CHAPTER VIIIAUGUSTHarry stood at a window of his room in the tower, looking out on to the trees, which tossed and struggled against the gale. Heavy clouds were racing across the sky and at no long intervals gusts of rain rattled against the westward window.Harry had asked for this room as his own a year or two before. It filled the whole space of the tower on its top story, except for the corner in which was the spiral stone stairway, and had windows on all four sides. In front was the park, and from this height could be caught a glimpse of the sea across the tops of the trees beyond it, but this afternoon it was blotted out by the grey mist which seemed to take the colour from everything, though the month was August and the deep rich tones of the woods would ordinarily have stood out boldly. Below the three other windows lay the long irregular roofs of the ancient house, with the courtyards enclosed, and the outbuildings, the gardens, the orchard,—a fascinating bird's-eye view containing all sorts of curious surprises. Harry had never been tired of it as a child, and found it interesting now, though it had ceased to hold any new discovery. The room had not been used until he had taken to it, though it had contained some old pieces of furniture. He had added to them whatever had taken his fancy from the many unoccupied rooms of the house, and brought whatever he wanted for his own pursuits here. He was never disturbed in this room, and never entered it except when he wanted to be alone. He did his work downstairs in the room that was still called the schoolroom; he read in the library, where Wilbraham usually kept him company; he sat and talked with his mother and grandmother in the rooms they occupied. It was of the essence of this room that he could be alone in it when he wanted to be alone, which was not very often, for he was no recluse. If the elders had made themselves free of entrance to it, its charms for him would have gone; but Lady Brent had said that it was to be his only, without his having asked more than that he should be allowed to have what he wanted in it. "It's right that he should be able to get away from us sometimes, indoors as well as out," she had said to Mrs. Brent. "He's not to feel himself chained to our society."Harry stood at the window, looking out not upon the courts and gardens, laid out beneath him, but across the trees to where the sea was, if he could have seen it for the mist. It was holiday time with him. He had come up here after luncheon thinking to make out the treasure island map that he had promised to Jane and Pobbles before they had gone away to the seaside. This was part of a game they had invented, sitting in their log cabin one wet afternoon. Harry was by no means above games that were no more than games, though he was too old to turn reality into a game, and this was a fascinating one that they had hit upon together—the designing of the ideal island upon which the vicissitudes of life might one day cause them all to be wrecked. They had contributed its features, one by one—sandy beaches, and coral pools to bathe in; bread-fruit and grapes and oranges; a great hollow tree halfway up a mountain that they could make into a house, as was done by that didactic but resourceful Swiss of the name of Robinson; a hidden hoard of treasure which would include gold cups and plates and dishes for domestic use; a spring of miraculously clear water, discovered just when they were dying of thirst, and slightly flavoured with pineapple (this was Pobbles's idea); a hut in which a marooned sailor had left behind him every sort of tool that could come in handy, he himself having been taken off the island, on Jane's suggestion, so as to avoid the nuisance of a skeleton: these were a few of the amenities that were to be found on this accommodating island, and they were increased every time the subject came up for discussion. Harry had promised to draw a map for them, including the already settled geographical features, and adding any others that might occur to him in the meantime. He had drawn the outline of the island on a handsome scale, and inked it in carefully. Then he had got tired of it. The eager pleasure of the children was wanted to give salt to this game. He could not employ himself for a whole afternoon over it.He missed those little friends of his, especially Jane, with her quick ways and eager loyalty, which made her so companionable, though never tiresomely clinging, as is the way with admiring children. He had not known how much they had come to mean to him during this last year in which they had been his constant companions, until they had gone away and he had been left to the society of his elders. Between him and Wilbraham, especially, there was some community of taste. He owed a good deal of his love of fine literature to Wilbraham, and there was much that he could share with him that was beyond the understanding of the children. They were only children, and he had told them none of his secret thoughts. Jane was very quick of understanding, and had developed considerably during the year he had known her; perhaps he might have come to confide some of them to her if they had ever been alone together. But Pobbles was her inseparable shadow, and he had never wanted it otherwise. With all their immaturity, they appealed to the spirit of youth in him, and their companionship gave him something that he could not get from his elders. That was why he missed them so much on this wild wet afternoon, when he was debarred from his usual pursuits out of doors, and there seemed to be nothing worth doing indoors. And yet it was not them so much that he missed—though he did not know it—as the companionship and inspiration of answering youth. Perhaps they had had something to do with arousing the need of it in him, but they were too young to satisfy it. He had been supremely happy in his childhood and youth—far more consistently happy than most boys of his age, and happier than he consciously knew. But the time for that life was coming to an end; unless some change came to him he would gain less and less contentment from it as he grew older.He had not yet grasped the magnitude of the change that was even then all around him, and would soon draw him, as an atom in the whole sensitive world, into its vortex.For the great war had begun. As Harry stood at the window, the German hordes were over-running Belgium and France, England was hurrying feverishly into the breach, throughout the length and breadth of the country nothing else was talked of but the war; only here and there in some remote place the menace of the great conflagration was unheeded as yet; but very soon there would be no place where its weight did not fall.It was talked of at the Castle. Wilbraham already had his maps up in the library, and his little flags to stick into them. He and Lady Brent disputed about it over the table. Wilbraham thought it would all be over, and the Germans taught their sharp lesson, in a few weeks. Lady Brent, remembering similar prophecies about an immeasurably less formidable enemy fifteen years before, thought it would be longer. It might take a whole year to bring it to an end. Longer it could not take, because all Europe would be bankrupt if it did. They argued quite impersonally. They would not be touched by it themselves.Harry had not caught fire over it yet. His life had been quite divorced from anything that went on in the world outside Royd, except in what he had learnt from books. Neither home nor foreign politics meant anything to him, and he never looked at a newspaper, except in idle moments. His one regret was that the war would be over before he should gain his commission, in two or three years' time. That seemed to be agreed upon. At present there were no individual deeds to excite his imagination. He took but a languid interest in it as yet, though every day there seemed to be some increase in its importance. This afternoon it weighed a little on him, with all the rest, but a break in the clouds would have set his mind free of it, and for the moment of every other vaguely felt dissatisfaction.There was no sign of any break in the heavy clouds, but some weather sense which he had acquired in his open-air life gave him the feeling that the storm was nearing its end. At any rate, he must go out, whether it cleared or not. He was getting mopy, shut up in the house. He knew by experience that that rare feeling never persisted when he was once out of doors.A furious gust drove the rain against the windows and blotted out all the landscape as he turned to leave the room; but he felt better already for his decision. He would go for a gallop towards the sea. It would be invigorating to have the rain and the wind in his face, and perhaps the storm would be over by the time he reached the shore. It would be grand to see the sun break over the waves, and watch them dashing themselves against the rocks.He put on his oldest breeches and gaiters and a riding raincoat and went out to the stables. He told no one that he was going out, wanting to escape dissuasion from his mother and grandmother in the drawing-room, and Wilbraham in the library. They let him take his way in these matters, but it was not to be expected from middle-aged human nature that he would be allowed to go out in this weather without some remonstrance.He had two horses of his own, Clive, a bay, and Circe, a black blood mare, and his own groom, Fred Armour, the head coachman's son, who was only a year older than himself, and a friend of his lifetime. Ben, his big black retriever, who followed him everywhere, had already expressed his delighted agreement with the sensible course he had shown himself about to take. He knew he was admitted to the house on condition that he did not raise his voice in it, and beyond a few subdued yaps of appreciation he had followed Harry downstairs with no more than ecstatic wrigglings and sweeps of his feathered tail. But, once outside, his enthusiasm broke loose and brought on the scene other members of his race at a loose end for something to do. There was a terrific canine commotion as Harry called for Fred, and the first thing to be done was to bring disappointment to all but Siren, a deer hound, and Rollo, a Great Dane, by shutting them up again. The three bigger dogs could keep up with Circe, galloping freely; the others must reserve themselves for expeditions when the blood was less insistent on rapid motion.Fred Armour, a cheerful brown-faced red-headed young man, neat and active in his stable kit, seemed also to have been affected by the dismal weather, for he did what was required of him without his usual grin or ready flow of words. It was not until he had saddled and bridled Circe and brought her out that he said: "I'm off to-morrow, Sir Harry. Father's said yes, and her ladyship has given her consent, though she don't like it."Harry stared at him, holding the mare, who was dancing with impatience. He understood nothing until Fred told him that he was joining up with the County Yeomanry—the first man on the Royd estate to go, or, as it seemed afterwards, to think of going. The time had not yet come when the call for recruits penetrated the out-of-the-way corners of England. Harry was surprised, as his grandmother had apparently been, that Fred should have thought of going. But his impulse was one of envy when he was told about it, not of dissuasion. "I'm nearly as old as you," he said, "but it will take me a couple of years to get my commission. It will all be over by then.""Yes, I suppose so," said Fred. "But there's a lot to be trained, in case they want them. I shall come back when they've done with me. Her ladyship says I can, though she's upset like at my wanting to go."Harry had something to think about as he rode out into the park, and after a sharp canter over the drenched grass, with the rain and the wind fretting the mare so that it was all he could do to hold her, slowed to a trot as he entered a ride through the woods. It was not so much of the war. Fred would have a few months of training as a trooper, and then he would probably come back; he was not, after all, greatly to be envied there, and Harry had no particular wish to hurry on his own longer training, since the time was so far distant when he could expect to get his commission. But Fred had told him of others who were likely to follow his example now that the ice had once been broken—another lad from the stables, two from the gardens, some from the village. A cousin of his, from some distance off, who had already served in the Yeomanry, had