"Maids! maids! maids!"
It was morning.
"To your hiding-place, Master Pippin!" urged Joscelyn. "It's our master come again."
Martin concealed himself with speed, and an instant later the farmer's burly face peered through the gap in the hedge.
"Good morrow, maids."
"Good morrow, master."
"Has my daughter stopped weeping yet?"
"No, master," said Joyce, "but I begin to think that she will before long."
"A little longer will be too long," moaned Gillman, "for my purse is running dry with these droughty times, and I shall have to mortgage the farm to buy me ale, since I am foiled of both water and milk. Who would have daughters when he might have sons? Gillian!" he cried, "when will ye learn that old heads are wiser than young ones?"
But Gillian paid no more attention to him than to the cawing rooks in the elms in the oatfield.
"Take your bread, maids," said Gillman, "and heaven send us grace to-morrow."
"Just an instant, master," said Joyce. "I would like to know if Blossom my Shorthorn is well?"
"As well as a child without its mother, maid, though Michael has turned nurse to her. But she seems sworn to hold back her milk till you come again. Rack and ruin, nothing but rack and ruin!"
And off he went.
Then breakfast was prepared as on the previous day, and Gillian's stale loaf was broken for the ducks. But Joscelyn pointed out that one of the kissing-crusts had been pulled off in the night.
"Your stories, Master Pippin, are doing their work," said she.
"I begin to think so," said Martin cheerfully. And then they fell to on their own white loaves and sweet apples.
When they had breakfasted Martin observed that he could make better and longer daisy-chains than any one else in the world, and his statement was pooh-poohed by six voices at once. For girls' fingers, said these voices, had been especially fashioned by nature for the making of daisy-chains. Martin challenged them to prove this, and they plucked lapfuls of the small white daisies with big yellow eyes, and threaded chains of great length, and hung them about each other's necks. And so deft and dainty was their touch that the chains never broke in the making or, what is still more delicate a matter, in the hanging. But Martin's chains always broke before he had joined the last daisy to the first, and the girls jeered at him for having no necklace to match their necklaces of pearls and gold, and for failing so contemptibly in his boast. And he appeared so abashed by their jeers that little Joan relented and made a longer chain than any that had been made yet, and hung it round his neck. At which he was merry again, and confessed himself beaten, and the girls became very gracious, being in their triumph even more pleased with him than with themselves. Which was a great deal. And by then it was dinner-time.
After dinner Martin proposed that as they had sat all the morning they should run all the afternoon, so they played Touchwood. And Martin was He. But an orchard is so full of wood that he had a hard job of it. And he observed that Jennifer had very little daring, and scarcely ever lifted her finger from the wood as she ran from one tree to another; and that Jane had no daring at all, and never even left her tree. And that Joscelyn was extremely daring when it was safe to be so; and that Jessica was daring enough to tweak him and run away, while Joyce was more daring still, for she tweaked him and did not run. As for little Joan, she puzzled him most of all; for half the time she outdid them all in daring, and then she was uncatchable, slipping through his very fingers like a ray of sunlight a child tries to hold; but the other half of the time she was timidity itself, and crept from tree to tree, and if he were near became like a little frightened rabbit, forgetting, or being through fear unable, to touch safety; and then she was snared more easily than any.
By supper, however, every maid had been He but Jane. For no man can catch what doesn't run.
"How the time has flown," said Joscelyn, when they were all seated about the middle tree after the meal.
"It makes such a difference," said Jennifer, "when there's something to do. We never used to have anything to do till Master Pippin came, and now life is all games and stories."
"The games," said Joscelyn, "are well enough."
"Shall we," said Martin, "forego the stories?"
"Oh, Master Pippin!" said Jennifer anxiously, "we surely are to have a story to-night?"
"Unless we are to remain here for ever," said Martin, "I fear we must. But for my part I am quite happy here. Are not you, Mistress Joscelyn?"
"Your questions are idle," said she. "You know very well that we cannot escape a story."
"You see, Mistress Jennifer," said Martin. "Let us resign ourselves therefore. And for your better diversion, please sit in the swing, and when the story is tedious you will have a remedy at hand."
