Despair's Last Journey Part 7

'You'd better know who you be,' said Paul's uncle, 'and shake hands.

This is your grand-uncle's grand-niece, Paul. May Gold her name is. May, my darlin', this is Paul Armstrong.'

She held out her hand, and Paul took it shyly in his own. He had very rarely touched a hand which was not roughened more or less by labour.

The warm, soft pressure tightened on his own hard palm for an instant only, but he tingled from head to foot as if he had touched something electric.

'Oh!'-she said, 'this is Uncle Armstrong's little boy? She was by two years his senior, and for a girl she was tall; but he was more than on a level with her so far as mere height went, and the phrase cut him at the heart. She took the strawberry-pottle from her head with both hands, as if it had been a crown, and laid it on the kitchen dresser. 'I've heard my father talk of his father five hundred times. My father thinks no end of Uncle Armstrong. He says that for a man of learning he never met anybody one half so sensible.'

Paul fell head over heels in love with the pretty cousin from Devons.h.i.+re. That is to say, he fell in love with his own dreams about her, and they were sweet enough for any lad to fall in love with. She sang and she played, she brimmed over with accomplishment, which was all rustic enough, no doubt, but angel-fine to Paul, and exotic, and not like anything within his knowledge. She played and she sang that afternoon, and never again had Paul's ears drunk in such tones of heaven.

He went home in an ecstasy of delight and anguish. How beautiful she was! what a grace enveloped her! Her very name was a ravishment--a name of spring and flowers and pure bright skies. May! He dared to whisper it, and he tingled from head to heel. His heart fondled it: May! May!

May! and, with inexpressible vague, sweet longing, May! once more. Then her hair! then her voice! then the rosy softness of her hand! then, with hideous revulsion, from her perfections to himself! The gulf of shame!

His boots were an epic of despair, his necktie was a tragedy. Then back to her with all the graces of the heavens upon her! Then back to himself again, and the deep d.a.m.nation of the b.u.t.ton which was missing from his waistcoat Paul was a poet, and should have had a soul above b.u.t.tons; but before the phantom of that missing b.u.t.ton his soul grovelled, until it sprang up once more to hover round her foot, her hand, her eyes, her voice, her name of May! May! May! and, with shudders of frostiest self-reproach and richest pleasure, round the memory of that kiss!

In a week or two Paul had grown devoutly religious, and had no idea of the real why. The Church Vale cousins were ardent churchgoers, for the girls were at the time of life for ardour, and both the Vicar and his Curate were unmarried. Paul, whose proper place of Sabbath boredom was Ebenezer, was welcome as a proselyte, and had a seat in the family pew, and the rapture of walking homeward sometimes by the side of the feminine magnet.

So the dweller at the tent door sees himself at church, a pious varier from chapel. The July sunbeams are falling through stained gla.s.s; the roof-beams of the nondescript old building are half visible in shadow.

The windows are open, and a warm, spiced wind flutters through in pleasantly successful disputation with odours of dry-rot and chilly earth and stone. The sheep are bleating amongst the mounded graves, and the curate is bleating at the lectern. A yearning peace is in Paul's heart, and the pretty distant cousin is near at hand, with a smell of dry lavender in her dress. The first twining of feeling and belief is here, the earliest of many of those juggleries of Nature which make a fool of reason. Oh, sweet hour! oh, happy world! oh, holy place, where she is! Oh, harmless, innocent calf-love! A jolly old throstle is singing away in the elm which overhangs the parson's gate. There is a disembodied skylark voice somewhere high up in the mare's-tail clouds which veil the earth from too much heat and brightness; and the young heart is unhardened and unspotted from the world.

And oh! oho! the elysium of the summer mornings, when d.i.c.k and Paul, and the cousins, male and female, rose at four and strayed with their Devonian angel through lanes and fields as far as Beacon Hargate, gathering wild flowers and calling at the farm for milk. There are no more such flowers, there is no more such air, no more such merry suns.h.i.+ne; there is no such nectar any more as foamed in the s.h.i.+ning pail.