joined a regular cavalry regiment, and was already in France, fighting. It was from him that the impulsion had first come.It was a fine thing to respond like that to your country's call, almost before it was sounded. It was what Harry's own forefathers would have done, and had done in many an instance that he had read about in old books in which he had pored to find out what he could about the knightly stock from which he had sprung. They would have collected their servants and tenants around them and ridden off at their head to offer themselves—a small band, perhaps, but a sturdy one, well horsed and equipped and well versed in the man's business of giving and receiving blows. It could not be quite like that in this war, when boys of his age, even if capable of raising their followers, would have to go through the mill of learning and training before they could be of any use. But the readiness with which Fred's cousin had been accepted and sent out to fight disturbed him somewhat, both on his own account and on that of the men and youths who owed him allegiance. There was nobody in the village of Royd or on all the wide Castle lands, so far as he knew, who had done any of the soldiering that is open to young men in times of peace. Supposing he himself had been of full age to fight, he would still have had to wait until he had learnt his business, and he could have given a lead to nobody. Why hadn't it been suggested to him that he should join the County Yeomanry, or why had he not thought of it himself? The Sir Harry of the time of the Napoleonic wars had been in command of it; almost every man of his tenantry had belonged to it. Now it drew its recruits from other parts of the county; no one from Royd had served in it for a generation or more. It had never occurred to him that it would be a good thing for him in his position to do so.Royd was ruled by a woman. That was the explanation of this lapse in its ancient duties and responsibilities, now for the first time apparent. And he was ruled by a woman, though the yoke had hitherto been but lightly felt. Fred Armour could go off, though not without having some opposition to encounter; others could talk of doing so. He must stay where he was until the appointed time.Well, the time was not far distant now. In January he would go up for his examination, and after that the new life would begin for him—the man's life, in which, though still under tutelage, he would be free at times to go where he would. He had rather dreaded exchanging his life at Royd for it, for that had been a life full of the satisfaction of all the desires he had felt, and it had never seemed to him either narrow or confined. But this sense of a woman's domination was beginning to prick him. He thought that at least he would put it to his grandmother that Royd ought to have been represented in the Yeomanry. It might have been a small matter, in times of peace, but it was one that would not have escaped a male head of Royd. And he must see to it himself that any man who wanted to join up with the troops in training should have no difficulty put in his way. As for himself, there seemed to be nothing to be done but to wait until his time came. Fred might, perhaps, see some fighting, if Lady Brent were right and Wilbraham were wrong about the war lasting on into the next year; that was the advantage of belonging to the ranks. For officers, the training must be much longer, and his would not be finished if the war lasted for two years, which it seemed to be agreed was an impossibility.He shook his thoughts from him as he came out of the wood and galloped again on the crisp turf of the hilltop, between the gorse and the heather and the outcropping rocks.He was on high ground here. The rain had ceased, though the wind was buffeting him so furiously that he had to keep his head down as he rode, and even the mare was soon submissive to being pulled down to a trot and then to a walk. The light was stronger now and the clouds driven along by the wind seemed to be higher; there was no sign of a break in them, but there was the feeling that at any time they might be rent asunder and let through a shaft of sunlight. The mist had all gone, and the sea lay, a grey, turbulent expanse, apparently near at hand, though at its nearest point it was still some two miles distant.The sight of the sea always had a calming effect upon Harry, whether it lay blue and calm or was lashed to angry motion. It was his outlook into the world beyond the bounds of his home. When he had least felt himself circumscribed something had yet urged him now and then to ride to the shore and to let his spirit go out across the boundless waters. And now, as he saw the great spaces of sea and sky in front of him his thoughts lightened. As his physical world had this wide outlet into the greater world beyond it, so his life, bound hitherto within limits that he was outgrowing, would soon open into something wider and freer. And just as he would return to the sheltered haunts of his home, loving it all the more for his glimpse of the unsheltered sea, so with the life which had been so happy there. It was coming to an end for him, but was all the more to be treasured on that account as long as it lasted.He came to a break in the rocky cliff which led down to a little sandy bay, on the edge of which was what had once been a fisherman's cottage. The cliff had broken away in front of it and it had been abandoned as dangerous some years before. Only its walls were standing, but there was a place among the ruins in which he could tie up his horse if he wanted to walk by the sea. He did so now, and went down to the sands, followed by the dogs. The sun came out as he did so, and great masses of clouds were torn asunder and piled up to be rolled away before the wind, instead of forming a thick curtain between him and the sky.He shouted for joy at the lifting of the grey oppression, and became a boy again as by a sudden impulse he stripped to bathe and ran over the sands to meet the shock of the great waves that were rolling up them.CHAPTER IXON THE MOORAs he rode towards home an hour or two later, Harry felt as if all the stains upon life had been washed away, just as the wind and rain had scoured the heavens of their dark load of cloud. The sun, now declining towards the west, shone in a sky of clean blue; the wind was dropping every minute, but was still fresh as he cantered across the moor. He rode with his head up, singing blithely, and drinking in through all his senses the sparkling glory of a world set free from the tyranny of storm and gloom.He had thought out nothing to a definite conclusion, and yet the perplexities which had surrounded him as he started out on his ride seemed to have disappeared. The war, which had affected him so little, now lay in the background of his mind as a real and a very big thing, and it seemed to him fixed and certain that somehow and at some time it would profoundly affect his life; but at present he had nothing to do but to await what should be coming to him. His place at Royd must also undergo a change, and that, too, would come, in its time, as it would come. Whatever should happen, he was ready for it, and his mind was free and happy, but also strangely expectant. He was in the current of some power outside himself, but in complete harmony with it, and at the same time in free possession of himself, just as he had lately exulted in his youth and strength as his body had been borne on the motion of the mighty waters. Ever since that night of still and unearthly beauty, when the vision had come to him of a living power in nature for a sign of which he had yearned, he had thought of himself as controlled by strong yet gentle and beneficent forces, which, if he yielded himself to them, would lead him along paths that he would best fulfil himself in treading. The feeling was stronger at some times than others. It had never been so obscured as it had been a few hours earlier, but now, in the sun and the wind, it was very strong. He felt himself calmed and uplifted in spirit, as if by a tangible communion with the guiding influences. They seemed to be telling him, or to have told him, that his shadowed mood need never have been; that they had something in store for him, some experience, some happening, which would give him renewed faith in their guidance. There was a sense almost of being indulged, by an assurance out of the common run.But his mood was as far as possible from being analytical, as he rode on singing and calling to his dogs, which sprang round him rejoicing as he did in the exhilaration of quick motion and the strength and poise of muscle and sinew. His mind had cleared, and he was free to give himself up to the joy of living, all the more keenly for the whisper that had come to him of something new and exciting in preparation for him.The boy, the horse and the dogs—they had had the fine, fresh world to themselves throughout the afternoon, except for the strong birds of the sea and the little birds of the gorsy common. No buildings lay upon the path that Harry had taken to the shore, nor very near it, for he had ridden through the wood by a narrow ride, little used, and across the open ground had kept out of the way of trodden paths. There were sheep on this wide stretch of upland, and a shepherd might occasionally have been seen there. Otherwise it was little frequented; a human figure on it would arouse curiosity.A human figure came into view as Harry had traversed the greater part of the open space, and the woods of Royd were a mile or so in front of him. It was the figure of a woman, and was immediately between him and the point towards which he was riding. He knew all the people who lived in the scattered cottages and farms between Royd and the sea; there were not many of them, and none just here. He wondered who it could be going in that direction, and what she was doing so far away from human habitation.As he rode on, he saw that it was a girl, and a stranger, which was somewhat surprising, as the nearest place to which strangers came was miles away. He had left off singing, but one of the dogs barked, and the girl turned round, evidently startled and perhaps a little alarmed. He was near enough now to see her face. She was very young, hardly more than a child, for her hair was not knotted up under her hat, but tied behind with a big bow. She was tall and slim. The wind took her skirts as she stood there, and revealed the supple grace of her young figure, firmly but lightly poised against it. She was dressed in a coat and skirt of brown tweed, with a hat of soft straw firmly pinned on to her graceful head. So much Harry took in before he came near enough to see her face.Her features were fine and true, and she had a delicate skin, its colour freshened by the wind. Her eyes were dark, with a starry radiance in them; her lips were slightly parted as she looked at him approaching. She was beautiful, with the beauty half of a child, half of a woman.Harry reined in his horse as he came up to her, and for an appreciable instant they looked into one another's eyes without speaking. Then the girl said: "I have lost my way. I don't know where I'm going to," and laughed and blushed at the same time.Harry laughed, too, and slipped down off his horse. "Where do you want to go?" he asked. "I'll show you the way, if you tell me."She was staying with her father, she said, at a cottage on the edge of the woods; she had come out when the rain had ceased to walk towards the sea, but it was farther than she had thought, and when she had turned back to see the unbroken line of the woods before her there was nothing to tell her which point to make for.The woman with whom she was lodging was the widow of a man who had worked in the Royd woods; he had died the year before and she had been given a pension and allowed to remain on in her cottage. It was in a group of three or four, about a mile from the Castle and a mile and a half from the village, which formed the nearest approach to an outlying hamlet that was to be found on the Royd lands. It was rather surprising that anybody should take lodgings there, though with the deep woods behind it and the moor in front, and the sea within view, many people might have chosen it to make holiday in, if it had come within their knowledge."Oh, Mrs. Ivimey," said Harry, pointing. "That's a mile and more away over there. I'm afraid you can't have much sense of direction."They both laughed at that. It seemed the most natural thing for them to talk and laugh together. The secluded life that Harry had lived had