So saying, he put Jennifer on the seat and her hands on the ropes, and the five other girls climbed into the tree, while he took the bough that had become his own. And all provided themselves with apples.
"Begin," said Joscelyn.
"A story-teller," said Martin, "as much as any other craftsman, needs his instruments, of which his auditors are the chief. And of these I lack one." And he fixed his eyes of the weeper in the Well-House.
"You have six already," said Joscelyn. "The seventh you must acquire as you proceed. So begin."
"Without the vital tool?" cried Martin. "As well might you bid Madam Toad to spin flax without her distaff."
"What folly is this?" said Joscelyn. "Toads don't spin."
"Don't they?" said Martin, much astonished. "I thought they did. What then is toadflax? Do the wildflowers not know?"
And still keeping his eyes fixed on Gillian he thrummed and sang—
Toad, toad, old toad,What are you spinning?Seven hanks of yellow flaxInto snow-white linen.What will you do with itThen, toad, pray?Make shifts for seven bridesAgainst their wedding-day.Suppose e'er a one of themRefuses to be wed?Then she shall not see the jewelI wear in my head.
As he concluded, Gillian raised herself on her two elbows, and with her chin on her palms gazed steadily over the duckpond.
Joscelyn: Why seven?
Martin: Is it not as good a number as another?
Jennifer: What is the jewel like in the toad's head, Master Pippin?
Martin: How can I say, Mistress Jennifer? There's but one way of knowing, according to the song, and like a fool I refused it.
Jennifer: I wish I knew.
Martin: The way lies open to all.
Joscelyn: These are silly legends, Jennifer. It is as little likely that there are jewels in toads' heads as that toads spin flax. But Master Pippin pins his faith to any nonsense.
Martin: True, Mistress Joscelyn. My faith cries for elbow-room, and he who pins his faith to common-sense is like to get a cramp in it. Therefore since women, as I hear tell, have ceased to spin brides' shifts, I am obliged to believe that these things are spun by toads. Because brides there must be though the wells should run dry.
Joscelyn: I do not see the connection. However, it is obvious that the bad logic of your song has aroused even Gillian's attention, so for mercy's sake make short work of your tale before it flags again.
Martin: I will follow your advice. And do you follow me with your best attention while I turn the wheel of The Mill of Dreams.
There was once, dear maidens, a girl who lived in a mill on the Sidlesham marshes. But in those days the marshlands were meadowlands, with streams running in from the coast, so that their water was brackish and salt. And sometimes the girl dipped her finger in the water and sucked it and tasted the sea. And the taste made storms rise in her heart. Her name was Helen.
The mill-house was a gaunt and gloomy building of stone, as gray as sleep, weatherstained with dreams. It had fine proportions, and looked like a noble prison. And in fact, if a prison is the lockhouse of secrets, it was one. The great millstones ground day and night, and what the world sent in as corn it got back as flour. And as to the secrets of the grinding it asked no questions, because to the world results are everything. It understands death better than sorrow, marriage better than love, and birth better than creation. And the millstones of joy and pain, grinding dreams into bread, it seldom hears. But Helen heard them, and they were all the knowledge she had of life; for if the mill was a prison of dreams it was her prison too.
Her father the miller was a harsh man and dark; he was dark within and without. Her mother was dead; she did not remember her. As she grew up she did little by little the work of the big place. She was her father's servant, and he kept her as close to her work as he kept his millstones to theirs. He was morose, and welcomed no company. Gayety he hated. Helen knew no songs, for she had heard none. From morning till night she worked for her father. When she had done all her other work she spun flax into linen for shirts and gowns, and wool for stockings and vests. If she went outside the mill-house, it was only for a few steps for a few moments. She wasn't two miles from the sea, but she had never seen it. But she tasted the salt water and smelt the salt wind.