On the way from Church Vale to Beacon Hargate there is a brook, which now runs ink and smells of evil, and in those days flowed so clear that you could count the parcel-coloured pebbles at the bottom, through water which was sometimes pellucid as diamond, and sometimes of a cairngorm colour. The arched pathway over it, with its weather-stained, square-cut timber guards at either side, was called June Bridge, and above and below the bridge, in curved hollows of the banks where the bed of the brook was earthy, water-lilies floated, sliding with the stream, and tugging back on their oozy anchorage. Paul found his G.o.ddess leaning on this bridge, watching the lilies, and began to hum whilst he was yet out of hearing,

'May, on June bridge, in July weather,' and to make a song in his head.

'Can ee swim, Paul?' asked his G.o.ddess.

'Oh yes,' said Paul, 'I can swim right enough. Want them lilies?' She nodded, smiling. 'I'll get 'em for you.'

He climbed the bridge, and dropped into the meadow.

'I'll wait for ee,' said May, and sauntered on out of sight.

Paul stripped and dived, came up with a shake of the head, and swam down-stream. He reached the water-lilies in a dozen strokes, laid a hand on the stalk of one in pa.s.sing, and tugged at it. The stem proved to be tougher than he had guessed, and he dropped his feet to find bottom. He was out of his depth, but he set both hands low and twisted at the stem.

This took him under water, but he came up smiling triumph, threw his prize into the meadow, and paddled round the group on an outlook for the finest blooms. One in the very middle of the floating bed was fresh and flawless, and he swam for it. A number of cold weedy things were round his legs at once, and before he knew it he was thickly meshed. The slimy touch sent an unpleasant thrill through him, but he had no sense of fear as yet He wrenched off the bloom he had aimed for, and again he went under water. Then he found he could not rise, and a sudden spasm of terror shook him. He struggled madly, and the pulses in his head beat like bells. Just when the case seemed desperate, and he felt as if he must take breath or die, something gave way. He surged upward, and got one great gulp of air. His senses came back to him, and the terror died away. He threw himself upon his back and paddled, and, keeping his face above water thus, he tried artrully and slowly to extricate his legs from the net which held them. A minute went by, and he was bound as fast as ever. Instinct told him that another struggle meant ruin, and yet instinct bade him struggle. He set his teeth and paddled softly. How long could he last like this? he asked himself; and at that instant he seemed to find an answer. The att.i.tude in which he floated was becoming rapidly more and more upright. There was a sinking weight upon his feet.

At this he shrieked for help, but he paddled softly and without hurry all the same. He listened as well as he could for the beating in his ears. The fields seemed deserted, but he called again. He closed his eyes and listened, paddling softly, with set teeth. He was nearly upright in the water now, and the weight still dragged But there was yet an inch or two to spare, and he was resolved to make the most of his chances. He called for help again, and a voice answered him petulantly from the bank.

'You silly toad!' said the pretty cousin. 'What do you want to frighten me like that for?' 'I'm drowndin'!' Paul answered.

'Not you!' said the pretty cousin. She made a movement of disdain, and turned away; but Paul yelled at her with a fear so vivid that she turned again with a white face, and fell upon her knees. 'Oh, Paul,' she cried, 'are ee really drownin'?'

'Yes, I am,' said Paul doggedly. 'These blasted weeds is pullin' me down. Be quick! Tie that there lace thing to your parasawl, and shy it to me. Look slippy, or it'll be all up with me. Hold your end tight.

Now, shy! Pull now! Gently--gently.'

He reached the bank, and gripped it with both hands. There was no need to say that he had had a fright. His wide eyes and the colour of his face said that.

'Can ee get out now?' she asked.

'No,' said Paul; 'I'm anch.o.r.ed.'

'I'll pull ee out,' said she, rising to her feet; and Paul thrust one hand towards her. She took him by the wrist, stuck both heels in the crisp turf, and pulled. Paul set an elbow on the brink, and strained upwards with all his might Something sucked out of the stream-bed, and the waters went muddy. 'You're coming!' cried May, and gave a haul which was meant to be victorious; but Paul still hung like a log.

