An Englishwoman's Love-Letters Part 12

LETTER XLIII.

My Dearest: See what an effect your "gallous young hound" episode has had on me. I send it back to you roughly done into rhyme. I don't know whether it will carry; for, outside your telling of it, "Johnnie Kigarrow"

is not a name of heroic sound. What touches me as so strangely complete about it is that you should have got that impression and momentary romantic delusion as a child, and now hear, years after, of his disappearing out of life thus fittingly and mysteriously, so that his name will fix its legend to the countryside for many a long day. I would like to go there some day with you, and standing on Twloch Hill imagine all the country round as the burial-place of the strong man on whose knees my beloved used to play when a child.

It must have been soon after this that your brother died: truly, dearest, from now, and strangely, this Johnnie Kigarrow will seem more to me than him; touching a more heroic strain of idea, and stiffening fibers in your nature that brotherhood, as a rule, has no bearing on.

A short letter to-day, Beloved, because what goes with it is so long.

This is the first time I have come before your eyes as anything but a letter-writer, and I am doubtful whether you will care to have so much all about yourself. Yet for that very reason think how much I loved doing it! I am jealous of those days before I knew you, and want to have all their wild-honey flavor for myself. Do remember more, and tell me!

Dearest heart, it was to me you were coming through all your scampers and ramblings; no wonder, with that unknown good running parallel, that my childhood was a happy one. May long life bless you, Beloved!

(_Inclosure._)

My brother and I were down in Wales, And listened by night to the Welshman's tales; He was eleven and I was ten.

We sat on the knees of the farmer's men After the whole day's work was done: And I was friends with the farmer's son.

His hands were rough as his arms were strong, His mouth was merry and loud for song; Each night when set by the ingle-wall He was the merriest man of them all.

I would catch at his beard and say All the things I had done in the day-- Tumbled bowlders over the force, Swum in the river and fired the gorse-- "Half the side of the hill!" quoth I:-- "Ah!" cried he, "and didn't you die?"

"Chut!" said he, "but the squeak was narrow!

Didn't you meet with Johnnie Kigarrow?"

"No!" said I, "and who will he be?

And what will be Johnnie Kigarrow to me?"

The farmer's son said under his breath, "Johnnie Kigarrow may be your death Listen you here, and keep you still-- Johnnie Kigarrow bides under the hill; Twloch barrow stands over his head; He shallows the river to make his bed; Bowlders roll when he stirs a limb; And the gorse on the hills belongs to him!

And if so be one fires his gorse, He's out of his bed, and he mounts his horse.

Off he sets: with the first long stride He is halfway over the mountain side: With his second stride he has crossed the barrow, And he has you fast, has Johnnie Kigarrow!"

Half I laughed and half I feared; I clutched and tugged at the strong man's beard, And bragged as brave as a boy could be-- "So? but, you see, he didn't catch me!"

Fear caught hold of me: what had I done?

High as the roof rose the farmer's son: How the sight of him froze my marrow!

"I," he cried, "am Johnnie Kigarrow!"

Well, you wonder, what was the end?

Never forget;--he had called me "friend"!

Mighty of limb, and hard, and blown; Quickly he laughed and set me down.

"Heh!" said, he, "but the squeak was narrow, Not to be caught by Johnnie Kigarrow!"

Now, I hear, after years gone by, n.o.body knows how he came to die.

He strode out one night of storm: "Get you to bed, and keep you warm!"

Out into darkness so went he: n.o.body knows where his bones may be.

Only I think--if his tongue let go Truth that once,--how perhaps _I_ know.

Twloch river, and Twloch barrow, Do you cover my Johnnie Kigarrow?

LETTER XLIV.

Dearest: I have been doing something so wise and foolish: mentally wise, I mean, and physically foolish. Do you guess?--Disobeying your parting injunction, and sitting up to see eclipses.

It was such a luxury to do as I was _not_ told just for once; to feel there was an independent me still capable of a.s.serting itself. My belief is that, waking, you hold me subjugated: but, once your G.o.dhead has put on its spiritual nightcap, and begun nodding, your mesmeric influence relaxes. Up starts resolution and independence, and I breathe desolately for a time, feeling myself once more a free woman.

'Twas a tremulous experience, Beloved; but I loved it all the more for that. How we love playing at grief and death--the two things that must come--before it is their due time! I took a look at my world for three most mortal hours last night, trying to see you _out_ of it. And oh, how close it kept bringing me! I almost heard you breathe, and was forever wondering--Can we ever be nearer, or love each other more than we do?

For _that_ we should each want a sixth sense, and a second soul: and it would still be only the same spread out over larger territory. I prefer to keep it nesting close in its present limitations, where it feels like a "growing pain"; children have it in their legs, we in our hearts.

I am growing sleepy as I write, and feel I am sending you a dull letter,--my penalty for doing as you forbade.