Like all things that grow up away from the light, she was pale. Her oval face was like ivory, and her lips, instead of being scarlet, had the tender red of apple-blossom, after the unfolding of the bright bud. Her hair was black and smooth and heavy, and lay on either side of her face like a starling's wings. Her eyes too were as black as midnight, and sometimes like midnight they were deep and sightless. But when she was neither working nor spinning she would steal away to the millstones, and stand there watching and listening. And then there were two stars in the midnight. She came away from those stolen times powdered with flour. Her black hair and her brows and lashes, her old blue gown, her rough hands and fair neck, and her white face—all that was dark and pale in her was merged in a mist, and seen only through the clinging dust of the millstones. She would try to wipe off all the evidences of her secret occasions, but her father generally knew. Had he known by nothing else, he need only have looked at her eyes before they lost their starlight.
One day when she was seventeen years old there was a knock at the mill-house door. Nobody ever knocked. Her father was the only man who came in and went out. The mill stood solitary in those days. The face of the country has since been changed by man and God, but at that time there were no habitations in sight. At regular times the peasants brought their grain and fetched their meal; but the miller kept his daughter away from his custom. He never said why. Doubtless at the back of his mind was the thought of losing what was useful to him. Most parents have their ways of trying to keep their children; in some it is this way, in others that; not many learn to keep them by letting them go.
So when the knock came at the door, it was the strangest thing that had ever happened in Helen's life. She ran to the door and stood with her hand on the heavy wooden bar that fell across it into a great socket. Her heart beat fast. Before we know a thing it is a thousand things. Only one thing would be there when she lifted the bar. But as she stood with her hand upon it, a host of presences hovered on the other side. A knight in armor, a king in his gold crown, a god in the guise of a beggar, an angel with a sword; a dragon even; a woman to be her friend; her mother...a child...
"Would it be better not to open?" thought Helen. For then she would never know. Yes, then she could run to her millstones and fling them her thoughts in the husk, and listen, listen while they ground them into dreams. What knowledge would be better than that? What would she lose by opening the door?
But she had to open the door.
Outside on the stones stood a common lad. He might have been three years older than she. He had a cap with a hole in it in his hand, and a shabby jersey that left his brown neck bare. He was whistling when she lifted the bar, but he stopped as the door fell back, and gave Helen a quick and careless look.
"Can I have a bit of bread?" he asked.
Helen stared at him without answering. She was so unused to people that her mind had to be summoned from a world of ghosts before she could hear and utter real words. The boy waited for her to speak, but, as she did not, shrugged his shoulders and turned away whistling his tune.
Then she understood that he was going, and she ran after him quickly and touched his sleeve. He turned again, expecting her to speak; but she was still dumb.
"Thought better of it?" he said.
Helen said slowly, "Why did you ask me for bread?"
"Why?" He looked her up and down. "To mend my boots with, of course."
She looked at his boots.
"You silly thing," grinned the boy.
A faint color came under her skin. "I'm sorry for being stupid. I suppose you're hungry."
"As a hunter. But there's no call to trouble you. I'll be where I can get bread, and meat too, in forty minutes. Good-by, child."
"No," said Helen. "Please don't go. I'd like to give you some bread."
"Oh, all right," said the boy. "What frightened you? Did you think I was a scamp?"
"I wasn't frightened," said Helen.
"Don't tell me," mocked the boy. "You couldn't get a word out."
"I wasn't frightened."
"You thought I was a bad lot. You don't know I'm not one now."
Helen's eyes filled with tears. She turned away quickly. "I'll get you your bread," she said.
"You are a silly, aren't you?" said the boy as she disappeared.
Before long she came back with half a loaf in one hand, and something in the other which she kept behind her back.
"Thanks," said the boy, taking the bit of loaf. "What else have you got there?"
"It's something better than bread," said Helen slowly.
"Well, let's have a look at it."
She took her hand from behind her, and offered him seven ears of wheat. They were heavy with grain, and bowed on their ripe stems.
"Is this what you call better than bread?" he asked.
"It is better."
"Oh, all right. I sha'n't eat it though—not all at once."
"No," said Helen, "keep it till you're hungry. The grains go quite a long way when you're hungry."
"I'll eat one a year," said the boy, "and then they'll go so far they'll outlast me my lifetime."
"Yes," said Helen, "but the bread will be gone in forty minutes. And then you'll be where you can get meat."
