Beyond Part 35

"What does a young man's fancy turn to in summer, Gyp?"

Women who have subtle instincts and some experience are able to impose their own restraint on those who, at the lifting of a hand, would become their lovers. From that afternoon on, Gyp knew that a word from her would change everything; but she was far from speaking it. And yet, except at week-ends, when she went back to her baby at Mildenham, she saw Summerhay most days--in the Row, at the opera, or at Bury Street.

She had a habit of going to St. James's Park in the late afternoon and sitting there by the water. Was it by chance that he pa.s.sed one day on his way home from chambers, and that, after this, they sat there together constantly? Why make her father uneasy--when there was nothing to be uneasy about--by letting him come too often to Bury Street? It was so pleasant, too, out there, talking calmly of many things, while in front of them the small ragged children fished and put the fishes into clear gla.s.s bottles, to eat, or watch on rainy days, as is the custom of man with the minor works of G.o.d.

So, in nature, when the seasons are about to change, the days pa.s.s, tranquil, waiting for the wind that brings in the new. And was it not natural to sit under the trees, by the flowers and the water, the pigeons and the ducks, that wonderful July? For all was peaceful in Gyp's mind, except, now and then, when a sort of remorse possessed her, a sort of terror, and a sort of troubling sweetness.

V

Summerhay did not wear his heart on his sleeve, and when, on the closing-day of term, he left his chambers to walk to that last meeting, his face was much as usual under his grey top hat. But, in truth, he had come to a pretty pa.s.s. He had his own code of what was befitting to a gentleman. It was perhaps a trifle "old Georgian," but it included doing nothing to distress a woman. All these weeks he had kept himself in hand; but to do so had cost him more than he liked to reflect on. The only witness of his struggles was his old Scotch terrier, whose dreams he had disturbed night after night, tramping up and down the long back-to-front sitting-room of his little house. She knew--must know--what he was feeling. If she wanted his love, she had but to raise her finger; and she had not raised it. When he touched her, when her dress disengaged its perfume or his eyes traced the slow, soft movement of her breathing, his head would go round, and to keep calm and friendly had been torture.

While he could see her almost every day, this control had been just possible; but now that he was about to lose her--for weeks--his heart felt sick within him. He had been hard put to it before the world. A man pa.s.sionately in love craves solitude, in which to alternate between fierce exercise and that trance-like stillness when a lover simply aches or is busy conjuring her face up out of darkness or the sunlight. He had managed to do his work, had been grateful for having it to do; but to his friends he had not given attention enough to prevent them saying: "What's up with old Bryan?" Always rather elusive in his movements, he was now too elusive altogether for those who had been accustomed to lunch, dine, dance, and sport with him. And yet he shunned his own company--going wherever strange faces, life, anything distracted him a little, without demanding real attention. It must be confessed that he had come unwillingly to discovery of the depth of his pa.s.sion, aware that it meant giving up too much. But there are women who inspire feeling so direct and simple that reason does not come into play; and he had never asked himself whether Gyp was worth loving, whether she had this or that quality, such or such virtue. He wanted her exactly as she was; and did not weigh her in any sort of balance. It is possible for men to love pa.s.sionately, yet know that their pa.s.sion is but desire, possible for men to love for sheer spiritual worth, feeling that the loved one lacks this or that charm.

Summerhay's love had no such divided consciousness. About her past, too, he dismissed speculation. He remembered having heard in the hunting-field that she was Winton's natural daughter; even then it had made him long to punch the head of that covertside scandal-monger. The more there might be against the desirability of loving her, the more he would love her; even her wretched marriage only affected him in so far as it affected her happiness. It did not matter--nothing mattered except to see her and be with her as much as she would let him. And now she was going to the sea for a month, and he himself--curse it!--was due in Perthshire to shoot grouse. A month!

He walked slowly along the river. Dared he speak? At times, her face was like a child's when it expects some harsh or frightening word. One could not hurt her--impossible! But, at times, he had almost thought she would like him to speak. Once or twice he had caught a slow soft glance--gone the moment he had sight of it.

He was before his time, and, leaning on the river parapet, watched the tide run down. The sun shone on the water, brightening its yellowish swirl, and little black eddies--the same water that had flowed along under the willows past Eynsham, past Oxford, under the church at Clifton, past Moulsford, past Sonning. And he thought: 'My G.o.d! To have her to myself one day on the river--one whole long day!' Why had he been so pusillanimous all this time? He pa.s.sed his hand over his face. Broad faces do not easily grow thin, but his felt thin to him, and this gave him a kind of morbid satisfaction. If she knew how he was longing, how he suffered! He turned away, toward Whitehall. Two men he knew stopped to bandy a jest. One of them was just married. They, too, were off to Scotland for the twelfth. Pah! How stale and flat seemed that which till then had been the acme of the whole year to him! Ah, but if he had been going to Scotland WITH HER! He drew his breath in with a sigh that nearly removed the Home Office.