I sat up from half-past one to a quarter to five to see our shadow go over heaven. I didn't see much, the sky was too piebald: but I was not disappointed, as I had never watched the darkness into dawn like that before: and it was interesting to hear all the persons awaking:--c.o.c.ks at half-past four, frogs immediately after, then pheasants and various others following. I was cuddled close up against my window, throned in a big arm-chair with many pillows, a spirit-lamp, cocoa, bread and b.u.t.ter, and buns; so I fared well. Just after the pheasants and the first querulous fidgetings of hungry blackbirds comes a soft pattering along the path below: and Benjy, secretive and important, is fussing his way to the shrubbery, when instinct or real sentiment prompts him to look up at my window; he gives a whimper and a wag, and goes on. I try to persuade myself that he didn't see me, and that he does this, other mornings, when I am not thus perversely bolstered up in rebellion, and peering through blinds at wrong hours. Isn't there something pathetic in the very idea that a dog may have a behind-your-back attachment of that sort?--that every morning he looks up at an unresponsive blank, and wags, and goes by?

I heard him very happy in the shrubs a moment after: he and a pheasant, I fancy, disputing over a question of boundaries. And he comes in for breakfast, three hours later, looking positively _fresh,_ and wants to know why I am yawning.

Most mornings he brings your letter up to my room in his mouth. It is old Nan-nan's joke: she only sends up _yours_ so, and pretends it is Benjy's own clever selection. I pretend that, too, to him; and he thinks he is doing something wonderful. The other morning I was--well, Benjy hears splashing: and tires of waiting--or his mouth waters. An extra can of hot water happens to stand at the door; and therein he deposits his treasure (mine, I mean), and retires saying nothing. The consequence is, when I open three minutes after his scratch, I find you all ungummed and swimming, your beautiful handwriting bleared and smeared, so that no eye but mine could have read it. Benjy's shame when I showed him what he had done was wonderful.

How it rejoices me to write quite foolish things to you!--that I _can_ helps to explain a great deal in the up-above order of things, which I never took in when I was merely young and frivolous. One must have touched a grave side of life before one can take in that Heaven is not opposed to laughter.

My eye has just caught back at what I have written; and the "little death" runs through me, just because I wrote "grave side." It shouldn't, but loving has made me superst.i.tious: the happiness seems too great; how can it go on? I keep thinking--this is not life: you are too much for me, my dearest!

Oh, my Beloved, come quickly to meet me to-day: this morning! Ride over; I am willing it. My own dearest, you must come. If you don't, what shall I believe? That Love cannot outdo s.p.a.ce: that when you are away I cannot reach you by willing. But I can: come to me! You shall see my arms open to you as never before. What is it?--you must be coming. I have more love in me after all than I knew.

Ah, I know: I wrote "grave side," and all my heart is in arms against the treason. With us it is not "till death us do part": we leap it altogether, and are clasped on the other side.

My dear, my dear, I lay my head down on your heart: I love you! I post this to show how certain I am. At twelve to-day I shall see you.

LETTER XLV.

Beloved: I look at this ridiculous little nib now, running like a plow along the furrows! What can the poor thing do? Bury its poor black, blunt little nose in the English language in order to tell you, in all sorts of roundabout ways, what you know already as well as I do. And yet, though that is all it can do, you complain of not having had a letter! Not had a letter? Beloved, there are half a hundred I have not had from you! Do you suppose you have ever, any one week in your life, sent me as many as I wanted?

Now, for once, I did hold off and didn't write to you: because there was something in your last I couldn't give any answer to, and I hoped you would come yourself before I need. Then I hoped silence would bring you: and now--no!--instead of your dear peace-giving face I get this complaint!

Ah, Beloved, have you in reality any complaint, or sorrow that I can set at rest? Or has that little, little silence made you anxious? I do come to think so, for you never flourish your words about as I do: so, believing that, I would like to write again differently; only it is truer to let what I have written stand, and make amends for it in all haste. I love you so infinitely well, how could even a year's silence give you any doubt or anxiety, so long as you knew I was not ill?

"Should one not make great concessions to great grief even when it is unreasonable?" I cannot answer, dearest: I am in the dark. Great grief cannot be great without reasons: it should give them, and you should judge by them:--you, not I. I imagine you have again been face to face with fierce, unexplained opposition. Dearest, if it would give you happiness, I would say, make five, ten, twenty years' "concession," as you call it. But the only time you ever spoke to me clearly about your mother's mind toward me, you said she wanted an absolute surrender from you, not covered only by her lifetime. Then though I pitied her, I had to smile. A twenty years'

concession even would not give rest to her perturbed spirit. I pray truly--having so much reason for your sake to pray it--"G.o.d rest her soul!

and give her a saner mind toward both of us."

Why has this come about at all? It is not February yet: and _our_ plans have been putting forth no buds before their time. When the day comes, and you have said the inevitable word, I think more calm will follow than you expect. _You_, dearest, I do understand: and the instinct of tenderness you have toward a claim which yet fills you with the sense of its injustice. I know that you can laugh at her threat to make you poor; but not at hurting her affections. Did your asking for an "answer" mean that I was to write so openly? Bless you, my own dearest.