Septimus Part 20

Septimus reflected. He had not thought of the pond's inadequate depth.

"You might have lain down at the bottom until it was all over," he remarked in perfect seriousness. "I once heard of a servant girl who drowned herself in a basin of water."

Emmy turned impatiently and, walking on, waved him away; but he accompanied her mechanically.

"Oh, don't follow me," she cried in a queer voice. "Leave me alone, for G.o.d's sake. I'm not going to commit suicide. I wish to heaven I had the pluck."

"But if you're not going to do that, why on earth are you here?"

"I'm taking a stroll before breakfast--just like yourself. Why am I here?

If you really want to know," she added defiantly, "I'm going to London--by the early train from Hensham--the milk train. See, I'm respectable. I have my luggage." She swung something in the dark before him and he perceived that it was a handbag. "Now are you satisfied? Or do you think I was going to take a handkerchief and a powder puff into the other world with me? I'm just simply going to London--nothing more."

"But it's a seven-mile walk to Hensham."

She made no reply, but quickened her pace. Septimus, in a whirl of doubt and puzzledom, walked by her side, still holding his cap in his hand. Even the intelligence of the local policeman would have connected her astounding appearance on the common with the announcement in the _Globe_. He took that for granted. But if she were not about to destroy herself, why this untimely flight to London? Why walk seven miles in wintry darkness when she could have caught a train at Ripstead (a mile away) a few hours later, in orthodox comfort? It was a mystery, a tragic and perplexing mystery.

They pa.s.sed by the pond in silence, crossed the common and reached the main road.

"I wish I knew what to do, Emmy," he said at last. "I hate forcing my company upon you, and yet I feel I should be doing wrong to leave you unprotected. You see, I should not be able to face Zora."

"You had better face her as late as possible," she replied quickly.

"Perhaps you had better walk to the station with me. Would you?"

"It would ease my mind."

"All right. Only, for G.o.d's sake, don't chatter. I don't want you of all people to get on my nerves."

"Let me carry your bag," said Septimus, "and you had better have my stick."

The process of transference brought to his consciousness the fact of his bareheadedness. He put on his cap and they trudged along the road like gipsy man and wife, saying not a word to each other. For two miles they proceeded thus, sometimes in utter blackness when the road wound between thick oak plantations, sometimes in the lesser dimness of the open when it pa.s.sed by the rolling fields; and not a sign of human life disturbed the country stillness. Then they turned into the London road and pa.s.sed through a village. Lights were in the windows. One cottage door stood open. A shaft of light streamed across Emmy's face, and Septimus caught a glimpse of drawn and haggard misery. They went on for another mile. Now and then a laborer pa.s.sed them with an unsurprised greeting. A milkcart rattled by and then all was silence again. Gradually the stars lost brilliance.

All of a sudden, at the foot of a rise crowned by a cottage looming black against the sky, Emmy broke down and cast herself on a heap of stones by the side of the road, a helpless bundle of sobs and incoherent lamentations. She could bear it no longer. Why had he not spoken to her?

She could go no further. She wished she were dead. What was going to become of her? How could he walk by her side saying nothing, like a dumb jailer?

He had better go back to Nunsmere and leave her to die by the wayside. It was all she asked of Heaven.

"Oh, G.o.d have pity on me," she moaned, and rocked herself to and fro.

Septimus stood for a time tongue-tied in acute distress. This was his first adventure in knight-errantry and he had served before neither as page nor squire. He would have given his head to say the unknown words that might comfort her. All he could do was to pat her on the shoulder in a futile way and bid her not to cry, which, as all the world knows, is the greatest encouragement to further shedding of tears a weeping woman can have. Emmy sobbed more bitterly than ever. Once more on that night of agonizing dubiety, what was to be done? He looked round desperately for guidance, and, as he looked, a light appeared in the window of the hilltop cottage.

"Perhaps," said he, "if I knock at the door up there, they can give you a gla.s.s of milk. Or a cup of tea," he added, brightening with the glow of inspiration. "Or they may be able to let you lie down for a while."

But Emmy shook her head miserably. Milk, tea, rec.u.mbent luxury were as nothing to her. Neither poppy nor mandragora (or words to that effect) could give her ease again. And she couldn't walk four miles, and she must catch the morning train.

"If you'll tell me what I can do," said Septimus, "I'll do it."

A creaky rumble was heard in the distance and presently they made out a cart coming slowly down the hill. Septimus had another brilliant idea.

"Let me put you into that and take you back to Nunsmere."

She sprang to her feet and clutched his arm.