"You funny thing," said the boy, puzzled because she never smiled.
"Where can you get meat?" she asked.
"In a boat, fishing for rabbits."
But she took no notice of the rabbits. She said eagerly, "A boat? are you going in a boat?"
"Yes."
"Are you a sailor?"
"You've hit it."
"You've seen the sea! you've been on the sea!—sailors do that..."
"Oh, dear no," said the boy, "we sail three times round the duckpond and come home for tea."
Helen hung her head. The boy put his hand up to his mouth and watched her over it.
"Well," he said presently, "I must get along to Pagham." He stuck the little sheaf of wheat through the hole in his cap, and it bobbed like a ruddy-gold plume over his ear. Then he felt in his pocket and after some fumbling got hold of what he wanted and pulled it out. "Here you are, child," he said, "and thank you again."
He put his present into her hand and swung off whistling. He turned once to wave to her, and the corn in his cap nodded with its weight and his light gait. She stood gazing till he was out of sight, and then she looked at what he had given her. It was a shell.
She had heard of shells, of course, but she had never seen one. Yet she knew this was no English shell. It was as large as the top of a teacup, but more oval than round. Over its surface, like pearl, rippled waves of sea-green and sea-blue, under a luster that was like golden moonlight on the ocean. She could not define or trace the waves of color; they flowed in and out of each other with interchangeable movement. One half of the outer rim, which was transparently thin and curled like the fantastic edge of a surf wave, was flecked with a faint play of rose and cream and silver, that melted imperceptibly into the moonlit sea. When she turned the shell over she found that she could not see its heart. The blue-green side of the shell curled under like a smooth billow, and then broke into a world of caves, and caves within caves, whose final secret she could not discover. But within and within the color grew deeper and deeper, bottomless blues and unfathomable greens, shot with such gleams of light as made her heart throb, for they were like the gleams that shoot through our dreams, the light that just eludes us when we wake.
She went into the mill, trembling from head to foot. She was not conscious of moving, but she found herself presently standing by the grinding stones, with sound rushing through her and white dust whirling round her. She gazed and gazed into the labyrinth of the shell as though she must see to its very core; but she could not. So she unfastened her blue gown and laid the shell against her young heart. It was for the first time of so many times that I know not whether when, twenty years later, she did it for the last time, they outnumbered the silver hairs among her black ones. And the silver by then were uncountable. Yet on the day when Helen began her twenty years of lonely listening—
(But having said this, Martin Pippin grasped the rope just above Jennifer's hand, and pulled it with such force that the swing, instead of swinging back and forth, as a swing should, reeled sideways so that the swinger had much ado to keep her seat.
Jennifer: Heaven help me!
Martin: Heaven help ME! I need its help more sorely than you do.
Jennifer: Oh, you should be punished, not helped!
Martin: I have been punished, and the punished require help more than censure, or scorn, or anger, or any other form of righteousness.
Jennifer: Who has punished you? And for what?
Martin: You, Mistress Jennifer. For my bad story.
Jennifer: I do not remember doing so. The story is only begun. I am sure it will be a very good story.
Martin: Now you are compassionate, because I need comfort. But the truth is that, good or bad, you care no more for my story. For I saw a tear of vexation come into your eye.
Jennifer: It was not vexation. Not exactly vexation. And doubtless Helen will have experiences which we shall all be glad to hear. But all the same I wish—
Martin: You wish?
Jennifer: That she was not going to grow old in her loneliness. Because all lovers are young.
Martin: You have spoken the most beautiful of all truths. Does the grass grow high enough by the swing for you to pluck me two blades?
Jennifer: I think so. Yes. What do you want with them?
Martin: I want but one of them now. You shall only give me the other if, at the end of my tale, you agree that its lovers are as green as this blade and that.)
On the day (resumed Martin) when Helen began her lonely listening of heart and ears betwixt the seashell and the millstones of her dreams, there was not, dear Mistress Jennifer, a silver thread in her black locks to vex you with. For a girl of seventeen is but a child. Yet old enough to begin spinning the stuff of the spirit...