Oblivious of the gorgeous sentries at the Horse Guards, oblivious of all beauty, he pa.s.sed irresolute along the water, making for their usual seat; already, in fancy, he was sitting there, prodding at the gravel, a nervous twittering in his heart, and that eternal question: Dare I speak? asking itself within him. And suddenly he saw that she was before him, sitting there already. His heart gave a jump. No more craning--he WOULD speak!

She was wearing a maize-coloured muslin to which the sunlight gave a sort of transparency, and sat, leaning back, her knees crossed, one hand resting on the k.n.o.b of her furled sunshade, her face half hidden by her shady hat. Summerhay clenched his teeth, and went straight up to her.

"Gyp! No, I won't call you anything else. This can't go on! You know it can't. You know I worship you! If you can't love me, I've got to break away. All day, all night, I think and dream of nothing but you. Gyp, do you want me to go?"

Suppose she said: "Yes, go!" She made a little movement, as if in protest, and without looking at him, answered very low:

"Of course I don't want you to go. How could I?"

Summerhay gasped.

"Then you DO love me?"

She turned her face away.

"Wait, please. Wait a little longer. When we come back I'll tell you: I promise!"

"So long?"

"A month. Is that long? Please! It's not easy for me." She smiled faintly, lifted her eyes to him just for a second. "Please not any more now."

That evening at his club, through the bluish smoke of cigarette after cigarette, he saw her face as she had lifted it for that one second; and now he was in heaven, now in h.e.l.l.

VI

The verandahed bungalow on the South Coast, built and inhabited by an artist friend of Aunt Rosamund's, had a garden of which the chief feature was one pine-tree which had strayed in advance of the wood behind. The little house stood in solitude, just above a low bank of cliff whence the beach sank in sandy ridges. The verandah and thick pine wood gave ample shade, and the beach all the sun and sea air needful to tan little Gyp, a fat, tumbling soul, as her mother had been at the same age, incurably fond and fearless of dogs or any kind of beast, and speaking words already that required a glossary.

At night, Gyp, looking from her bedroom through the flat branches of the pine, would get a feeling of being the only creature in the world. The crinkled, silvery sea, that lonely pine-tree, the cold moon, the sky dark corn-flower blue, the hiss and sucking rustle of the surf over the beach pebbles, even the salt, chill air, seemed lonely. By day, too--in the hazy heat when the clouds merged, scarce drifting, into the blue, and the coa.r.s.e sea-gra.s.s tufts hardly quivered, and sea-birds pa.s.sed close above the water with chuckle and cry--it all often seemed part of a dream. She bathed, and grew as tanned as her little daughter, a regular Gypsy, in her broad hat and linen frocks; and yet she hardly seemed to be living down here at all, for she was never free of the memory of that last meeting with Summerhay. Why had he spoken and put an end to their quiet friendship, and left her to such heart-searchings all by herself? But she did not want his words unsaid. Only, how to know whether to recoil and fly, or to pa.s.s beyond the dread of letting herself go, of plunging deep into the unknown depths of love--of that pa.s.sion, whose nature for the first time she had tremulously felt, watching "Pagliacci"--and had ever since been feeling and trembling at!

Must it really be neck or nothing? Did she care enough to break through all barriers, fling herself into midstream? When they could see each other every day, it was so easy to live for the next meeting--not think of what was coming after. But now, with all else cut away, there was only the future to think about--hers and his. But need she trouble about his? Would he not just love her as long as he liked?

Then she thought of her father--still faithful to a memory--and felt ashamed. Some men loved on--yes--even beyond death! But, sometimes, she would think: 'Am I a candle-flame again? Is he just going to burn himself? What real good can I be to him--I, without freedom, and with my baby, who will grow up?' Yet all these thoughts were, in a way, unreal.

The struggle was in herself, so deep that she could hardly understand it; as might be an effort to subdue the instinctive dread of a precipice. And she would feel a kind of resentment against all the happy life round her these summer days--the sea-birds, the sunlight, and the waves; the white sails far out; the calm sun-steeped pine-trees; her baby, tumbling and smiling and softly twittering; and Betty and the other servants--all this life that seemed so simple and untortured.