brought some shyness into the way he addressed himself to strangers, though his natural manner was free and open. But this girl, walking freely over the windy moor, seemed to be in some way allied to those living influences of nature with which his contact was so real. And the spirit of youth informed all her looks and her ways and met the answering youth in him. There was no room for shyness in speaking to her, and as he neither felt nor showed it, her response was frank, too. "I'm a Londoner," she said. "You couldn't expect me to find my way about here, where the paths wind about anyhow, and everything is the same."He was walking beside her now in the direction he had pointed out. He had made no offer to accompany her and she made no comment upon his doing so. It seemed that they must have a great deal to say to one another and that the best way was to walk together until some of it at least should have been said."Everything the same!" exclaimed Harry. "Why, every inch of it is different! I have never been to London, but the streets of a town must be much more alike than this is."They laughed again at that, and the girl threw a glance at him, walking by her side, while Circe, held by his strong brown hand, curveted on the close turf and the dogs ranged here and there, a little subdued from their bounding energy, but still keenly interested in all that lay about them. The raindrops sparkled still upon gorse and grass and bramble, larks sang in the clear spaces of the sky, and the dying wind brought a salty thymy fragrance with it. The blood in the veins thrilled to the sweet glad freshness of it all, and youth called to youth as they trod the springy turf together.There was such a lot to be explained. Everything that was said opened up endless more things to be said. He told her that he had lived all his life at Royd; she told him that she had seldom been away from London. But, whereas he showed himself quite content with the unusual limitations of his life, she spoke of hers with regret. "I've always wanted the country," she said; "I've never been so happy as I have been here, for the last two days. Even the storm this morning, I didn't mind. It was something big and grand, and I knew the sun would shine and it would all be lovely again."They talked on and on. They had made friends, as children make friends, liking each other, and pouring themselves out in endless little confidences."My name is Harry Brent. I live at Royd Castle with my mother and grandmother.""Oh yes, of course; you're Sir Harry Brent. Mrs. Ivimey has talked about you."My name is Viola Bastian. My father called me that out of a beautiful poem. He is an artist, but nobody buys his pictures, so he paints scenery at a theatre. We are very poor."It didn't seem odd to Harry that this beautiful girl, whose speech was refined and whose clothes were such as a sister or cousin of his own might have worn, should be the daughter of a scene painter, who was also very poor. Nor did he blench in the least at a further statement, which explained, at least, the clothes. "I have to work and help father. He didn't want me to go on the stage, and I should have hated it, too. I am with a dressmaker in Dover Street—Nadine. She makes things chiefly for quite young girls. I have to show them off. It is hard work in the season, but I get a good long holiday, and if father can get away too, and we have enough money, we go into the country for part of it. That is why we are here now."It was all very interesting, as anything she might have told him about herself would have been interesting. He knew nothing of states of life other than those which were immediately around him; he accepted everything she told him as quite natural to her, though he thought it a pity that she should have to work so hard and could not live in the country, as he did, since she loved it. She was what he saw and heard her to be, and what she did and where she lived was quite unimportant, except as she might feel them to be important.But how did she come to be what she was under such conditions of parentage and environment? If it did not occur to Harry in his all-embracing ignorance to ask himself that question, it might very well have been asked by others with more experience of life than his. She was as frank in her address as he was, showed no sense of the social difference between them in anymauvaise honteor explanatory questions. It must have made itself plain to a listener that she was indeed a rare flower of unsullied girlhood, as innocent in essence as Harry himself, who had been kept from contact with the world outside his castle of romance, since she had lived at its crowded centre and remained unspotted by it.They had not half finished their confidences by the time they came within sight of the cottage at which she was staying—or, rather, of the smoke from its chimney, which rose from behind a corner of the wood jutting out into the moor. Perhaps it was some acquired sophistication that caused her to stop there and to prepare to say good-bye, out of sight of the cottage itself and whoever might see them from it. But, whatever it was, Harry felt the same disinclination to being looked upon by eyes that might have been questioning or curious. She was for him alone—one of his cherished innocent secrets—all the more to be kept to himself because it was like no other secret that he had ever had before. A secret must be shared by some one, or it is no secret, but only a deception. Harry's secret had been between him and nature, or between him and an imaginary Harry who owed all initiative to the real Harry. But this was his and hers, and hers as much as his. She could keep it a warm nestling secret, or destroy it by a word. Which would she do?"Good-bye," she said, holding out her slender girl's hand, and looking him straight in the eyes, as she had looked at him when first they had met. He took her hand, and the touch of it thrilled him. It was soft and firm and cool, like no hand that he had ever had in his, though he had taken the hands of other girls not noticeably different in shape or size from this one.There was the hint of a question in her look. Was it to be good-bye?Harry had no such thought. "There is a lot I want to talk to you about," he said. "Tomorrow afternoon—no, I don't want to wait till the afternoon—tomorrow morning I will come; quite early."Her eyes softened, and she smiled. "Very well," she said, and waited for him to tell her where and when he would come.They were to meet on the outskirts of the wood. He would show her a ferny pool in the very heart of it, which he thought nobody but himself knew of. "It will be very hot to-morrow," he said, throwing a weatherwise eye at the heavens. "We shall be cool and quiet there."Suddenly he felt shy of her, mounted his horse, and cantered away, his dogs following him. Then he felt uneasy at the thought that she might have found him rudely abrupt, and when he had gone a few hundred yards he turned to look back. She was still standing where he had left her, and waved her hand to him.He had the impulse to turn and ride back to her, but cantered on, with a flame of joy shooting up in his heart. When he looked back again, she had gone.CHAPTER XVIOLAThat evening at dinner all the talk was about the war. General Leman's heroic stand at Liège had ended in surrender. King Albert's government had retired to Antwerp; the way was open for the enemy to Brussels, and it was not yet certain whether Brussels would deliver itself up or defend itself.But the great news, now allowed to be known, was that the British Expeditionary Force was all on French soil.There was plenty to talk about. Lady Brent was pessimistic, and already saw the Germans over-running Belgium. Wilbraham thought that when the English and French once moved in concert the Germans would be rolled up and rolled back like a carpet, and the end of the whole mad business would come very soon afterwards. Mrs. Brent was inclined to agree with him. She alone of the three had her eye anxiously upon Harry as she spoke, with the fear working in her that, after all, he might be drawn into the vortex. "It can't go on for two years," she said. "It couldn't go on for three years, could it?"They laughed at her. "You may make yourself quite easy on that score," said Lady Brent.To Harry it all seemed extremely unimportant. The conviction that, whether it lasted one year or two years, or three, or ended before Christmas, he would certainly be involved in it somehow had been registered in his mind and could be laid aside until it should fulfil itself. He did not want to think about it, still less to talk about it. His personal connection with what was going on now, brought to his mind that afternoon by his talk with Fred Armour, had faded from his mind; and the tale of the war as it was being unfolded from day to day and as it was being discussed by those about him, had little more interest for him than the tale of a war centuries old which he might have studied with Wilbraham.Yet he joined in the talk from time to time, and if he said nothing that had much effect upon the discussion he said whatever he did say in such a way as to arouse no suspicion in the minds of his elders that his thoughts were almost completely divorced from his speech.The old dim hall in which they sat had its windows open to the night, which was now quite still, with a sky of spangled velvet, broken into by the dark spires of the cypresses in the garden. Harry could see them through the window opposite to which he sat, and in the intervals of talk he could hear the plash of the fountains. The thought came to him that he would like to walk with Viola in the starlit garden. He would like to show her this beautiful house of his; it would be a tribute to her, and his own love of it would be enhanced by her praise. He looked round at the hall and saw its carved and dusky splendour with new eyes.They were dining at a table set in the oriel window facing on the garden. The table was lit by candles in branched silver candlesticks. On a heavy buffet by the door from the kitchens and buttery, under the gallery and on serving tables, were other candles. There were perhaps a dozen in all, and they gave what light was necessary, but left the high-pitched, raftered roof just a-glimmer, and parts of the hall in shadow. The portraits that hung above the dark wainscoting were dimly seen, the gilded carving of the gallery and the screen beneath it glowed softly where the candles shone upon it, and faded into rich dimness beyond the circle of light.Viola! She would love this old hall, and all the other stately rooms of the ancient house. He had never thought of it, except very vaguely, as belonging to him, but he thought of himself now as belonging to it. He would like her to admire anything that had to do with him, and he would like her to share his admiration.But such thoughts as these were a very small part of what was rioting through his mind. His chief feeling about his immediate surroundings was one of strangeness that he should be sitting there quietly dining and talking upon unimportant matters which had nothing to do with Viola. It was to connect her with them that he took notice of them at all, and he looked out more often into the still starlit garden, because it was under the sky that he had met her and talked to her, and her alliance with the things of nature that he loved was already fixed and established. All beautiful aspects of the world, and of the fair places in his own world, connected themselves naturally with her. She filled every corner of his mind, and to whatever source of familiar delight he turned she seemed to be there before him.After dinner, on summer nights, Harry often walked in the garden with his mother. Lady Brent never went out, but sat with her book in the drawing-room. Wilbraham spent half an hour in the library, smoking and reading, and then came into the drawing-room to play the piano or to talk until they went to bed at ten o'clock. When they heard the first notes of the piano, Harry and his mother would go indoors. If they lingered, Lady Brent would send Wilbraham out for them, on the plea of the night air being dangerous, or, if the night was so warm that that seemed too absurd, of its being time for Harry to go to bed. She did not like these garden confabulations between mother and son, but never showed it except by confining them thus to the half-hour after dinner.To-night Harry half hoped that his mother would not come out with him. He wanted to be alone, but reproached himself for the desire as she asked him to fetch her shawl