A Mere Accident Part 11

"And why, Kitty?"

Kitty laughed--her short sudden laugh was strange and sweet. John's heart was beating. "Well," she said, without the faintest hesitation or shyness, "we always thought you hated girls. I know I used to tease you, when you came home for the first time; when you used to think of nothing but the Latin authors."

"What do you mean?"

Kitty laughed again.

"You promise not to tell?"

"I promise."

This was their first confidence.

"You told your mother when I came, when you were sitting by the fire reading, that the flutter of my skirts disturbed you."

"No, Kitty, I'm sure you never disturbed me, or at least not for a long time. I wish my mother would not repeat conversations, it is most unfair."

"Mind you, you promised not to repeat what I have told you. If you do, you will get me into an awful sc.r.a.pe."

"I promise."

The conversation came to a pause. Presently Kitty said, "But you seem to have got over your dislike to girls. I saw you talking a long while with Miss Orme the other day; and at the Meet you seemed to admire her. She was the prettiest girl we had here."

"No, indeed she wasn't!"

"Who was, then?"

"You were."

Kitty looked up; and there was so much astonishment in her face that John in a sudden access of fear said, "We had better make haste, the storm is coming on; we shall get wet through."

They ran towards the house. John reproached himself bitterly, but he made no further attempt to screw his courage up to the point of proposing. His disappointment was followed by doubts. Was his powerlessness a sign from G.o.d that he was abandoning his true vocation for a false one? and a little shaken, he attempted to interest himself in the re-building of his house; but the project had grown impossible to him, and he felt he could not embrace it again, with any of the old enthusiasm at least, until he had been refused by Kitty. There were moments when he almost yearned to hear her say that she could never love him. But in his love and religious suffering the thought of bringing a soul home to the true fold remained a fixed light; he often looked to it with happy eyes, and then if he were alone he fell on his knees and prayed. Prayer like an opiate calmed his querulous spirit, and having told his beads--the great beads which hung on his prie-dieu--he would go down stairs with peace in his heart, and finding Kitty, he would ask her to walk with him in the garden, or they would stroll out on the tennis lawn, racquet in hand.

One afternoon it was decided that they should go for a long walk. John suggested that they should climb to the top of Toddington Mount, and view the immense plain which stretches away in dim blue vapour and a thousand fields.

You see John and Kitty as they cross the wide park towards the vista in the circling elms,--she swinging her parasol, he carrying stiffly his grave canonical cane. He still wears the long black coat b.u.t.toned at the throat, but the air of hieratic dignity is now replaced by, or rather it is glossed with, the ordinary pa.s.sion of life. Both are like children, infinitely amused by the colour of the gra.s.s and sky, by the hurry of the startled rabbit, by the prospect of the long walk; and they taste already the wild charm of the downs, seeing and hearing in imagination its many sights and sounds, the wild heather, the yellow savage gorse, the solitary winding flock, the tinkling of the bell-wether, the cliff-like sides, the crowns of trees, the mighty distance spread out like a sea below them with its faint and constantly dissolving horizon of the Epsom Hills.

"I never can cross this plain, Kitty, without thinking of the Dover cliffs as seen in mid Channel; this is a mere inland imitation of them."

"I have never seen the Dover cliffs; I have never been out of England, but the Brighton cliffs give me an idea of what you mean."

"On your side--the Sh.o.r.eham side--the downs rise in a gently sloping ascent from the sea."

"Yes, we often walk up there. You can see Brighton and Southwick and Worthing. Oh! it is beautiful! I often go for a walk there with my friends, the Austen girls--you saw them here at the Meet."

"Yes, Mr Austen has a very nice property; it extends right into the town of Sh.o.r.eham, does it not?"

"Yes, and right up to Toddington Mount, where we are going. But aren't you a little tired, John? These roads are very steep."

"Out of breath, Kitty; let's stop for a minute or two." The country lay below them. They had walked three miles, and Thornby Place and its elms were now vague in the blue evening. "We must see one of these days if we cannot do the whole distance."

"What? right across the downs from Sh.o.r.eham to Henfield?"

"Well, it is not more than eight miles; you don't think you could manage it?"

"I don't know, it is more than eight miles, and walking on the downs is not like walking on the highroad. Father thinks nothing of it."

"We must really try it."

"What would you do if I were to get so tired that I could not go back or forward?"

"I would carry you."

They continued their climb. Speaking of the Devil's d.y.k.e, Kitty said--

"What! you mean to say you never heard the legend? You, a Suss.e.x man!"

"I have lived very little in Suss.e.x, and I used to hate the place; I am only just beginning to like it."

"And you don't like the Jesuits any more, because they go in for matchmaking."

"They are too sly for me, I confess; I don't approve of priests meddling in family affairs. But tell me the legend."

"Oh, how steep these roads are. At last, at last. Now let's try and find a place where we can sit down. The gra.s.s is full of that horrid p.r.i.c.kly gorse."

"Here's a nice soft place; there is no gorse here. Now tell me the legend."

"Well, I never!" said Kitty, sitting herself on the spot that had been chosen for her, "you do astonish me. You never heard of the legend of St Cuthman."

"No, do tell it to me."

"Well, I scarcely know how to tell it in ordinary words, for I learnt it in poetry."

"In poetry! In whose poetry?"

"Evy Austen put it into poetry, the eldest of the girls, and they made me recite it at the harvest supper."

"Oh, that's awfully jolly--I never should have thought she was so clever. Evy is the dark-haired one."

"Yes, Evy is awfully clever; but she doesn't talk much about it."

"Do recite it."

"I don't know that I can remember it all. You won't laugh if I break down."

"I promise."

THE LEGEND OF ST CUTHMAN.