"Never. Never, do you hear? I couldn't bear it. Mother, Zora--I couldn't see them again. Last night they nearly drove me into hysterics. What do you suppose I came out for at this hour, if it wasn't to avoid meeting them?

Let us go on. If I die on the road, so much the better."

"Perhaps," said Septimus, "I could carry you."

She softened, linked her arm in his, and almost laughed, as they started up the hill.

"What a good fellow you are, and I've been behaving like a beast. Anyone but you would have worried me with questions--and small wonder. But you haven't even asked me--"

"Hush," said Septimus. "I know. I saw the paragraph in the newspaper. Don't let's talk of it. Let us talk of something else. Do you like honey? The Great Bear put me in mind. Wiggleswick wants to keep bees. I tell him, if he does, I'll keep a bear. He could eat the honey, you see. And then I could teach him to dance by playing the ba.s.soon to him. Perhaps he would like the ba.s.soon," he continued, after a pause, in his wistful way. "n.o.body else does."

"If you had it with you now, I should love it for your sake," said Emmy with a sob.

"If you would take my advice and rest in the cottage, I could send for it,"

he replied unsmilingly.

"We must catch the train," said Emmy.

In Wirley, half a mile further, folks were stirring. A cart laden with market produce waited by a cottage door for the driver who stood swallowing his final cup of tea. A bare-headed child clung round his leg, an attendant Hebe. The wanderers halted.

"If the other cart could have taken us back to Nunsmere," said Septimus, with the air of a man who has arrived at Truth, "this one can carry us to the station."

And so it fell out. The men made Emmy as comfortable as could be among the cabbages, with some sacks for rugs, and there she lay drowsy with pain and weariness until they came to the end of their journey.

A gas-light or two accentuated the murky dismalness of the little station.

Emmy sank exhausted on a bench in the booking hail, numb with cold, and too woebegone to think of her hair, which straggled limply from beneath the zibeline toque. Septimus went to the booking office and asked for two first-cla.s.s tickets to London. When he joined her again she was crying softly.

"You're coming with me? It is good of you."

"I'm responsible for you to Zora."

A shaft of jealousy shot through her tears.

"You always think of Zora."

"To think of her," replied Septimus, vaguely allusive, "is a liberal education."

Emmy shrugged her shoulders. She was not of the type that makes paragons out of her own s.e.x, and she had also a sisterly knowledge of Zora unharmonious with Septimus's poetic conception. But she felt too miserable to argue. She asked him the time.

At last the train came in. There was a great rattling of milk-cans on the gloomy platform, and various slouching shapes entered third-cla.s.s carriages. The wanderers had the only first-cla.s.s compartment to themselves. It struck cold and noisome, like a peculiarly unaired charnel-house. A feeble lamp, whose effect was dimmed by the swishing dirty oil in the bottom of the globe, gave a pretense at illumination. The guard pa.s.sing by the window turned his lantern on them and paused for a wondering moment. Were they a runaway couple? If so, thought he, they had arrived at quick repentance. As they looked too dismal for tips, he concerned himself with them no more. The train started. Emmy shook with cold, in spite of her fur-lined jacket. Septimus took off his overcoat and spread it over their two bodies as they huddled together for warmth. After a while her head drooped on his shoulder and she slept, while Septimus sucked his empty pipe, not daring to light it lest he should disturb her slumbers. For the same reason he forbore to change his original awkward att.i.tude, and in consequence suffered agonies of pins and needles. To have a solid young woman asleep in your arms is not the romantic pleasure the poets make out; for comfort, she might just as well stand on your head. Also, as Emmy unconsciously drew the overcoat away from him, one side of his body perished with cold; and a dinner suit is not warm enough for traveling on a frosty morning.

The thought of his dinner jacket reminded him of his puzzledom. What were Emmy and himself doing in that galley of a railway carriage when they might have been so much more comfortable in their own beds in Nunsmere? It was an impenetrable mystery to which the sleeping girl who was causing him such acute though cheerfully borne discomfort alone had the key. In vain did he propound to himself the theory that such speculation betokened an indelicate mind; in vain did he ask himself with unwonted severity what business it was of his; in vain did he try to hitch his thoughts to Patent Safety Railway Carriages, which were giving him a great deal of trouble; in vain did he try to sleep. The question haunted him. So much so that when Emmy awoke and rubbed her eyes, and in some confusion apologized for the use to which she had put his shoulder, he was almost ashamed to look her in the face.

"What are you going to do when you get to Victoria?" Emmy asked.

Septimus had not thought of it. "Go back to Nunsmere, I suppose, by the next train--unless you want me?"