The Battle of the Strong Part 15

"How can you say such wicked things, Philip?"

"My dearest, it is not necessary for him to know. I don't want any one to know until I come back from Portsmouth. Then I shall have a s.h.i.+p of my own--commander of the Araminta I shall be then. I have word from the Admiralty to that effect. But I dare not let them know that I am married until I get commissioned to my s.h.i.+p. The Admiralty has set its face against lieutenants marrying."

"Then do not marry, Philip. You ought not, you see."

Her pleading was like the beating of helpless wings against the bars of a golden cage.

"But I must marry you, Guida. A sailor's life is uncertain, and what I want I want now. When I come back from Portsmouth every one shall know, but if you love me--and I know you do--you must marry me to-morrow.

Until I come back no one shall know about it except the clergyman, Mr.

Dow of St. Michael's--I have seen him--and Sh.o.r.eham, a brother officer of mine. Ah, you must, Guida, you must! Whatever is worth doing is better worth doing in the time one's own heart says. I want it more, a thousand times more, than I ever wanted anything in my life."

She looked at him in a troubled sort of way. Somehow she felt wiser than he at that moment, wiser and stronger, though she scarcely defined the feeling to herself, though she knew that in the end her brain would yield to her heart in this.

"Would it make you so much happier, Philip?" she said more kindly than joyfully, more in grave acquiescence than delighted belief.

"Yes, on my honour--supremely happy."

"You are afraid that otherwise, by some chance, you might lose me?" she said it tenderly, yet with a little pain.

"Yes, yes, that is it, Guida dearest," he replied. "I suppose women are different altogether from men," she answered. "I could have waited ever so long, believing that you would come again, and that I should never lose you. But men are different; I see, yes, I see that, Philip."

"We are more impetuous. We know, we sailors, that now-to-day-is our time; that to-morrow may be Fate's, and Fate is a fickle jade: she beckons you up with one hand to-day, and waves you down with the other to-morrow."

"Philip," she said, scarcely above a whisper, and putting her hands on his arms, as her head sank towards him, "I must be honest with you--I must be that or nothing at all. I do not feel as you do about it; I can't. I would much--much--rather everybody knew. And I feel it almost wrong that they do not." She paused a minute, her brow clouded slightly, then cleared again, and she went on bravely: "Philip, if--if I should, you must promise me that you will leave me as soon as ever we are married, and that you will not try to see me until you come again from Portsmouth. I am sure that is right, for the deception will not be so great. I should be better able then to tell the poor grandpethe. Will you promise me, Philip-dear? It--it is so hard for me. Ah, can't you understand?"

This hopeless everlasting cry of a woman's soul!

He clasped her close. "Yes, Guida, my beloved, I understand, and I promise you--I do promise you." Her head dropped on his breast, her arms ran round his neck. He raised her face; her eyes were closed; they were dropping tears. He tenderly kissed the tears away.

CHAPTER XIV

"Oh, give to me my gui-l'annee, I pray you, Monseigneur; The king's princess doth ride to-day, And I ride forth with her.

Oh! I will ride the maid beside Till we come to the sea, Till my good s.h.i.+p receive my bride, And she sail far with me.

Oh, donnez-moi ma gui-l'annee, Monseigneur, je vous prie!"

The singer was perched on a huge broad stone, which, lying athwart other tall perpendicular stones, made a kind of hut, approached by a pathway of upright narrow pillars, irregular and crude. Vast must have been the labour of man's hands to lift the ma.s.sive table of rock upon the supporting shafts--relics of an age when they were the only architecture, the only national monuments; when savage ancestors in lion skins, with stone weapons, led by white-robed Druid priests, came solemnly here and left the mistletoe wreath upon these Houses of Death for their adored warriors.

Even the words sung by Sh.o.r.eham on the rock carried on the ancient story, the sacred legend that he who wore in his breast this mistletoe got from the Druids' altar, bearing his bride forth by sea or land, should suffer no mischance; and for the bride herself, the morgen-gifn should fail not, but should attest richly the perfect bliss of the nuptial hours.

The light was almost gone from the day, though the last crimson petals had scarce dropped from the rose of sunset. Upon the sea beneath there was not a ripple; it was a lake of molten silver, shading into a leaden silence far away. The tide was high, and the ragged rocks of the Banc des Violets in the south and the Corbiore in the west were all but hidden.