'There's about a ton of it,' said Paul. 'It's tied like ropes.'

'Gimme t'other hand,' returned young Devon. 'I'll pull ee out if I dies for't.'

Paul surrendered the other hand, and she pulled. There was another suck at the bottom of the stream, and Paul came up by a foot. She went backwards for a new vantage-ground, and pulled again, and Paul came to bank, clothed from the waist downward in water-lily leaf and weed, and lay face downwards helpless on the turf at her feet.

'Now,' she said tartly, 'you're not goin' to faint, I hope!' Paul said nothing. 'Like a girl,' she added, with disdain.

'Not me,' answered Paul, with his nose in the turf. 'What have I got to feint for?'

He asked the question with feeble scorn, and fainted.

May Gold stooped to a basket which lay near her, and, taking from it a pair of garden scissors, knelt beside Paul, and began to snip his bonds.

He woke to find her thus engaged, and a virginal sweet sense of shame filled him. Her fingers touched his skin at times, and he tingled with a soft fire.

'n.o.body'd think it from they grimy paws,' said May Gold to herself; 'but he've got a skin as fair as a maid's.'

Paul heard the words, and shuddered exquisitely as she laid her soft warm hand on his shoulder, leaning over him, and slicing away at the withes in a business-like fas.h.i.+on.

'I'll finish that,' he said tremulously.

'La,' she cried, 'the child's awake all the time! There's the scissors; I'll go and wait in the lane.'

Paul lay still for a moment listening to the rustle of her dress; and when it had gone out of hearing he rolled over, and with a shaking hand began to free himself of the remnant of his bonds. He had not, so far, had time to think of the imminent peril from which he had escaped. He had been near death. Death! What a grip at the heartstrings! He had had his second of terror in the fact, but the fact was nothing like the looking back on it There was no urgent fear now to compel him to the restraint of cowardice, and at this instant he was coward from scalp to sole--from heart to skin coward. The peril escaped was a thousand times more horrible than the peril endured, and he quailed now that the danger was over.

All his thoughts and half his feelings had hurried for weeks past towards prayer. In his extremity he had not prayed or thought of praying. A cool, self-centred, self-preserving something in his mind had taught him to command all his own forces for one purpose. Would he have been d.a.m.ned if he had lost the power to pray before that cunning mentor of the flesh deserted him?

He dressed lingeringly and feebly, and when he had done so he went back to the tangle of water-weeds he had left on the river-bank. There were a dozen of the lovely waxlike blooms amongst them, uninjured. He snipped them away with the scissors, and, climbing the stile with heavy feet, surrendered them to May.

'Oh,' she said shrilly, 'take 'em away! I couldn't bear to look at 'em!'

'Take 'em,' said Paul. 'They jolly nigh cost me my life.'

Before he answered (or before she caught the meaning of his answer) she had flung them into the roadway; but at the instant when she understood him she made a dart at them, gathered them all together in her hands, and sped to the brookside. There she lay at length upon the turf, and washed the blooms in the flowing water. Then she gathered long tough gra.s.ses, and looped them together until she had made a cord, with which she bound the waxen posy. Paul followed and sat near, languidly propped on one hand to watch her.

'Paul Armstrong,' said May, and he knew at once by this manner of address that she was going to be severe with him, 'I'd no idea you was so wicked.'

'Oh,' Paul answered defensively, 'I ain't wicked--not over and above.'

'You're a very wicked boy indeed,' she said. 'You was in danger of your life--there's no mistake about that, though at first I didn't believe you.'

'There's nothing wicked in that,' said Paul

'Ah 1' she cried, her little white teeth gripping one end of the gra.s.sy cord whilst she wound the other about the stems of the water-lilies, 'I can see you know what I mean. Using bad language in the very face of death and danger! I wonder you wasn't drowned for a judgment.'

'Oh, come,' Paul answered. 'I didn't use bad language.'