Plashers Mead Part 24

"They're as cool as coral," he said. "Why are you wrinkling your nose at me? Pauline, your eyes have vanished away!"

He plucked speedwell flowers and threw them into her lap.

"When I haven't got you with me," he said, "I have to pretend that the speedwells are your eyes, and that the dog-roses are your cheeks."

"And what is my nose?" she asked, clapping her hands because she was sure he would not be able to think of any likeness.

"Your nose is incomparable," he told her, and then he bent to his paddle and made the canoe fly along so that the water fluted to right and left of the bows. Ultimately they came to an island where all the afternoon they sat under a willow that was pluming with scanty shade a thousand forget-me-nots.

Problems faded out upon the languid air, for Pauline was too well content with Guy's company to spoil the June peace. At last, however, she disengaged herself from his caressing arm and turned to him a serious and puzzled face. And when she was asking her question she knew how all the afternoon it had been fretting the back of her mind.

"Why was Mother angry with me yesterday because I came into Plashers Mead to say good night to you?"

"Was she angry?" asked Guy.

"Well, Monica saw us and got home before me and told her, and she was worried at what people would think. What would they think?"

Guy looked at her; then he shook his fist at the sky.

"Oh, G.o.d, why must people try...."

She touched his arm.

"Guy, don't swear. At least not.... You'll call me superst.i.tious and foolish," she murmured, dismayfully, "but really it hurts me to hear you say that."

"I don't think you anything but the most lovely and perfect thing on earth," he vowed, pa.s.sionately. "And it drives me mad that people should try to spoil your naturalness ... but still ... it was thoughtless of me."

"But why, why?" she asked. "That's the word Mother used about you. Only why, why? Why shouldn't I go and say good night?"

"Dear, there was no harm in that. But, you see, village people might say horrible things.... I was dreadfully to blame. Yes, of course I was."

She flushed like a carnation at dawn; and when Guy put his arm around her she drew away.

"Oh, Guy," she said, brokenly, "I can't bear to think of being alone to-night. I shall be asking questions all the night long; I know I shall. It's like that horrid mill-pool."

"Mill-pool?" he echoed, looking at her in perplexity.

She sighed and stared sadly down at the forget-me-nots.

"You wouldn't understand; you'd think I was hysterical and stupid."

Silently they left the island, and silently for some time they floated down the stream; then Pauline tossed her head bravely.

"Love's rather cruel in a way."

Guy looked aghast.

"Pauline, you don't regret falling in love with me?"

"No, of course not, of course not. Oh, I love you more than I can say."

When Guy's arms were round her again Pauline thought that love could be as cruel as he chose; she did not care for his cruelty.

JULY

Guy had been conscious ever since the rose-gold evening of the ragged-robins of new elements having entered into his and Pauline's love for each other. All this month, however, June creeping upon them with verdurous and m.u.f.fled steps had plotted to foil the least attempt on Guy's part to face the situation. Now the casual indiscretion of yesterday brought him sharply against it, and, as in the melancholy of the long Summer evening he contemplated the prospect, it appeared disquieting enough. In nine months he had done nothing; no quibbling could circ.u.mvent that deadly fact. For nine months he had lived in a house of his own, had accepted paternal help, had betrothed himself; and with every pa.s.sing month he had done less to justify any single one of the steps. What were the remedies? The house might be sublet; at any rate, his father's bounty came to an end this quarter; engaging himself formally to Pauline, he could throttle the Muse and become a schoolmaster, and in two years perhaps they could be married. It would be a wrench to abandon poetry and the hope of fame, indeed it would stagger the very foundations of his pride; but rather than lose Pauline he would be content to remain the obscurest creature on earth.

Literature might blazon his name; but her love blazoned his soul. Poetry was only the flame of life made visible, and if he were to sacrifice Pauline what gasping and ign.o.ble rushlight of his own would he offer to the world?

Yet could he bear to leave Pauline herself? The truth was he should have gone in March, when she was in a way still remote and when like a star she would have shone as brightly upon him absent or present. Now that star was burning in his heart with pa.s.sionate fires and fevers and with quenchless ardors. It would be like death to leave her now; were she absent from him her very name would be as a draught of liquid fire.

More implacable, too, than his own torment of love might be hers. If he had gone in March, she would have been gently sad, but in those first months she still had other interests; now if he parted from her she would merely all the time be growing older and they would have between them and their separation the intolerable wastage of their youth.

Pauline had surrendered to love all the simple joys which had hitherto occupied her daily life; and if she were divided from him, he feared for the fire that might consume her. It was he who had kindled it upon that rosaureate evening of mid-May, and it was he who was charged with her ultimate happiness. The accident of yesterday had reminded him sharply how far this was so, and a sense of the tremendous responsibility created by his love for her lay upon Guy. He must never again give her family an occasion to remonstrate with her; he had been the one to blame, and he wished Mrs. Grey had spoken to him without saying anything to Pauline. How sad this long evening was, with reluctant day even now at half past nine o'clock still luminous in the west.

Next morning there was a letter for Guy from his father.

FOX HALL, GALTON, HANTS, _June 24th_.

MY DEAR GUY,--I inclose the balance of the sum I gave you, and I hope it will have been enough to pay all the debts at which you hinted in your last letter. I do not think it would be fair to you to hamper you with any more money. In fact, I trust you have already made up your mind not to ask for any.

You'll be sorry to hear that Wilkinson has fallen ill and must go abroad at once. This makes it imperative for me to know at once if you are coming to help me next September. If you are, I'm afraid I must ask you to come here immediately and take Wilkinson's place this term. I'm sorry to drag you away from your country estate, but I cannot go to the bother of getting a temporary master and then begin again with you in September. It unsettles the boys too much. So if you want to come in September, you must come now. You will only miss a month of your house and I hope that during the seven weeks of the summer holidays you will be able to transfer yourself comfortably and abandon it for ever.

Take a day to think over my proposal and telegraph your answer to-morrow.

Your affectionate father, JOHN HAZLEWOOD.

It seemed fateful, the arrival of this letter on top of the doubts of last night. A day was not long in which to make up his mind. And yet, after all, a moment was enough. He ought to go; he ought to telegraph immediately before he could vacillate; he must not see Pauline first; he ought to accept this offer. Farewell, fame!

Guy opened the front door and walked into Birdwood come with a note from the Rectory.

"Miss Pauline took me away from my work to give you this most particular and important and wait for the answer," said the gardener.

Guy asked him to step inside and see Miss Peasey while he went up-stairs to write the reply.

"Miss Peasey doesn't think much of your variety, Birdwood. She says the garden is entirely blue."

"What, all those dellyphiniums the Rector raised with his own hand and she don't like blue!"

Birdwood shook his head to express another defeat at the hands of incomprehensible woman. A moment later, as Guy went up to his room with Pauline's note, he heard him bellow in the kitchen:

"What's this I hear, mum, about the garden being too blue?"

Then Guy closed the door of the library and shut out everything but the sound of the stream.

MY DARLING,--I've got such exciting news. Mr. Delamere who's a friend of ours has asked us to stay in his barge--I mean he's lent us the barge for us to stay in. It's called the Naiad and it's on the Thames at Ladingford and when we've finished with it we're going to have it towed down to Oxford and come back from there by train. Mother asked if you would like to come and stay with us for a fortnight. Think of it, a fortnight! Margaret is coming and Monica is going to stay with Father, who can't leave the garden.

Oh, Guy, I'm wild with happiness! We're to start on the first of July about. Do send me a little note by Birdwood. Of course I know there's no need. But I would love to have a little note especially as we sha'n't see each other till after lunch.