and smiled at him with the pleasure manifest in her face. He knew how much it meant to her to have him for this quiet half-hour to herself. It was the only one in the long day that she could call her own. He was left free to his own duties and devices, except for the times when all of them were together. With his youthful sense of fairness he knew that both his mother and grandmother left him free in this way for his sake and not for theirs. He must not grudge them the short time that he was expected to be with them. And he had taken a pleasure himself in these little garden wanderings with his mother that arose not only from the satisfaction of giving her pleasure. He loved her—more than he loved anybody—and had a man's sense of protection towards her. He did not know yet that he loved Viola. The idea of love had not yet occurred to him in connection with her. As he ran upstairs to get his mother's shawl, the thought crossed his mind that he had never yet wanted to get away from his mother for the time he was accustomed to devote himself to her, and puzzled him a little.He was more than usually kind to her as they walked up and down the long bowling green together between the close-clipped yew hedges. He made an effort to dispossess his mind of what was filling it, and to be to her what he would have been but for the thrilling adventure that had befallen him. The only sign of all that was hidden from her—and she had no clue to its meaning—was when he said that the garden made him feel shut in, and asked her to walk in the park with him.She felt his tenderness and palpitated with happiness over it. If she had but known that the time had come when she was less to him than she had ever been, and that his kindness and gentleness were but vicarious tributes meant, though all unconsciously, to take the place of the love that must soon be withdrawn from spending itself only on her, and given to another! But these wounds to a mother's love were spared her for to-night. She thought he was nearer than ever to her, and all thoughts of losing him were far from her.She ventured to talk of her fear of the war taking him from her, and he soothed her, laughing at her fears. He did not tell her of his conviction that it would do so, nor feel any desire to tell her. What he did feel a half-shrinking desire to do was to tell her about Viola. But an instinct which he did not understand prevented him, and the moment they had parted he was glad that he had resisted the impulse. The secret was not his alone. It gave him joy to think that it was a secret, and that it was not his alone.Wilbraham called out for them. They went in, and Harry said good-night at once and went upstairs. He was no longer sent to bed before the rest, but no objection was ever made if he went.When he was alone in his room he breathed relief. His mother, perhaps, would come in on her way to bed, but otherwise he would be alone for the hours of the night, and yet so much not alone. He thought that to-night his mother would certainly come, and he undressed quickly so that when he should hear her he could get into bed and pretend to be asleep. This small piece of deception did not trouble him, since it would not trouble her. He had never given her what he owed her. Now he wanted to think uninterruptedly of Viola.He leaned out of the window with his chin on his hands and gazed at the dark masses of trees in front of him and at the starry roof of the sky above them, which was above her, too. His window was on the same side of the house as that of the room in which Grant had slept the year before, but the trees were nearer to it. He gazed more at the sky than at the trees. Yes, in that direction, almost directly in front of him, lay the cottage in which she was—now at this very minute. It was a moving thought. Perhaps she was asleep, perhaps she was looking at the same stars as he was. Perhaps she was thinking of him, as he was thinking of her. That was a very stirring thought, and led him to shift his position. He wanted to be in motion as he thought of her. Later on, when the house was all asleep, he would dress and go out. For the present he could only walk about his room, when the waves of emotion that came to him stirred him from his place at the window.But he could not think like that. He did not know what to think about. His impatience grew for the time to come when he should be alone and undisturbed. Then he would be able to think, out there under the stars. The trees oppressed him, as they had never done before. He got into bed. He would lie and think there until his mother had come and gone. But the moment he got into bed he fell asleep, and did not awake when she came in softly, shielding the light of her candle from his eyes.How beautiful he looked as he lay there, his head slightly turned on the pillow and one arm and hand along his side on the counterpane—and how innocent! How she loved him for that beauty and innocence! She felt it as uplifting her from the lower plane of unrest and petulance upon which she was apt to move. She blessed him for the calming, purifying thoughts which he brought to her, and took comfort to herself in the thoughts that there must be something good in herself since it was partly owing to her influence that he was so free from evil. Yes, he was hers; her own dear child whom she loved, and who loved her. She had set herself aside and allowed another to direct his life and hers. Soon he would be free from that tutelage, but not from the bonds that her love had woven around him. She would reap her reward. Oh, it was a blessed thing to bear children, and after long years to have them as a prop and stay, as well as a solace. Not for many years would he leave her, in spirit, though in body they would sometimes be parted. She must be more to him now than she had ever been, and when the time came to give him up to another she would not complain, since she would have had him so perfectly for a time.It was nearly two o'clock when Harry awoke, suddenly, and in complete possession of himself. He might have thought that he had not slept at all, but that the moon shining in at his window told him the hour as plainly as if it had been called in his ear.He sprang out of bed and began to put on his clothes, but paused for a moment, asking himself why he was in such a hurry to do so.As happens so often in sleep, the perplexities with which he had lain down seemed to have resolved themselves without conscious process. He had wanted to ask himself what had happened to him, but it seemed now as if some romantic mist had cleared away from his brain and nothing in particular had happened to him—nothing, at least, that needed any careful process of self-examination. He had met a very charming and friendly girl, and he was going to meet her again in the day that was already moving towards dawn. That would be very agreeable, but what was there in it to have put him into the state in which he had lived through the evening?But, as the thought of meeting her again with half the hours of darkness already gone—presented itself to him, he felt again the glow of pleasure and anticipation. Yes, he wanted to think about her, and he could think best about her out in the open.He dressed quickly and dropped from his window onto the grass, which was not more than ten feet or so below him. And now he seemed to be more master of himself, as he passed across a strip of moonlit green and into the dimness of the wood. He was reminded of the night in which the vision of the fairies dancing had come to him. Now it was full summer and then spring had only been on its way; his long-trained sense marked the difference in a thousand little signs. But that had been a night of silver moonshine, as this was. The contact with nature was clear on such quiet, illumined nights as this.Viola!She grew slowly upon him as he trod the soft grass or the dry crackling beech-mast. Her face, somewhat to his surprise, he could not call up before him, though he tried to see it with his inward eye. But he dwelt upon the slight supple figure that had moved beside him so freely and so gracefully. It gave him pleasure to recall her slender hand, which had lain in his, and he remembered her feet and ankles in their neat brown shoes and stockings, and the fall of her skirt over them, and the little hat of soft white straw with its twisted ribbon.Again he was a little puzzled at the effect these memories had upon him. He had an eye for beauty of animate form. He loved the grace of certain animals; he and Wilbraham together had taken delight in pictures of Greek statuary and vase painting, with special reference to that beauty; he had admired the quick, clean limbs of the two children with whom he had been so much, and of other children of the village, older or younger. But it had been purely an æsthetic pleasure, and had brought with it none of the emotion with which the thought of Viola moved him.He was a little frightened of this emotion and inclined to resist it; but something out of the soft night whispered to him that its current was one with all the emotions upon which he had fed, and grown in feeding. It was part of the secret which he had only half divined at the end of that vigil which seemed to have marked a stage in his life.His joy in the thought of her increased. He recalled the tones of her voice, and the ring of her happy laughter, and dwelt upon things that she had said. They were nothing; they might have been said by anybody; none of them at which he smiled to himself were so worth remembering as the things that little Jane often said and he had remembered afterwards, smiling at them too, but not with that tenderness of feeling towards them.He came to the park wall, where there was a door to which he kept the key. He seldom went outside the park on his night roamings. The woods continued here for some distance before the open ground was reached, though by the ride he had taken in the afternoon they ended with the wall, in which there was another locked gate. If he wanted to go on to the moor at night, and stand beneath the open sky, with nothing about him but space, it was by that path that he reached it. But he seemed to have had a purpose, unknown to him, in making for this door, and when he reached it he had no thought but for passing beyond the bounds of the park. It was by that path that the cottage in which Viola was could be reached most directly. He knew when he came to the door, but not before, that he meant to go to it.He had left the key behind, but scaled the wall, not without some difficulty, and went on through the wood. By and by he came to a garden fence, and there beyond it, across the fruit bushes and the untidy tangle of late summer, was the cottage, low and thatched and whitewashed, in which she was sleeping.He stood still and drew his breath.Viola!There was a little dormer window in the thatch, open. It might be that of the room in which she was sleeping. A cottager would not sleep in a room with the window open. He tried to remember what the cottage was like inside, and what rooms would be most likely to be given up to visitors. It seemed to him of the utmost importance to have it settled which was Viola's room.He moved round to the front of the cottage, treading softly on the turf lest a sound should reveal his presence. Perhaps she was awake. It was not part of their secret that he should come out at night to gaze at her window. He must not reveal himself.The wood extended a little way on to the moor by the side of the cottage. It was the point that had hidden it from them in the afternoon. But it faced open ground across a narrow fenced-in strip of garden. The whole of its front could be seen obliquely from the wood.He stood in the shadow of a giant holly—and saw her.She was sitting at a window, her chin resting on her hand, looking out across the moor to where the sea lay gleaming in the radiance of the moon. She was in white; her dusky hair lay about her shoulders and framed her young face, in which the dark eyes were set.It was only a glimpse that he had of her, for he stole silently away, abashed at having surprised a revelation not meant for his eyes.But it was like the glimpse that he had had of the fairies dancing. It thrilled and calmed him at the same time. He knew now that the fairies had not revealed all the secret to him. Viola was the secret, towards which all his life and all that he had learned of nature had been leading him. Viola lay at the warm, sweet heart of it all. Everything was changed by that vision he had had of her, and soon he would see her and tell her so.
