The Unclassed Part 27

"Let us walk back on the sands," she said, pointing.

"You are going home?"

"Yes, I want to rest a little. I will meet you again about eight o'clock, if you like."

Waymark accompanied her as far as the door, then strolled on to his own lodgings, which were near at hand. It was only the second day that they had been in Hastings, yet it seemed to him as if he had been walking about on the seash.o.r.e with Ida for weeks. For all that, he felt that he was not as near to her now as he had been on certain evenings in London, when his arrival was to her a manifest pleasure, and their talk unflagging from hour to hour. She did not show the spirit of holiday, seemed weary from time to time, was too often preoccupied and indisposed to talk. True, she had at length fulfilled her promise of telling him the whole of her story, but even this increase of confidence Waymark's uneasy mind strangely converted into fresh source of discomfort to himself. She had made this revelation--he half believed--on purpose to keep up the distance between them, to warn him how slight occasion had led her from what is called the path of virtue, that he might not delude himself into exaggerated estimates of her character. Such a thought could of course only be due to the fact that Ida's story had indeed produced something of this impression upon her hearer. Waymark had often busied himself with inventing all manner of excuses for her, had exerted his imagination to the utmost to hit upon some most irresistible climax of dolorous circ.u.mstances to account for her downfall. He had yet to realise that circ.u.mstances are as relative in their importance as everything else in this world, and that ofttimes the greatest tragedies revolve on apparently the most insignificant outward events--personality being all.

He spent the hours of her absence in moving from place to place, fretting in mind. At one moment, he half determined to bring things to some issue, by disregarding all considerations and urging his love upon her. Yet this he felt he could not do. Surely--he asked himself angrily he was not still so much in the thraldom of conventionality as to be affected by his fresh reminder of her position and antecedents? Perhaps not quite so much prejudice as experience which disturbed him. He was well acquainted with the characteristics of girls of this cla.s.s; he knew how all but impossible it is for them to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And there was one thing particularly in Ida's story that he found hard to credit; was it indeed likely that she had not felt more than she would confess for this man whose mistress she became so easily? If she had _not_, if what she said were true, was not this something like a proof of her lack of that refined sentiment which is, the capacity for love, in its real sense? Torturing doubts and reasonings of this kind once set going in a brain already confused with pa.s.sion, there is no limit to the range of speculation opened; Waymark found himself--in spite of everything--entertaining all his old scepticism. In any case, had he the slightest ground for the hope that she might ever feel to him as warmly as he did to her? He could not recall one instance of Ida's having betrayed a trace of fondness in her intercourse with him. The mere fact of their intercourse he altogether lost sight of. Whereas an outsider would, under the circ.u.mstances, have been justified in laying the utmost stress on this, Waymark had grown to accept it as a matter of course, and only occupied himself with Ida's absolute self-control, her perfect calmness in all situations, the ease with which she met his glance, the looseness of her hand in his, the indifference with which she heard him when he had spoken of his loneliness and frequent misery. Where was the key of her character? She did not care for admiration; it was quite certain that she was not leading him about just to gratify her own vanity. Was it not purely an intellectual matter? She was a girl of superior intellect, and, having found in him some one with whom she could satisfy her desire for rational converse, did she not on this account keep up their relations? For the rest--well, she liked ease and luxury; above all, ease. Of that she would certainly make no sacrifice.

How well he could imagine the half-annoyed, half-contemptuous smile which would rise to her beautiful face, if he were so foolish as to become sentimental with her! That, he felt, would be a look not easy to bear. Humiliation he dreaded.

When eight o'clock came, he was leaning over the end of the pier, at the appointed spot, still busy in thought. There came a touch on his arm.

"Well, are you thinking how you can make a book out of my story?"

The touch, the voice, the smile,--how all his sophistry was swept away in a rush of tenderness and delight!

"I must wait for the end of it," he returned, holding out his hand, which she did not take.

"The end?--Oh, you must invent one. Ends in real life are so commonplace and uninteresting."

"Commonplace or not," said Waymark, with some lack of firmness in his voice, "the end of your story should not be an unhappy one, if I had the disposing of it. And I might have--but for one thing."

"What's that?" she asked, with sudden interest.

"My miserable poverty. If I only had money--money"--

"Money!" she exclaimed, turning away almost angrily. Then she added, with the coldness which she did not often use, but which, when she did, chilled and checked him--"I don't understand you."

He pointed with a bitter smile down to the sands.

"Look at that gold of the sunset in the pools the tide has left. It is the most glorious colour in nature, but it makes me miserable by reminding me of the metal it takes its name from."

She looked at him with eyes which had in them a strange wonder, sad at first, then full of scorn, of indignation. And then she laughed, drawing herself away from him. The laugh irritated him. He experienced a terrible revulsion of feeling, from the warmth and pa.s.sion which had possessed him, to that humiliation, which he could not bear.

And just now a number of people came and took their stands close by, in a gossiping group. Ida had half turned away, and was looking at the golden pools. He tried to say something, but his tongue was dry, and the word would not come. Presently, she faced him again, and said, in very much her ordinary tone--

"I was going to tell you that I have just had news from London, which makes it necessary for me to go back to-morrow. I shall have to take an early train."