Below the mound where the tuneful youth loitered was a path, leading down through the fields and into the highway. In this path walked lingeringly a man and a maid. Despite the peaceful, almost dormant life about them, the great event of their lives had just occurred, that which is at once a vast adventure and a simple testament of nature: they had been joined in marriage privately in the parish church of St. Michael's near by. As Sh.o.r.eham's voice came down the cotil, the two looked up, then pa.s.sed on out of view.

But still the voice followed them, and the man looked down at the maid, repeating the refrain of the song:

"Oh, give to me my gui-l'annee, Monseigneur, je vous prie!"

The maid looked up at the man tenderly, almost devoutly.

"I have no Druid's mistletoe from the Chapel of St. George, but I will give you--stoop down, Philip," she added softly, "I will give you the first kiss I have ever given to any man."

He stooped. She kissed him on the forehead, then upon the lips.

"Guida, my wife," Philip said, and drew her to his breast.

"My Philip," she answered softly. "Won't you say, 'Philip, my husband'?"

She shyly did as he asked in a voice no louder than a bee's. She was only seventeen.

Presently she looked up at him with a look a little abashed, a little anxious, yet tender withal.

"Philip," she said, "I wonder what we will think of this day a year from now--no, don't frown, Philip," she added. "You look at things so differently from me. To-day is everything to you; to-morrow is very much to me. It isn't that I am afraid, it is that thoughts of possibilities will come whether or no. If I couldn't tell you everything I feel I should be most unhappy. You see, I want to be able to do that, to tell you everything."

"Of course, of course," he said, not quite comprehending her, for his thoughts were always more material. He was revelling in the beauty of the girl before him, in her perfect outward self, in her unique personality. The more subtle, the deeper part of her, the searching soul never to be content with superficial reasons and the obvious cause, these he did not know--was he ever to know? It was the law of her nature that she was never to deceive herself, to pretend anything, nor to forgive pretence. To see things, to look beyond the Hedge, that was to be a pa.s.sion with her; already it was nearly that.

"Of course," Philip continued, "you must tell me everything, and I'll understand. And as for what we'll think of this in another year, why, doesn't it hold to reason that we'll think it the best day of our lives--as it is, Guida?" He smiled at her, and touched her s.h.i.+ning hair. "Evil can't come out of good, can it? And this is good, as good as anything in the world can be.... There, look into my eyes that way--just that way."

"Are you happy--very, very happy, Philip?" she asked, lingering on the words.

"Perfectly happy, Guida," he answered; and in truth he seemed so, his eyes were so bright, his face so eloquent, his bearing so buoyant.

"And you think we have done quite right, Philip?" she urged.

"Of course, of course we have. We are honourably disposing of our own fates. We love each other, we are married as surely as others are married. Where is the wrong? We have told no one, simply because for a couple of months it is best not to do so. The parson wouldn't have married us if there'd been anything wrong."

"Oh, it isn't what the clergyman might think that I mean; it's what we ourselves think down, down deep in our hearts. If you, Philip--if you say it is all right, I will believe that it is right, for you would never want your wife to have one single wrong thing like a dark spot on her life with you--would you? If it is all right to you, it must be all right for me, don't you see?"

He did see that, and it made him grave for an instant, it made him not quite so sure.

"If your mother were alive," he answered, "of course she should have known; but it isn't necessary for your grandfather to know. He talks; he couldn't keep it to himself even for a month. But we have been regularly married, we have a witness--Sh.o.r.eham over there," he pointed towards the Druid's cromlech where the young man was perched--"and it only concerns us now--only you and me."

"Yet if anything happened to you during the next two months, Philip, and you did not come back!"

"My dearest, dearest Guida," he answered, taking her hands in his, and laughing boyishly, "in that case you will announce the marriage.

Sh.o.r.eham and the clergyman are witnesses; besides, there's the certificate which Mr. Dow will give you to-morrow; and, above all, there's the formal record on the parish register. There, sweetest interrogation mark in the world, there is the law and the gospel! Come, come, let us be gay, let this be the happiest hour we've yet had in all our lives."

"How can I be altogether gay, Philip, when we part now, and I shall not see you for two whole long months?"

"Mayn't I come to you for just a minute to-morrow morning, before I go?"

"No, no, no, you must not, indeed you must not. Remember your promise, remember that you are not to see me again until you come back from Portsmouth. Even this is not quite what we agreed, for you are still with me, and we've been married nearly half an hour!"

"Perhaps we were married a thousand years ago--I don't know," he answered, drawing her to him. "It's all a magnificent dream so far."

"You must go, you must keep your word. Don't break the first promise you ever made me, Philip."