"My boy!—
"Oh, how strange it was, your coming like that, so suddenly. Before I opened the door I stood there guessing...And how could I have guessed this? Did you guess too on the other side?"
"No, not much. I thought it might be a cross old woman. What did YOU guess?"
"Oh, such stupid things. Kings and knights and even women. And it was you!"
"And it was you!"
"Suppose I'd been a cross old woman?"
"Suppose I'd been a king?"
"And you were just my boy."
"And you—my sulky girl."
"Oh, I wasn't sulky. Oh, didn't you understand? How could I speak to you? I couldn't hear you, I couldn't see you, even!"
"Can you see me now?"
She was lying with her cheek against his heart, and she turned her face suddenly inwards, because she saw him bend his head, and the sweetness of his first kiss was going to be more than she could bear.
"Why don't you look up, you silly child? Why don't you look at me, dear?"
"How can I yet? Can I ever? It's so hard looking in a person's eyes. But I am looking at you, I AM, though you can't see me."
"Then tell me what color my eyes are."
"They're gray-green, and your hair is dark red, a sort of chestnut but a little redder and rough over your forehead, and your nose is all over freckles with very very snub—"
(Martin: Heaven help you, Mistress Jennifer!
Jennifer: W-w-w-w-why, Master Pippin?
Martin: Were you not about to fall again?
Jennifer: N-n-n-n-no. I-I-I-I-I—
Martin: I see you are as firm as a rock. How could I have been so deceived?)
He shook her a little in his arms, saying: "How rude you are to my nose. I wish you'd look up."
"No, not yet...presently. But you, did you look at me?"
"Didn't you see me look?"
"When?"
"As soon as you opened the door."
"What did you see?"
"The loveliest thing I'd ever seen."
"I'm not really—am I?"
"I used to dream about you at night on my watches. I made you up out of bits of the night—white moonlight, black clouds, and stars. Sometimes I would take the last cloud of sunset for your lips. And the wind, when it was gentle, for your voice. And the movements of the sea for your movements, and the rise and fall of it for your breathing, and the lap of it against the boat for your kisses. Oh, child, look up!..."
She looked up....
"What's your name?"
"Helen."
"I can't hear you."
"Helen. Say it."
"I'm trying to."
"I can't hear YOU now. And I want to hear your voice say my name. Oh, my boy, do say it, so that I can remember it when you're away."
"I can't say it, child. Why didn't you tell me your name?"
"What is yours?"
"I'm trying to tell you."
"Please—please!"
"I'm trying with all my might. Listen with all yours."
"I am listening. I can't hear anything. Yet I'm listening so hard that it hurts. I want to say your name over and over and over to myself when you're away. CAN'T you say it louder?"
"No, it's no good."
"Oh, why didn't you tell me, boy?"
"Oh, child, why didn't you tell me?"
"Is my bread sweet to you?"
"The sweetest I ever ate. I ate it slowly, and took each bit from your hand. I kept one crust."
"And my corn."
"Oh, your corn! that is everlasting. You have sown your seed. I have eaten a grain, and it bore its harvest. One by one I shall eat them, and every grain will bear its full harvest. You have replenished the unknown earth with fields of golden corn, and set me walking there for ever."
"And you have thrown golden light upon strange waters, and set me floating there for ever. Oh, you on my earth and I on your ocean, how shall we meet?"
"Your corn is my waters, my waters are your corn. They move on one wave. Oh, child, we are borne on it together, for ever."
"But how you teased me!"
"I couldn't help it."
"You and your boats and your duckponds."
"It was such fun. You were so serious. It was so easy to tease you."
"Why did you put your hand over your mouth?"
"To keep myself from—"
"Laughing at me?"
"Kissing you. You looked so sorry because sailors only sail round duckponds, when you thought they always sailed out by the West and home by the East. You believed the duckponds."
"I didn't really."
"For a moment!"
"I felt so stupid."
"You blushed."
"Oh, did I?"
"A very little. Like the inside of a shell. I'd always tease you to make you blush like that. Don't you ever smile or laugh, child?"