CHAPTER VIII
AUGUST
Harry stood at a window of his room in the tower, looking out on to the trees, which tossed and struggled against the gale. Heavy clouds were racing across the sky and at no long intervals gusts of rain rattled against the westward window.
Harry had asked for this room as his own a year or two before. It filled the whole space of the tower on its top story, except for the corner in which was the spiral stone stairway, and had windows on all four sides. In front was the park, and from this height could be caught a glimpse of the sea across the tops of the trees beyond it, but this afternoon it was blotted out by the grey mist which seemed to take the colour from everything, though the month was August and the deep rich tones of the woods would ordinarily have stood out boldly. Below the three other windows lay the long irregular roofs of the ancient house, with the courtyards enclosed, and the outbuildings, the gardens, the orchard,—a fascinating bird's-eye view containing all sorts of curious surprises. Harry had never been tired of it as a child, and found it interesting now, though it had ceased to hold any new discovery. The room had not been used until he had taken to it, though it had contained some old pieces of furniture. He had added to them whatever had taken his fancy from the many unoccupied rooms of the house, and brought whatever he wanted for his own pursuits here. He was never disturbed in this room, and never entered it except when he wanted to be alone. He did his work downstairs in the room that was still called the schoolroom; he read in the library, where Wilbraham usually kept him company; he sat and talked with his mother and grandmother in the rooms they occupied. It was of the essence of this room that he could be alone in it when he wanted to be alone, which was not very often, for he was no recluse. If the elders had made themselves free of entrance to it, its charms for him would have gone; but Lady Brent had said that it was to be his only, without his having asked more than that he should be allowed to have what he wanted in it. "It's right that he should be able to get away from us sometimes, indoors as well as out," she had said to Mrs. Brent. "He's not to feel himself chained to our society."
Harry stood at the window, looking out not upon the courts and gardens, laid out beneath him, but across the trees to where the sea was, if he could have seen it for the mist. It was holiday time with him. He had come up here after luncheon thinking to make out the treasure island map that he had promised to Jane and Pobbles before they had gone away to the seaside. This was part of a game they had invented, sitting in their log cabin one wet afternoon. Harry was by no means above games that were no more than games, though he was too old to turn reality into a game, and this was a fascinating one that they had hit upon together—the designing of the ideal island upon which the vicissitudes of life might one day cause them all to be wrecked. They had contributed its features, one by one—sandy beaches, and coral pools to bathe in; bread-fruit and grapes and oranges; a great hollow tree halfway up a mountain that they could make into a house, as was done by that didactic but resourceful Swiss of the name of Robinson; a hidden hoard of treasure which would include gold cups and plates and dishes for domestic use; a spring of miraculously clear water, discovered just when they were dying of thirst, and slightly flavoured with pineapple (this was Pobbles's idea); a hut in which a marooned sailor had left behind him every sort of tool that could come in handy, he himself having been taken off the island, on Jane's suggestion, so as to avoid the nuisance of a skeleton: these were a few of the amenities that were to be found on this accommodating island, and they were increased every time the subject came up for discussion. Harry had promised to draw a map for them, including the already settled geographical features, and adding any others that might occur to him in the meantime. He had drawn the outline of the island on a handsome scale, and inked it in carefully. Then he had got tired of it. The eager pleasure of the children was wanted to give salt to this game. He could not employ himself for a whole afternoon over it.
He missed those little friends of his, especially Jane, with her quick ways and eager loyalty, which made her so companionable, though never tiresomely clinging, as is the way with admiring children. He had not known how much they had come to mean to him during this last year in which they had been his constant companions, until they had gone away and he had been left to the society of his elders. Between him and Wilbraham, especially, there was some community of taste. He owed a good deal of his love of fine literature to Wilbraham, and there was much that he could share with him that was beyond the understanding of the children. They were only children, and he had told them none of his secret thoughts. Jane was very quick of understanding, and had developed considerably during the year he had known her; perhaps he might have come to confide some of them to her if they had ever been alone together. But Pobbles was her inseparable shadow, and he had never wanted it otherwise. With all their immaturity, they appealed to the spirit of youth in him, and their companionship gave him something that he could not get from his elders. That was why he missed them so much on this wild wet afternoon, when he was debarred from his usual pursuits out of doors, and there seemed to be nothing worth doing indoors. And yet it was not them so much that he missed—though he did not know it—as the companionship and inspiration of answering youth. Perhaps they had had something to do with arousing the need of it in him, but they were too young to satisfy it. He had been supremely happy in his childhood and youth—far more consistently happy than most boys of his age, and happier than he consciously knew. But the time for that life was coming to an end; unless some change came to him he would gain less and less contentment from it as he grew older.
He had not yet grasped the magnitude of the change that was even then all around him, and would soon draw him, as an atom in the whole sensitive world, into its vortex.
For the great war had begun. As Harry stood at the window, the German hordes were over-running Belgium and France, England was hurrying feverishly into the breach, throughout the length and breadth of the country nothing else was talked of but the war; only here and there in some remote place the menace of the great conflagration was unheeded as yet; but very soon there would be no place where its weight did not fall.
It was talked of at the Castle. Wilbraham already had his maps up in the library, and his little flags to stick into them. He and Lady Brent disputed about it over the table. Wilbraham thought it would all be over, and the Germans taught their sharp lesson, in a few weeks. Lady Brent, remembering similar prophecies about an immeasurably less formidable enemy fifteen years before, thought it would be longer. It might take a whole year to bring it to an end. Longer it could not take, because all Europe would be bankrupt if it did. They argued quite impersonally. They would not be touched by it themselves.
Harry had not caught fire over it yet. His life had been quite divorced from anything that went on in the world outside Royd, except in what he had learnt from books. Neither home nor foreign politics meant anything to him, and he never looked at a newspaper, except in idle moments. His one regret was that the war would be over before he should gain his commission, in two or three years' time. That seemed to be agreed upon. At present there were no individual deeds to excite his imagination. He took but a languid interest in it as yet, though every day there seemed to be some increase in its importance. This afternoon it weighed a little on him, with all the rest, but a break in the clouds would have set his mind free of it, and for the moment of every other vaguely felt dissatisfaction.
There was no sign of any break in the heavy clouds, but some weather sense which he had acquired in his open-air life gave him the feeling that the storm was nearing its end. At any rate, he must go out, whether it cleared or not. He was getting mopy, shut up in the house. He knew by experience that that rare feeling never persisted when he was once out of doors.
A furious gust drove the rain against the windows and blotted out all the landscape as he turned to leave the room; but he felt better already for his decision. He would go for a gallop towards the sea. It would be invigorating to have the rain and the wind in his face, and perhaps the storm would be over by the time he reached the shore. It would be grand to see the sun break over the waves, and watch them dashing themselves against the rocks.
He put on his oldest breeches and gaiters and a riding raincoat and went out to the stables. He told no one that he was going out, wanting to escape dissuasion from his mother and grandmother in the drawing-room, and Wilbraham in the library. They let him take his way in these matters, but it was not to be expected from middle-aged human nature that he would be allowed to go out in this weather without some remonstrance.
He had two horses of his own, Clive, a bay, and Circe, a black blood mare, and his own groom, Fred Armour, the head coachman's son, who was only a year older than himself, and a friend of his lifetime. Ben, his big black retriever, who followed him everywhere, had already expressed his delighted agreement with the sensible course he had shown himself about to take. He knew he was admitted to the house on condition that he did not raise his voice in it, and beyond a few subdued yaps of appreciation he had followed Harry downstairs with no more than ecstatic wrigglings and sweeps of his feathered tail. But, once outside, his enthusiasm broke loose and brought on the scene other members of his race at a loose end for something to do. There was a terrific canine commotion as Harry called for Fred, and the first thing to be done was to bring disappointment to all but Siren, a deer hound, and Rollo, a Great Dane, by shutting them up again. The three bigger dogs could keep up with Circe, galloping freely; the others must reserve themselves for expeditions when the blood was less insistent on rapid motion.
Fred Armour, a cheerful brown-faced red-headed young man, neat and active in his stable kit, seemed also to have been affected by the dismal weather, for he did what was required of him without his usual grin or ready flow of words. It was not until he had saddled and bridled Circe and brought her out that he said: "I'm off to-morrow, Sir Harry. Father's said yes, and her ladyship has given her consent, though she don't like it."
Harry stared at him, holding the mare, who was dancing with impatience. He understood nothing until Fred told him that he was joining up with the County Yeomanry—the first man on the Royd estate to go, or, as it seemed afterwards, to think of going. The time had not yet come when the call for recruits penetrated the out-of-the-way corners of England. Harry was surprised, as his grandmother had apparently been, that Fred should have thought of going. But his impulse was one of envy when he was told about it, not of dissuasion. "I'm nearly as old as you," he said, "but it will take me a couple of years to get my commission. It will all be over by then."
"Yes, I suppose so," said Fred. "But there's a lot to be trained, in case they want them. I shall come back when they've done with me. Her ladyship says I can, though she's upset like at my wanting to go."
