you, Lucia,” he said, and his voice thundered through her senses, shaking her to answer him.
“Well,” she said, admitting him to her consciousness since he would not be denied.
“Oh, Lucia, me dear, me dear,” said Captain Gregg.
“Yes,” said Lucy, sitting up against her pillows, “you were right, there’s no fool like an old fool. I admit everything—I am ridiculous, susceptible, and happier than I’ve ever been in my life.”
“Oh, Lucia,” said the captain piteously.
“Why, I believe you’re jealous,” said Lucy.
“Jealousy is a disease of the flesh,” said the captain, “I am not jealous, but—oh, Lucia, will you ever forgive me?”
“Forgive you!” said Lucy. “But haven’t I just told you that I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life? I’m happier than I believed it possible for anyone——”
“Stop! Stop!” said Captain Gregg. “It was all my fault, blind fool that I am—but there he was and he seemed ideal for my purpose, and I never realized just how young in your emotions you could be, Lucia, and I felt you needed a lesson, you were so complacent and cocksure, and, my God, you’ve got your lesson all right.”
“What do you mean?” asked Lucy.
“Me dear, the man is married,” said the captain.
“Miles—married!” Lucy gasped.
“He is indeed,” answered the captain. “He has a wife and three children, and the youngest only in his cradle.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Lucy.
“It’s true for all that,” said Captain Gregg sadly.
“But he told me he loved me—to-day he kissed me and said he had never been in love like that before,” said Lucy.
“You must never see him again,” said the captain.
“Of course I shall see him again,” replied Lucy. “There must be some mistake. He tells me everything—he couldn’t have not told me a big thing like that. He can’t be married—we love each other.”
“Me dear, to-day I took a journey and saw his wife,” said the captain.
“Is she pretty?” asked Lucy swiftly.
“Beautiful,” said Captain Gregg, “and the three boys the dead spit and image of their father.”
“No,” said Lucy, “I don’t believe it. Miles can’t be married.”
“I’m afraid you will have to believe it,” said the captain. “I blame myself, it is all my fault, but there was never a thought in his mind for his wife. I couldn’t tell that he was married till to-day when a letter came from her, telling him the baby was to be christened. For all his charm and good looks he’s nothing but a dilettante with enough money to indulge his fancies.”
“You mean I’m just one of his fancies?” asked Lucy with dry lips.
“I’m afraid so, me
dear,” said the captain gently. “He was an only child, his father was a bad lot and his mother spoiled him, which is no reason why he should ruin your happiness,” he added fiercely.
“But I can’t believe it,” said Lucy, “I can’t feel Miles is evil. He makes me feel good, and kinder than I have ever been.”
“The devil himself was in heaven before he fell, and his temptations may be full of beauty and great subtlety. But you must be strong, Lucia,” he said, “you must be strong.”
“I don’t want to be strong,” said Lucy wearily, “I just want to be with Miles.” And turning on her face amongst her pillows, she wept.
In the morning confidence in her happiness returned to her. The conversation of the night before seemed no more than a bad dream. She could scarcely wait for the afternoon, and when it came, she almost ran to the meeting place they had arranged in the little wood. There the bluebells made an azure cascade falling over the hillside to meet the goldenbrown stream, where minnows darted in and out amongst the shadows of the trailing weeds.
She went on her way so quickly that she was there before the time of their tryst, and seating herself on a fallen tree trunk, she leaned back against a beech tree’s cool grey stem, and let the beauty of the quiet place sink into her heart, until she, too, seemed to become part of nature’s planning, rooted in the soil, living by the sunlight that filtered through the burgeoning branches of the trees. She closed her eyes and let herself sink warmly into oblivion.
Miles’ kiss woke her, and putting her arms about him as he knelt beside her, she held him close, till the happiness of the present, in contrast to the cold misery of the night, made her weep again for very joy.
“My little love, what is troubling you?” he asked, feeling the salt tears on his lips, for she made no sound with her crying.
“It was only a dream,” she whispered, close against him.
“But I can’t allow even dreams to disturb my dear,” he said. “What was this dream?”
“I dreamed about you,” she said in a low voice.
“And was that such a nightmare, my love?” he asked, laughing a little.
“I dreamed that you were married,” she said, lower yet.
“Cuckoo … cuckoo … cuckoo!” sounded through the woodland, and, “cuckoo … cuckoo … cuckoo,” it sounded again, as if the bird were pretending to be an echo of itself.