"You might teach me to. I haven't had the sort of life that makes one smile and laugh. Oh, but I could. I could smile and laugh for you if you wished. I could do anything you wanted. I could be anything you wanted."
"Shall I make something of you? What shall it be?"
"I don't care, so long as it is yours. Oh, make something of me. I've been lonely always. I don't want to be any more. I want to be able to come to you when I please, not only because I need so much to come, but because you need me to come. Can you make me sure that you need me? When no one has ever needed you, how can you believe...? Oh, no, no! don't look sorry. I do believe it. And will you always stand with me here in the loneliness that has been so dark? Then it won't be dark any more. Why do two people make light? One alone only wanders and holds out her hand and finds no one—nothing. Sometimes not even herself. Will you be with me always?"
"Always."
"Why?"
"Because I love you."
"No," said Helen, "but because I love you."
"Tell me—WERE you frightened?"
"Of you? when I saw you at the door?"
"Yes. Were you?"
"Oh, my boy."
"But didn't you think I might be a scamp?"
"I didn't think about it at all. It wouldn't have made any difference."
"Then why were you as mum as a fish?"
"Oh, my boy."
"Why? why? why?—if you weren't frightened? Of course you were frightened."
"No, no, I wasn't. I told you I wasn't. Why don't you believe me?— Oh, you're laughing at me again."
"You're blushing again."
"It's so easy to make me ashamed when I've been silly. Of course you know now why I couldn't speak. You know what took my words away. Didn't you know then?"
"How could I know? How could I dream it would be as quick for you as for me?"
"One can dream anything...oh!"
"What is it, child?" For she had caught at her heart.
"Dreams...and not truth. Oh, are you here? Am I? Where are you—where are you? Hold me, hold me fast. Don't let it be just empty dreams."
"Hush, hush, my dear. Dreams aren't empty. Dreams are as near the truth as we can come. What greater truth can you ever have than this? For as men and women dream, they drop one by one the veils between them and the mystery. But when they meet they are shrouded in the veils again, and though they long to strip them off, they cannot. And each sees of each but dimly the truth which in their dreams was as clear as light. Oh, child, it's not our dreams that are our illusions."
"No," she whispered. "But still it is not enough. Not quite enough for the beloved that they shall dream apart and find their truths apart. In life too they must touch, and find the mystery together. Though it be only for one eternal instant. Touch me not only in my dreams, but in life. Turn life itself into the dream at last. Oh, hold me fast, my boy, my boy..."
"Hush, hush, child, I'm holding you..."
"You wept."
"Oh, did you see? I turned my head away."
"Why did you weep?"
"Because you thought I had misjudged you."
"Then I misjudged you."
"But I did not weep for that."
"Would you, if I misjudged you?"
"It would not be so hard to bear."
"And you went away with tears and brought me the corn of your mill."
"And you took it with smiles, and gave me the shell of your seas."
"Your corn rustled through my head."
"Your shell whispers at my heart."
"You shall always hear it whispering there. It will tell you what I can never tell you, or only tell you in other ways."
"Of your life on the sea? Of the countries over the water? Of storms and islands and flashing birds, and strange bright flowers? Of all the lands and life I've never seen, and dream of all wrong? Will it tell me those things?—of your life that I don't know."
"Yes, perhaps. But I could tell you of that life."
"Of what other life will it tell me?"
"Of my life that you do know."
"Is there one?"
"Look in your own heart."
"I am looking."
"And listen."
"Yes."
"What do you hear?"
"Oh, boy, the whispering of your shell!"
"Oh, child, the rustling of your corn!"
Oh, maids! the grinding of the millstones.
This is only a little part of what she heard. But if I told you the whole we should rise from the story gray-headed. For every day she carried her boy's shell to the grinding stones, and stood there while it spoke against her heart. And at other times of the day it lay in her pocket, while she swept and cooked and spun, and she saw shadows of her mill-dreams in the cobwebs and the rising steam, and heard echos of them in her singing kettle and her singing wheel. And at night it lay on her pillow against her ear, and the voice of the waters went through her sleep.