Harry had something to think about as he rode out into the park, and after a sharp canter over the drenched grass, with the rain and the wind fretting the mare so that it was all he could do to hold her, slowed to a trot as he entered a ride through the woods. It was not so much of the war. Fred would have a few months of training as a trooper, and then he would probably come back; he was not, after all, greatly to be envied there, and Harry had no particular wish to hurry on his own longer training, since the time was so far distant when he could expect to get his commission. But Fred had told him of others who were likely to follow his example now that the ice had once been broken—another lad from the stables, two from the gardens, some from the village. A cousin of his, from some distance off, who had already served in the Yeomanry, had joined a regular cavalry regiment, and was already in France, fighting. It was from him that the impulsion had first come.
It was a fine thing to respond like that to your country's call, almost before it was sounded. It was what Harry's own forefathers would have done, and had done in many an instance that he had read about in old books in which he had pored to find out what he could about the knightly stock from which he had sprung. They would have collected their servants and tenants around them and ridden off at their head to offer themselves—a small band, perhaps, but a sturdy one, well horsed and equipped and well versed in the man's business of giving and receiving blows. It could not be quite like that in this war, when boys of his age, even if capable of raising their followers, would have to go through the mill of learning and training before they could be of any use. But the readiness with which Fred's cousin had been accepted and sent out to fight disturbed him somewhat, both on his own account and on that of the men and youths who owed him allegiance. There was nobody in the village of Royd or on all the wide Castle lands, so far as he knew, who had done any of the soldiering that is open to young men in times of peace. Supposing he himself had been of full age to fight, he would still have had to wait until he had learnt his business, and he could have given a lead to nobody. Why hadn't it been suggested to him that he should join the County Yeomanry, or why had he not thought of it himself? The Sir Harry of the time of the Napoleonic wars had been in command of it; almost every man of his tenantry had belonged to it. Now it drew its recruits from other parts of the county; no one from Royd had served in it for a generation or more. It had never occurred to him that it would be a good thing for him in his position to do so.
Royd was ruled by a woman. That was the explanation of this lapse in its ancient duties and responsibilities, now for the first time apparent. And he was ruled by a woman, though the yoke had hitherto been but lightly felt. Fred Armour could go off, though not without having some opposition to encounter; others could talk of doing so. He must stay where he was until the appointed time.
Well, the time was not far distant now. In January he would go up for his examination, and after that the new life would begin for him—the man's life, in which, though still under tutelage, he would be free at times to go where he would. He had rather dreaded exchanging his life at Royd for it, for that had been a life full of the satisfaction of all the desires he had felt, and it had never seemed to him either narrow or confined. But this sense of a woman's domination was beginning to prick him. He thought that at least he would put it to his grandmother that Royd ought to have been represented in the Yeomanry. It might have been a small matter, in times of peace, but it was one that would not have escaped a male head of Royd. And he must see to it himself that any man who wanted to join up with the troops in training should have no difficulty put in his way. As for himself, there seemed to be nothing to be done but to wait until his time came. Fred might, perhaps, see some fighting, if Lady Brent were right and Wilbraham were wrong about the war lasting on into the next year; that was the advantage of belonging to the ranks. For officers, the training must be much longer, and his would not be finished if the war lasted for two years, which it seemed to be agreed was an impossibility.
He shook his thoughts from him as he came out of the wood and galloped again on the crisp turf of the hilltop, between the gorse and the heather and the outcropping rocks.
He was on high ground here. The rain had ceased, though the wind was buffeting him so furiously that he had to keep his head down as he rode, and even the mare was soon submissive to being pulled down to a trot and then to a walk. The light was stronger now and the clouds driven along by the wind seemed to be higher; there was no sign of a break in them, but there was the feeling that at any time they might be rent asunder and let through a shaft of sunlight. The mist had all gone, and the sea lay, a grey, turbulent expanse, apparently near at hand, though at its nearest point it was still some two miles distant.
The sight of the sea always had a calming effect upon Harry, whether it lay blue and calm or was lashed to angry motion. It was his outlook into the world beyond the bounds of his home. When he had least felt himself circumscribed something had yet urged him now and then to ride to the shore and to let his spirit go out across the boundless waters. And now, as he saw the great spaces of sea and sky in front of him his thoughts lightened. As his physical world had this wide outlet into the greater world beyond it, so his life, bound hitherto within limits that he was outgrowing, would soon open into something wider and freer. And just as he would return to the sheltered haunts of his home, loving it all the more for his glimpse of the unsheltered sea, so with the life which had been so happy there. It was coming to an end for him, but was all the more to be treasured on that account as long as it lasted.
He came to a break in the rocky cliff which led down to a little sandy bay, on the edge of which was what had once been a fisherman's cottage. The cliff had broken away in front of it and it had been abandoned as dangerous some years before. Only its walls were standing, but there was a place among the ruins in which he could tie up his horse if he wanted to walk by the sea. He did so now, and went down to the sands, followed by the dogs. The sun came out as he did so, and great masses of clouds were torn asunder and piled up to be rolled away before the wind, instead of forming a thick curtain between him and the sky.
He shouted for joy at the lifting of the grey oppression, and became a boy again as by a sudden impulse he stripped to bathe and ran over the sands to meet the shock of the great waves that were rolling up them.
CHAPTER IX
ON THE MOOR
As he rode towards home an hour or two later, Harry felt as if all the stains upon life had been washed away, just as the wind and rain had scoured the heavens of their dark load of cloud. The sun, now declining towards the west, shone in a sky of clean blue; the wind was dropping every minute, but was still fresh as he cantered across the moor. He rode with his head up, singing blithely, and drinking in through all his senses the sparkling glory of a world set free from the tyranny of storm and gloom.
He had thought out nothing to a definite conclusion, and yet the perplexities which had surrounded him as he started out on his ride seemed to have disappeared. The war, which had affected him so little, now lay in the background of his mind as a real and a very big thing, and it seemed to him fixed and certain that somehow and at some time it would profoundly affect his life; but at present he had nothing to do but to await what should be coming to him. His place at Royd must also undergo a change, and that, too, would come, in its time, as it would come. Whatever should happen, he was ready for it, and his mind was free and happy, but also strangely expectant. He was in the current of some power outside himself, but in complete harmony with it, and at the same time in free possession of himself, just as he had lately exulted in his youth and strength as his body had been borne on the motion of the mighty waters. Ever since that night of still and unearthly beauty, when the vision had come to him of a living power in nature for a sign of which he had yearned, he had thought of himself as controlled by strong yet gentle and beneficent forces, which, if he yielded himself to them, would lead him along paths that he would best fulfil himself in treading. The feeling was stronger at some times than others. It had never been so obscured as it had been a few hours earlier, but now, in the sun and the wind, it was very strong. He felt himself calmed and uplifted in spirit, as if by a tangible communion with the guiding influences. They seemed to be telling him, or to have told him, that his shadowed mood need never have been; that they had something in store for him, some experience, some happening, which would give him renewed faith in their guidance. There was a sense almost of being indulged, by an assurance out of the common run.
But his mood was as far as possible from being analytical, as he rode on singing and calling to his dogs, which sprang round him rejoicing as he did in the exhilaration of quick motion and the strength and poise of muscle and sinew. His mind had cleared, and he was free to give himself up to the joy of living, all the more keenly for the whisper that had come to him of something new and exciting in preparation for him.
The boy, the horse and the dogs—they had had the fine, fresh world to themselves throughout the afternoon, except for the strong birds of the sea and the little birds of the gorsy common. No buildings lay upon the path that Harry had taken to the shore, nor very near it, for he had ridden through the wood by a narrow ride, little used, and across the open ground had kept out of the way of trodden paths. There were sheep on this wide stretch of upland, and a shepherd might occasionally have been seen there. Otherwise it was little frequented; a human figure on it would arouse curiosity.
A human figure came into view as Harry had traversed the greater part of the open space, and the woods of Royd were a mile or so in front of him. It was the figure of a woman, and was immediately between him and the point towards which he was riding. He knew all the people who lived in the scattered cottages and farms between Royd and the sea; there were not many of them, and none just here. He wondered who it could be going in that direction, and what she was doing so far away from human habitation.
As he rode on, he saw that it was a girl, and a stranger, which was somewhat surprising, as the nearest place to which strangers came was miles away. He had left off singing, but one of the dogs barked, and the girl turned round, evidently startled and perhaps a little alarmed. He was near enough now to see her face. She was very young, hardly more than a child, for her hair was not knotted up under her hat, but tied behind with a big bow. She was tall and slim. The wind took her skirts as she stood there, and revealed the supple grace of her young figure, firmly but lightly poised against it. She was dressed in a coat and skirt of brown tweed, with a hat of soft straw firmly pinned on to her graceful head. So much Harry took in before he came near enough to see her face.
Her features were fine and true, and she had a delicate skin, its colour freshened by the wind. Her eyes were dark, with a starry radiance in them; her lips were slightly parted as she looked at him approaching. She was beautiful, with the beauty half of a child, half of a woman.
Harry reined in his horse as he came up to her, and for an appreciable instant they looked into one another's eyes without speaking. Then the girl said: "I have lost my way. I don't know where I'm going to," and laughed and blushed at the same time.
Harry laughed, too, and slipped down off his horse. "Where do you want to go?" he asked. "I'll show you the way, if you tell me."
She was staying with her father, she said, at a cottage on the edge of the woods; she had come out when the rain had ceased to walk towards the sea, but it was farther than she had thought, and when she had turned back to see the unbroken line of the woods before her there was nothing to tell her which point to make for.
