In the Year of Jubilee Part 24

'You know,' said Tarrant, after a long pause, and speaking as though he feared to break the hush, 'that Keats once stayed at Teignmouth.'

Nancy did not know it, but said 'Yes.' The name of Keats was familiar to her, but of his life she knew hardly anything, of his poetry very little. Her education had been chiefly concerned with names.

'Will you read me a paragraph of Helmholtz?' continued the other, looking at her with a smile. 'Any paragraph, the one before you.'

She hesitated, but read at length, in an unsteady voice, something about the Conservation of Force. It ended in a nervous laugh.

'Now I'll read something to you,' said Tarrant. And he began to repeat, slowly, musically, lines of verse which his companion had never heard:

'_O what can ail thee, Knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering? The sedge has wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing_.'

He went through the poem; Nancy the while did not stir. It was as though he murmured melody for his own pleasure, rather than recited to a listener; but no word was inaudible. Nancy knew that his eyes rested upon her; she wished to smile, yet could not. And when he ceased, the silence held her motionless.

'Isn't it better?' said Tarrant, drawing slightly nearer to her.

'Of course it is.'

'I used to know thousands of verses by heart.'

'Did you ever write any?'

'Half-a-dozen epics or so, when I was about seventeen. Yet, I don't come of a poetical family. My father--'

He stopped abruptly, looked into Nancy's face with a smile, and said in a tone of playfulness:

'Do you remember asking me whether I had anything to do with--'

Nancy, flushing over all her features, exclaimed, 'Don't! please don't!

I'm ashamed of myself!'

'I didn't like it. But we know each other better now. You were quite right. That was how my grandfather made his money. My father, I believe, got through most of it, and gave no particular thought to me. His mother--the old lady whom you know--had plenty of her own--to be mine, she tells me, some day. Do you wish to be forgiven for hurting my pride?' he added.

'I don't know what made me say such a thing--'

She faltered the words; she felt her will subdued. Tarrant reached a hand, and took one of hers, and kissed it; then allowed her to draw it away.

'Now will you give me another blackberry?'

The girl was trembling; a light shone in her eyes. She offered the leaf with fruit in it; Tarrant, whilst choosing, touched the blue veins of her wrist with his lips.

'What are you going to do?' she asked presently. 'I mean, what do you aim at in life?'

'Enjoyment. Why should I trouble about anything else. I should be content if life were all like this: to look at a beautiful face, and listen to a voice that charms me, and touch a hand that makes me thrill with such pleasure as I never knew.'

'It's waste of time.'

'Oh, never time was spent so well! Look at me again like that--with the eyes half-closed, and the lips half-mocking. Oh, the exquisite lips! If I might--if I might--'

He did not stir from his posture of languid ease, but Nancy, with a quick movement, drew a little away from him, then rose.

'It's time to go back,' she said absently.

'No, no; not yet. Let me look at you for a few minutes more!'

She began to walk slowly, head bent.

'Well then, to-morrow, or the day after. The place will be just as beautiful, and you even more. The sea-air makes you lovelier from day to day.'

Nancy looked back for an instant. Tarrant followed, and in the deep leafy way he again helped her to pa.s.s the briers. But their hands never touched, and the silence was unbroken until they had issued into the open lane.

CHAPTER 6

The lodgings were taken for three weeks, and more than half the time had now elapsed.

Jessica, who declared herself quite well and strong again, though her face did not bear out the a.s.sertion, was beginning to talk of matters examinational once more. Notwithstanding protests, she brought forth from their hiding-place sundry arid little manuals and black-covered notebooks; her thoughts were divided between algebraic formulae and Nancy's relations with Lionel Tarrant. Perhaps because no secret was confided to her, she affected more appet.i.te for the arid little books than she really felt. Nancy would neither speak of examinations, nor give ear when they were talked about; she, whether consciously or not, was making haste to graduate in quite another school.

On the morning after her long walk with Tarrant, she woke before sunrise, and before seven o'clock had left the house. A high wind and hurrying clouds made the weather prospects uncertain. She strayed about the Den, never losing sight for more than a minute or two of the sea-fronting house where Tarrant lived. But no familiar form approached her, and she had to return to breakfast unrewarded for early rising.

Through the day she was restless and silent, kept alone as much as possible, and wore a look which, as the hours went on, darkened from anxiety to ill-humour. She went to bed much earlier than usual.

At eleven next morning, having lingered behind her friends, she found Tarrant in conversation with Mrs. Morgan and Jessica on the pier. His greeting astonished her; it had precisely the gracious formality of a year ago; a word or two about the weather, and he resumed his talk with Miss. Morgan--its subject, the educational value of the cla.s.sics.

Obliged to listen, Nancy suffered an anguish of resentful pa.s.sion. For a quarter of an hour she kept silence, then saw the young man take leave and saunter away with that air which, in satire, she had formerly styled majestic.

And then pa.s.sed three whole days, during which Lionel was not seen.

The evening of the fourth, between eight and nine o'clock, found Nancy at the door of the house which her thoughts had a thousand times visited. A servant, in reply to inquiry, told her that Mr Tarrant was in London; he would probably return to-morrow.

She walked idly away--and, at less than a hundred yards' distance, met Tarrant himself. His costume showed that he had just come from the railway station. Nancy would gladly have walked straight past him, but the tone in which he addressed her was a new surprise, and she stood in helpless confusion. He had been to London--called away on sudden business.

'I thought of writing--nay, I did write, but after all didn't post the letter. For a very simple reason--I couldn't remember your address.'

And he laughed so naturally, that the captive walked on by his side, unresisting. Their conversation lasted only a few minutes, then Nancy resolutely bade him good-night, no appointment made for the morrow.

A day of showers, then a day of excessive heat. They saw each other several times, but nothing of moment pa.s.sed. The morning after they met before breakfast.

'To-morrow is our last day,' said Nancy.

'Yes, Mrs. Morgan told me.' Nancy herself had never spoken of departure.

'This afternoon we'll go up the hill again.'

'I don't think I shall care to walk so far. Look at the mist; it's going to be dreadfully hot again.'

Tarrant was in a mood of careless gaiety; his companion appeared to struggle against listlessness, and her cheek had lost its wonted colour.