So the years slipped one by one, and she grew from a girl into a young woman; and presently passed out of her youth. But her eyes and her heart were still those of a girl, for life had touched them with nothing but a girl's dream. And it is not time that leaves its traces on the spirit, whatever it may do to the body. Her father meanwhile grew harder and more tyrannical with years. There was little for him to fear now that any man would come to take her from him; but the habit of the oppressor was on him, and of the oppressed on her. And when this has been many years established, it is hard for either to realize that, to escape, the oppressed has only to open the door and go.
Yet Helen, if she had ever thought of escape into another world and life, would not have desired it. For in leaving her millstones she would have lost a world whose boundaries she had never touched, and a life whose sweetness she had never exhausted. And she would have lost her clue to knowledge of him who was to her always the boy in the old jersey who had knocked at her door so many years ago.
Once he was shipwrecked...
...The waters had sucked her under twice already, when her helpless hands hit against some floating substance on the waves. She could not have grasped it by herself, for her strength was gone; but a hand gripped her in the darkness, and dragged her, almost insensible, to safety. For a long while she lay inert across the knees of her rescuer. Consciousness was at its very boundary. She knew that in some dim distance strong hands were chafing a wet and frozen body...but whose hands?...whose body?...Presently it was lifted to the shelter of strong arms; and now she was conscious of her own heart-beats, but it was like a heart beating in air, not in a body. Then warmth and breath began to fall like garments about this bodiless heart, and they were indeed not her own warmth and breath, but these things given to her by another—the warmth was that of his own body where he had laid her cold hands and breast to take what heat there was in him, and the breath was of his own lungs, putting life into hers through their two mouths....She opened her eyes. It was dark. The darkness she had come out of was bright beside this pitchy night, and her struggle back to life less painful than the fierce labor of the wind and waves. Their frail precarious craft was in ceaseless peril. His left arm held her like a vice, but for greater safety he had bound a rope round their two bodies and the small mast of their craft. With his right arm he clasped the mast low down, and his right hand came round to grip her shaking knees. In this close hold she lay a long while without speaking. Then she said faintly:
"Is it my boy?"
"Yes, child. Didn't you know?"
"I wanted to hear you say it. How long have you been in danger?"
"I don't know. Some hours. I thought you would never come to yourself."
"I tried to come to you. I can't swim."
"The sea brought you to me. You were nearly drowned. You slipped me once. If you had again—!"
"What would you have done?"
"Jumped in. I couldn't have stayed on here without you."
"Ah, but you mustn't ever do that—promise, promise! For then you'd lose me for ever. Promise."
"I promise. But there's no for ever of that sort. There's no losing each other, whatever happens. You know that, don't you?"
"Yes, I do know. When people love, they find each other for ever. But I don't want you to die, and I don't want to die—yet. But if it is to-night it will be together. Will it be to-night, do you think?"
"I don't know, dear. The storm's breaking up over there, but that's not the only danger."
"But nothing matters, nothing matters at all while I'm with you." She lay heavily against him; her eyes closed, and she shook violently.
"Child, you're shuddering, you're as cold as ice." He put his hand upon her chilly bosom, and hugged her more fiercely to his own. With a sudden movement of despair and anger at the little he could do, he slipped his arms from his jacket, and stripping open his shirt pulled her to him, re-fastening his jacket around them both, tying it tightly about their bodies by the empty sleeves. She felt his lips on her hair and heard him whisper, "You're not frightened of me, are you, child? You never will be, will you?"
She shook her head and whispered, "I never have been."
"Sleep, if you can, dear."
"I'll try."
So closely was she held by his coat and his arms, so near she lay to his beloved heart, that she knew no longer what part of that union was herself; they were one body, and one spirit. Her shivering grew less, and with her lips pressed to his neck she fell asleep.
It was noon.
The hemisphere of the sky was an unbroken blue washed with a silver glare. She could not look up. The sea was no longer wild, but it was not smooth; it was a dancing sea, and every small wave rippled with crested rainbows. A flight of gulls wheeled and screamed over their heads; their movements were so swift that the mid-air seemed to be filled with visible lines described by their flight, silver lines that gleamed and melted on transparent space like curved lightnings.