The woman with whom she was lodging was the widow of a man who had worked in the Royd woods; he had died the year before and she had been given a pension and allowed to remain on in her cottage. It was in a group of three or four, about a mile from the Castle and a mile and a half from the village, which formed the nearest approach to an outlying hamlet that was to be found on the Royd lands. It was rather surprising that anybody should take lodgings there, though with the deep woods behind it and the moor in front, and the sea within view, many people might have chosen it to make holiday in, if it had come within their knowledge.
"Oh, Mrs. Ivimey," said Harry, pointing. "That's a mile and more away over there. I'm afraid you can't have much sense of direction."
They both laughed at that. It seemed the most natural thing for them to talk and laugh together. The secluded life that Harry had lived had brought some shyness into the way he addressed himself to strangers, though his natural manner was free and open. But this girl, walking freely over the windy moor, seemed to be in some way allied to those living influences of nature with which his contact was so real. And the spirit of youth informed all her looks and her ways and met the answering youth in him. There was no room for shyness in speaking to her, and as he neither felt nor showed it, her response was frank, too. "I'm a Londoner," she said. "You couldn't expect me to find my way about here, where the paths wind about anyhow, and everything is the same."
He was walking beside her now in the direction he had pointed out. He had made no offer to accompany her and she made no comment upon his doing so. It seemed that they must have a great deal to say to one another and that the best way was to walk together until some of it at least should have been said.
"Everything the same!" exclaimed Harry. "Why, every inch of it is different! I have never been to London, but the streets of a town must be much more alike than this is."
They laughed again at that, and the girl threw a glance at him, walking by her side, while Circe, held by his strong brown hand, curveted on the close turf and the dogs ranged here and there, a little subdued from their bounding energy, but still keenly interested in all that lay about them. The raindrops sparkled still upon gorse and grass and bramble, larks sang in the clear spaces of the sky, and the dying wind brought a salty thymy fragrance with it. The blood in the veins thrilled to the sweet glad freshness of it all, and youth called to youth as they trod the springy turf together.
There was such a lot to be explained. Everything that was said opened up endless more things to be said. He told her that he had lived all his life at Royd; she told him that she had seldom been away from London. But, whereas he showed himself quite content with the unusual limitations of his life, she spoke of hers with regret. "I've always wanted the country," she said; "I've never been so happy as I have been here, for the last two days. Even the storm this morning, I didn't mind. It was something big and grand, and I knew the sun would shine and it would all be lovely again."
They talked on and on. They had made friends, as children make friends, liking each other, and pouring themselves out in endless little confidences.
"My name is Harry Brent. I live at Royd Castle with my mother and grandmother."
"Oh yes, of course; you're Sir Harry Brent. Mrs. Ivimey has talked about you.
"My name is Viola Bastian. My father called me that out of a beautiful poem. He is an artist, but nobody buys his pictures, so he paints scenery at a theatre. We are very poor."
It didn't seem odd to Harry that this beautiful girl, whose speech was refined and whose clothes were such as a sister or cousin of his own might have worn, should be the daughter of a scene painter, who was also very poor. Nor did he blench in the least at a further statement, which explained, at least, the clothes. "I have to work and help father. He didn't want me to go on the stage, and I should have hated it, too. I am with a dressmaker in Dover Street—Nadine. She makes things chiefly for quite young girls. I have to show them off. It is hard work in the season, but I get a good long holiday, and if father can get away too, and we have enough money, we go into the country for part of it. That is why we are here now."
It was all very interesting, as anything she might have told him about herself would have been interesting. He knew nothing of states of life other than those which were immediately around him; he accepted everything she told him as quite natural to her, though he thought it a pity that she should have to work so hard and could not live in the country, as he did, since she loved it. She was what he saw and heard her to be, and what she did and where she lived was quite unimportant, except as she might feel them to be important.
But how did she come to be what she was under such conditions of parentage and environment? If it did not occur to Harry in his all-embracing ignorance to ask himself that question, it might very well have been asked by others with more experience of life than his. She was as frank in her address as he was, showed no sense of the social difference between them in anymauvaise honteor explanatory questions. It must have made itself plain to a listener that she was indeed a rare flower of unsullied girlhood, as innocent in essence as Harry himself, who had been kept from contact with the world outside his castle of romance, since she had lived at its crowded centre and remained unspotted by it.
They had not half finished their confidences by the time they came within sight of the cottage at which she was staying—or, rather, of the smoke from its chimney, which rose from behind a corner of the wood jutting out into the moor. Perhaps it was some acquired sophistication that caused her to stop there and to prepare to say good-bye, out of sight of the cottage itself and whoever might see them from it. But, whatever it was, Harry felt the same disinclination to being looked upon by eyes that might have been questioning or curious. She was for him alone—one of his cherished innocent secrets—all the more to be kept to himself because it was like no other secret that he had ever had before. A secret must be shared by some one, or it is no secret, but only a deception. Harry's secret had been between him and nature, or between him and an imaginary Harry who owed all initiative to the real Harry. But this was his and hers, and hers as much as his. She could keep it a warm nestling secret, or destroy it by a word. Which would she do?
"Good-bye," she said, holding out her slender girl's hand, and looking him straight in the eyes, as she had looked at him when first they had met. He took her hand, and the touch of it thrilled him. It was soft and firm and cool, like no hand that he had ever had in his, though he had taken the hands of other girls not noticeably different in shape or size from this one.
There was the hint of a question in her look. Was it to be good-bye?
Harry had no such thought. "There is a lot I want to talk to you about," he said. "Tomorrow afternoon—no, I don't want to wait till the afternoon—tomorrow morning I will come; quite early."
Her eyes softened, and she smiled. "Very well," she said, and waited for him to tell her where and when he would come.
They were to meet on the outskirts of the wood. He would show her a ferny pool in the very heart of it, which he thought nobody but himself knew of. "It will be very hot to-morrow," he said, throwing a weatherwise eye at the heavens. "We shall be cool and quiet there."
Suddenly he felt shy of her, mounted his horse, and cantered away, his dogs following him. Then he felt uneasy at the thought that she might have found him rudely abrupt, and when he had gone a few hundred yards he turned to look back. She was still standing where he had left her, and waved her hand to him.
He had the impulse to turn and ride back to her, but cantered on, with a flame of joy shooting up in his heart. When he looked back again, she had gone.
CHAPTER X
VIOLA
That evening at dinner all the talk was about the war. General Leman's heroic stand at Liège had ended in surrender. King Albert's government had retired to Antwerp; the way was open for the enemy to Brussels, and it was not yet certain whether Brussels would deliver itself up or defend itself.
But the great news, now allowed to be known, was that the British Expeditionary Force was all on French soil.
There was plenty to talk about. Lady Brent was pessimistic, and already saw the Germans over-running Belgium. Wilbraham thought that when the English and French once moved in concert the Germans would be rolled up and rolled back like a carpet, and the end of the whole mad business would come very soon afterwards. Mrs. Brent was inclined to agree with him. She alone of the three had her eye anxiously upon Harry as she spoke, with the fear working in her that, after all, he might be drawn into the vortex. "It can't go on for two years," she said. "It couldn't go on for three years, could it?"
They laughed at her. "You may make yourself quite easy on that score," said Lady Brent.
To Harry it all seemed extremely unimportant. The conviction that, whether it lasted one year or two years, or three, or ended before Christmas, he would certainly be involved in it somehow had been registered in his mind and could be laid aside until it should fulfil itself. He did not want to think about it, still less to talk about it. His personal connection with what was going on now, brought to his mind that afternoon by his talk with Fred Armour, had faded from his mind; and the tale of the war as it was being unfolded from day to day and as it was being discussed by those about him, had little more interest for him than the tale of a war centuries old which he might have studied with Wilbraham.
Yet he joined in the talk from time to time, and if he said nothing that had much effect upon the discussion he said whatever he did say in such a way as to arouse no suspicion in the minds of his elders that his thoughts were almost completely divorced from his speech.
The old dim hall in which they sat had its windows open to the night, which was now quite still, with a sky of spangled velvet, broken into by the dark spires of the cypresses in the garden. Harry could see them through the window opposite to which he sat, and in the intervals of talk he could hear the plash of the fountains. The thought came to him that he would like to walk with Viola in the starlit garden. He would like to show her this beautiful house of his; it would be a tribute to her, and his own love of it would be enhanced by her praise. He looked round at the hall and saw its carved and dusky splendour with new eyes.
They were dining at a table set in the oriel window facing on the garden. The table was lit by candles in branched silver candlesticks. On a heavy buffet by the door from the kitchens and buttery, under the gallery and on serving tables, were other candles. There were perhaps a dozen in all, and they gave what light was necessary, but left the high-pitched, raftered roof just a-glimmer, and parts of the hall in shadow. The portraits that hung above the dark wainscoting were dimly seen, the gilded carving of the gallery and the screen beneath it glowed softly where the candles shone upon it, and faded into rich dimness beyond the circle of light.
Viola! She would love this old hall, and all the other stately rooms of the ancient house. He had never thought of it, except very vaguely, as belonging to him, but he thought of himself now as belonging to it. He would like her to admire anything that had to do with him, and he would like her to share his admiration.