"This is because I have offended you," Waymark said, moving nearer to her. "You had no thought of going before that."

"I am not surprised that you refuse to believe me," returned Ida, smiling very faintly. "Still, it is the truth. And now I must go in again;--I am very tired."

"No," he exclaimed as she moved away, "you must not go in till--till you have forgotten me. At least come away to a quiet place, where I can speak freely to you; these people--"

"To-morrow morning," she said, waving her hand wearily. "I can't talk now--and indeed there is no need to speak of this at all. I have forgotten it."

"No, you have not; how could you?--And you will not go to-morrow; you shall not."

"Yes, I must," she returned firmly.

"Then I shall go with you."

"As you like. I shall leave by the express at five minutes past nine."

"Then I shall be at the station. But at least I may walk home with you?"

"No, please. If you wish me to think you are sincere,--if you wish us still to be friends--stay till I have left the pier.--Good night."

He muttered a return, and stood watching her as she walked quietly away.

When it was nearly midnight, Ida lay on her bed, dressed, as she had lain since her return home. For more than an hour she had cried and sobbed in blank misery, cried as never since the bitter days long ago, just after her mother's death. Then, the fit over, something like a reaction of calm followed, and as she lay perfectly still in the darkness, her regular breathing would have led one to believe her asleep. But she was only thinking, and in deed very far from sleep The long day in the open air had so affected her eyes that, as she looked up at the ceiling, it seemed to her to be a blue s.p.a.ce, with light clouds constantly flitting across it. Presently this impression became painful, and a growing restlessness made her rise. The heat of the room was stifling, for just above was the roof, upon which all day the sun had poured its rays. She threw open the window, and drank in the air.

The night was magnificent, flooded with warm moonlight, and fragrant with sea breathings. Ida felt an irresistible desire to leave the house and go down to the sh.o.r.e, which she could not see from her window; the tide, she remembered, would just now be full, and to walk by it in the solitude of midnight would bring her that peace and strength of soul she so much needed. She put on her hat and cloak, and went downstairs.

The front door was only latched, and, as she had her key, no doubt she would be able to let herself in at any hour.

The streets were all but deserted, and, when she came to the beach, no soul was anywhere visible. She walked towards the place where she had spent the afternoon with Waymark, then onwards still further to the east, till there was but a narrow s.p.a.ce between the water and the cliffs. Breakers there were none, not more ripple at the clear tide-edge than on the border of a little lake. So intense was the silence that every now and then could be distinctly heard a call on one of the fishing-boats lying some distance from sh.o.r.e. The town was no longer in sight.

It was close even here; what little breeze there was brushed the face like the warm wing of a pa.s.sing bird. Ida dipped her hands in the water and sprinkled it upon her forehead. Then she took off her boots and stockings, and walked with her feet in the ripples. A moment after she stopped, and looked all around, as if hesitating at some thought, and wishing to see that her solitude was secure. Just then the sound of a clock came very faintly across the still air, striking the hour of one.

She stepped from the water a few paces, and began hastily to put off her clothing; in a moment her feet were again in the ripples, and she was walking out from the beach, till her gleaming body was hidden. Then she bathed, breasting the full flow with delight, making the sundered and broken water flash myriad reflections of the moon and stars.

Waymark was at the station next morning half an hour before train-time.

He waited for Ida's arrival before taking his ticket. She did not come.

He walked about in feverish impatience, plaguing himself with all manner of doubt and apprehension. The train came into the station, and yet she had not arrived. It started, and no sign of her.

He waited yet five minutes, then walked hastily into the town, and to Ida's lodgings. Miss Starr, he was told, had left very early that morning; if he was Mr. Waymark, there was a note to be delivered to him.

"I thought it better that I should go to London by an earlier train, for we should not have been quite at our ease with each other. I beg you will not think my leaving you is due to anything but necessity--indeed it is not. I shall not be living at the old place, but any letter you send there I shall get. I cannot promise to reply at once, but hope you will let me do so when I feel able to.

I. S."

Waymark took the next train to town.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE ENDERBYS

Some twenty years before the date we have reached, the Rev. Paul Enderby, a handsome young man, endowed with moral and intellectual qualities considerably above the average, lived and worked in a certain small town of Yorkshire.

He had been here for two years, an unmarried man; now it was made known that this state of things was to come to an end; moreover, to the disappointment of not a few households, it was understood that the future Mrs. Enderby had been chosen from among his own people, in London. The lady came, and there was a field-day of criticism. Mrs.

Enderby looked very young, and was undeniably pretty; she had accomplishments, and evidently liked to exhibit them before her homely visitors. She exaggerated the refinement of her utterance that it might all the more strike off against the local accent. It soon became clear that she would be anything but an a.s.sistance to her husband in his parochial work; one or two attempts were made, apparently with good will, at intercourse with the poor parishioners, but the enterprise was distinctly a failure; it had to be definitively given up. Presently a child was born in the parsonage, and for a little while the young mother's attention was satisfactorily engaged at home. The child was a girl and received the name of Maud.