To the one post each day she looked forward terribly. And yet his letters, which began like hers: "My dear friend," might have been read by anyone--almost. She spent a long time over her answers. She was not sleeping well; and, lying awake, she could see his face very distinct before her closed eyes--its teasing, lazy smile, its sudden intent gravity. Once she had a dream of him, rushing past her down into the sea. She called, but, without turning his head, he swam out further, further, till she lost sight of him, and woke up suddenly with a pain in her heart. "If you can't love me, I've got to break away!" His face, his flung-back head reminded her too sharply of those words. Now that he was away from her, would he not feel that it was best to break, and forget her? Up there, he would meet girls untouched by life--not like herself.

He had everything before him; could he possibly go on wanting one who had nothing before her? Some blue-eyed girl with auburn hair--that type so superior to her own--would sweep, perhaps had already swept him, away from her! What then? No worse than it used to be? Ah, so much worse that she dared not think of it!

Then, for five days, no letter came. And, with each blank morning, the ache in her grew--a sharp, definite ache of longing and jealousy, utterly unlike the mere feeling of outraged pride when she had surprised Fiorsen and Daphne Wing in the music-room--a hundred years ago, it seemed. When on the fifth day the postman left nothing but a bill for little Gyp's shoes, and a note from Aunt Rosamund at Harrogate, where she had gone with Winton for the annual cure, Gyp's heart sank to the depths. Was this the end? And, with a blind, numb feeling, she wandered out into the wood, where the fall of the pine-needles, season after season, had made of the ground one soft, dark, dust-coloured bed, on which the sunlight traced the pattern of the pine boughs, and ants rummaged about their great heaped dwellings.

Gyp went along till she could see no outer world for the grey-brown tree-stems streaked with gum-resin; and, throwing herself down on her face, dug her elbows deep into the pine dust. Tears, so rare with her, forced their way up, and trickled slowly to the hands whereon her chin rested. No good--crying! Crying only made her ill; crying was no relief.

She turned over on her back and lay motionless, the sunbeams warm on her cheeks. Silent here, even at noon! The sough of the calm sea could not reach so far; the flies were few; no bird sang. The tall bare pine stems rose up all round like columns in a temple roofed with the dark boughs and sky. Cloud-fleeces drifted slowly over the blue. There should be peace--but in her heart there was none!

A dusky shape came padding through the trees a little way off, another--two donkeys loose from somewhere, who stood licking each other's necks and noses. Those two humble beasts, so friendly, made her feel ashamed. Why should she be sorry for herself, she who had everything in life she wanted--except love--the love she had thought she would never want? Ah, but she wanted it now, wanted it at last with all her being!

With a shudder, she sprang up; the ants had got to her, and she had to pick them off her neck and dress. She wandered back towards the beach.

If he had truly found someone to fill his thoughts, and drive her out, all the better for him; she would never, by word or sign, show him that she missed, and wanted him--never! She would sooner die!

She came out into the sunshine. The tide was low; and the wet foresh.o.r.e gleamed with opal tints; there were wandering tracks on the sea, as of great serpents winding their way beneath the surface; and away to the west the archwayed, tawny rock that cut off the line of coast was like a dream-shape. All was dreamy. And, suddenly her heart began beating to suffocation and the colour flooded up in her cheeks. On the edge of the low cliff bank, by the side of the path, Summerhay was sitting!

He got up and came toward her. Putting her hands up to her glowing face, she said:

"Yes; it's me. Did you ever see such a gipsified object? I thought you were still in Scotland. How's dear Ossy?" Then her self-possession failed, and she looked down.

"It's no good, Gyp. I must know."

It seemed to Gyp that her heart had given up beating; she said quietly: "Let's sit down a minute"; and moved under the cliff bank where they could not be seen from the house. There, drawing the coa.r.s.e gra.s.s blades through her fingers, she said, with a shiver:

"I didn't try to make you, did I? I never tried."

"No; never."

"It's wrong."

"Who cares? No one could care who loves as I do. Oh, Gyp, can't you love me? I know I'm nothing much." How quaint and boyish! "But it's eleven weeks to-day since we met in the train. I don't think I've had one minute's let-up since."

"Have you tried?"

"Why should I, when I love you?"

Gyp sighed; relief, delight, pain--she did not know.

"Then what is to be done? Look over there--that bit of blue in the gra.s.s is my baby daughter. There's her--and my father--and--"

"And what?"

"I'm afraid--afraid of love, Bryan!"