"Oh, look! oh, look!" cried Helen.
He smiled, but he was not watching the gulls. "Yes, you've never seen that, have you, child?" His eyes searched the distance.
"But you aren't looking. What are you looking at?"
"Nothing. I can't see what I'm looking for. But the gulls might mean land, or icebergs, or a ship."
"I don't want land or a ship, or even icebergs," said Helen suddenly.
He looked at her with the fleeting look that had been her first impression of him.
"Why not? Why don't you?"
"I'm so happy where I am."
"That's all very well," said her boy, with his eyes on the distance.
For awhile she lay enjoying the warmth of the sun, watching the gulls sliding down the unseen slopes of the air. Presently high up she saw one hover and pause, settling on nothingness by the swift, almost imperceptible beat of its wings. And suddenly it dropped like a stone upon a wave, and darted up again so quickly that she could not follow what had happened.
"What is it doing?" she asked.
"Fishing," said the boy. "It wanted its dinner."
"So do I," said Helen.
He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a packet wrapped in oilskin. There was biscuit in it. He gave some to her, bit by bit; though it was soft and dull, she was glad of it. But soon she drew away from the hand that fed her.
"What's the matter?" he asked.
"You must have some too."
"That's all right. I'm not greedy like you birds."
"I'm not a bird. And I'm not greedy. Being hungry's not being greedy. I'd be greedy if I ate while you're hungry."
"I'm not hungry."
"Then neither am I."
To satisfy her he ate a biscuit. Soon after she began to feel thirst, but she dared not ask for water. She knew he had none. He looked at her lying pale in his arms, and said with a smile that was not like a real smile, "It's a pity about the icebergs." She smiled and nodded, and lay still in the heat, watching the gulls, and thinking of ice. Some of the birds settled on the raft. One sat on the mast; another hovered at her knee, picking at crumbs. They played in the sun, rising and falling, and turned in her vision into a whirl of snowflakes, enormous snowflakes....She began to dream of snow, and her lips parted in the hope that some might fall upon her tongue. Presently she ceased to dream of snow....The boy looked down at her closed lids, and at her cheeks, as white as the breasts of the gulls. He could not bear to look long, and returned to his distances.
It was night again.
The circle of the sea was as smooth as silk. Pale light played over it like dreams and ghosts. The sky was a crowded arc of stars, millions of stars, she had never seen or imagined so many. They glittered, glittered restlessly, in an ecstasy that caught her spirit. She too was filled with millions of stars, through her senses they flashed and glittered—a delirium of stars in heaven and her heart....
"My boy!"
"Yes, child."
"Do you see the stars?"
"Yes, child."
"Do you feel them?"
"Yes."
"Oh, can't we die now?"
She felt him move stiffly. "There's a ship! I'm certain of it now—I'm certain! Oh, if it were day!"
The stars went on dazzling. She did not understand about the ship. Time moved forward, or stood still. For her the night was timeless. It was eternity.
But things were happening outside in time and space. By what means they had been seen or had attracted attention she did not know. But the floating dreamlight and the shivering starlight on the sea were broken by a dark movement on the waveless waters. A boat was coming. For some time there had been shouting and calling in strange voices, one of them her boy's. But once again she hovered on the dim verge of consciousness. She had flown from the body he was painfully unbinding from his own. What he had suffered in holding it there so long she never knew. From leagues away she heard him whispering, "Child, can you help yourself a little?" And now for an instant her soul re-approached her body, and looked at him through the soft midnight of her eyes, and he saw in them such starlight as never was in sky or on sea.
"Kiss me," said Helen.
He kissed her.
With a great effort she lifted herself and stood upright on the raft, swaying a little and holding by the mast. The boat was still a little distant.
"Good-by, my boy."
"Child—!"
"Don't jump. You promised not to. You promised. But I can't come with you now. You must let me go."
He looked at her, and saw she was in a fever. He made a desperate clutch at her blue gown. But he was not quick enough. "Keep your promise!" she cried, and disappeared in the dreamlit waters; she disappeared like a dream, without a sound. As she sank, she heard him calling her by the only name he knew....