But such thoughts as these were a very small part of what was rioting through his mind. His chief feeling about his immediate surroundings was one of strangeness that he should be sitting there quietly dining and talking upon unimportant matters which had nothing to do with Viola. It was to connect her with them that he took notice of them at all, and he looked out more often into the still starlit garden, because it was under the sky that he had met her and talked to her, and her alliance with the things of nature that he loved was already fixed and established. All beautiful aspects of the world, and of the fair places in his own world, connected themselves naturally with her. She filled every corner of his mind, and to whatever source of familiar delight he turned she seemed to be there before him.
After dinner, on summer nights, Harry often walked in the garden with his mother. Lady Brent never went out, but sat with her book in the drawing-room. Wilbraham spent half an hour in the library, smoking and reading, and then came into the drawing-room to play the piano or to talk until they went to bed at ten o'clock. When they heard the first notes of the piano, Harry and his mother would go indoors. If they lingered, Lady Brent would send Wilbraham out for them, on the plea of the night air being dangerous, or, if the night was so warm that that seemed too absurd, of its being time for Harry to go to bed. She did not like these garden confabulations between mother and son, but never showed it except by confining them thus to the half-hour after dinner.
To-night Harry half hoped that his mother would not come out with him. He wanted to be alone, but reproached himself for the desire as she asked him to fetch her shawl and smiled at him with the pleasure manifest in her face. He knew how much it meant to her to have him for this quiet half-hour to herself. It was the only one in the long day that she could call her own. He was left free to his own duties and devices, except for the times when all of them were together. With his youthful sense of fairness he knew that both his mother and grandmother left him free in this way for his sake and not for theirs. He must not grudge them the short time that he was expected to be with them. And he had taken a pleasure himself in these little garden wanderings with his mother that arose not only from the satisfaction of giving her pleasure. He loved her—more than he loved anybody—and had a man's sense of protection towards her. He did not know yet that he loved Viola. The idea of love had not yet occurred to him in connection with her. As he ran upstairs to get his mother's shawl, the thought crossed his mind that he had never yet wanted to get away from his mother for the time he was accustomed to devote himself to her, and puzzled him a little.
He was more than usually kind to her as they walked up and down the long bowling green together between the close-clipped yew hedges. He made an effort to dispossess his mind of what was filling it, and to be to her what he would have been but for the thrilling adventure that had befallen him. The only sign of all that was hidden from her—and she had no clue to its meaning—was when he said that the garden made him feel shut in, and asked her to walk in the park with him.
She felt his tenderness and palpitated with happiness over it. If she had but known that the time had come when she was less to him than she had ever been, and that his kindness and gentleness were but vicarious tributes meant, though all unconsciously, to take the place of the love that must soon be withdrawn from spending itself only on her, and given to another! But these wounds to a mother's love were spared her for to-night. She thought he was nearer than ever to her, and all thoughts of losing him were far from her.
She ventured to talk of her fear of the war taking him from her, and he soothed her, laughing at her fears. He did not tell her of his conviction that it would do so, nor feel any desire to tell her. What he did feel a half-shrinking desire to do was to tell her about Viola. But an instinct which he did not understand prevented him, and the moment they had parted he was glad that he had resisted the impulse. The secret was not his alone. It gave him joy to think that it was a secret, and that it was not his alone.
Wilbraham called out for them. They went in, and Harry said good-night at once and went upstairs. He was no longer sent to bed before the rest, but no objection was ever made if he went.
When he was alone in his room he breathed relief. His mother, perhaps, would come in on her way to bed, but otherwise he would be alone for the hours of the night, and yet so much not alone. He thought that to-night his mother would certainly come, and he undressed quickly so that when he should hear her he could get into bed and pretend to be asleep. This small piece of deception did not trouble him, since it would not trouble her. He had never given her what he owed her. Now he wanted to think uninterruptedly of Viola.
He leaned out of the window with his chin on his hands and gazed at the dark masses of trees in front of him and at the starry roof of the sky above them, which was above her, too. His window was on the same side of the house as that of the room in which Grant had slept the year before, but the trees were nearer to it. He gazed more at the sky than at the trees. Yes, in that direction, almost directly in front of him, lay the cottage in which she was—now at this very minute. It was a moving thought. Perhaps she was asleep, perhaps she was looking at the same stars as he was. Perhaps she was thinking of him, as he was thinking of her. That was a very stirring thought, and led him to shift his position. He wanted to be in motion as he thought of her. Later on, when the house was all asleep, he would dress and go out. For the present he could only walk about his room, when the waves of emotion that came to him stirred him from his place at the window.
But he could not think like that. He did not know what to think about. His impatience grew for the time to come when he should be alone and undisturbed. Then he would be able to think, out there under the stars. The trees oppressed him, as they had never done before. He got into bed. He would lie and think there until his mother had come and gone. But the moment he got into bed he fell asleep, and did not awake when she came in softly, shielding the light of her candle from his eyes.
How beautiful he looked as he lay there, his head slightly turned on the pillow and one arm and hand along his side on the counterpane—and how innocent! How she loved him for that beauty and innocence! She felt it as uplifting her from the lower plane of unrest and petulance upon which she was apt to move. She blessed him for the calming, purifying thoughts which he brought to her, and took comfort to herself in the thoughts that there must be something good in herself since it was partly owing to her influence that he was so free from evil. Yes, he was hers; her own dear child whom she loved, and who loved her. She had set herself aside and allowed another to direct his life and hers. Soon he would be free from that tutelage, but not from the bonds that her love had woven around him. She would reap her reward. Oh, it was a blessed thing to bear children, and after long years to have them as a prop and stay, as well as a solace. Not for many years would he leave her, in spirit, though in body they would sometimes be parted. She must be more to him now than she had ever been, and when the time came to give him up to another she would not complain, since she would have had him so perfectly for a time.
It was nearly two o'clock when Harry awoke, suddenly, and in complete possession of himself. He might have thought that he had not slept at all, but that the moon shining in at his window told him the hour as plainly as if it had been called in his ear.
He sprang out of bed and began to put on his clothes, but paused for a moment, asking himself why he was in such a hurry to do so.
As happens so often in sleep, the perplexities with which he had lain down seemed to have resolved themselves without conscious process. He had wanted to ask himself what had happened to him, but it seemed now as if some romantic mist had cleared away from his brain and nothing in particular had happened to him—nothing, at least, that needed any careful process of self-examination. He had met a very charming and friendly girl, and he was going to meet her again in the day that was already moving towards dawn. That would be very agreeable, but what was there in it to have put him into the state in which he had lived through the evening?
But, as the thought of meeting her again with half the hours of darkness already gone—presented itself to him, he felt again the glow of pleasure and anticipation. Yes, he wanted to think about her, and he could think best about her out in the open.
He dressed quickly and dropped from his window onto the grass, which was not more than ten feet or so below him. And now he seemed to be more master of himself, as he passed across a strip of moonlit green and into the dimness of the wood. He was reminded of the night in which the vision of the fairies dancing had come to him. Now it was full summer and then spring had only been on its way; his long-trained sense marked the difference in a thousand little signs. But that had been a night of silver moonshine, as this was. The contact with nature was clear on such quiet, illumined nights as this.
Viola!
She grew slowly upon him as he trod the soft grass or the dry crackling beech-mast. Her face, somewhat to his surprise, he could not call up before him, though he tried to see it with his inward eye. But he dwelt upon the slight supple figure that had moved beside him so freely and so gracefully. It gave him pleasure to recall her slender hand, which had lain in his, and he remembered her feet and ankles in their neat brown shoes and stockings, and the fall of her skirt over them, and the little hat of soft white straw with its twisted ribbon.
Again he was a little puzzled at the effect these memories had upon him. He had an eye for beauty of animate form. He loved the grace of certain animals; he and Wilbraham together had taken delight in pictures of Greek statuary and vase painting, with special reference to that beauty; he had admired the quick, clean limbs of the two children with whom he had been so much, and of other children of the village, older or younger. But it had been purely an æsthetic pleasure, and had brought with it none of the emotion with which the thought of Viola moved him.
He was a little frightened of this emotion and inclined to resist it; but something out of the soft night whispered to him that its current was one with all the emotions upon which he had fed, and grown in feeding. It was part of the secret which he had only half divined at the end of that vigil which seemed to have marked a stage in his life.
His joy in the thought of her increased. He recalled the tones of her voice, and the ring of her happy laughter, and dwelt upon things that she had said. They were nothing; they might have been said by anybody; none of them at which he smiled to himself were so worth remembering as the things that little Jane often said and he had remembered afterwards, smiling at them too, but not with that tenderness of feeling towards them.
He came to the park wall, where there was a door to which he kept the key. He seldom went outside the park on his night roamings. The woods continued here for some distance before the open ground was reached, though by the ride he had taken in the afternoon they ended with the wall, in which there was another locked gate. If he wanted to go on to the moor at night, and stand beneath the open sky, with nothing about him but space, it was by that path that he reached it. But he seemed to have had a purpose, unknown to him, in making for this door, and when he reached it he had no thought but for passing beyond the bounds of the park. It was by that path that the cottage in which Viola was could be reached most directly. He knew when he came to the door, but not before, that he meant to go to it.
He had left the key behind, but scaled the wall, not without some difficulty, and went on through the wood. By and by he came to a garden fence, and there beyond it, across the fruit bushes and the untidy tangle of late summer, was the cottage, low and thatched and whitewashed, in which she was sleeping.
He stood still and drew his breath.
Viola!
There was a little dormer window in the thatch, open. It might be that of the room in which she was sleeping. A cottager would not sleep in a room with the window open. He tried to remember what the cottage was like inside, and what rooms would be most likely to be given up to visitors. It seemed to him of the utmost importance to have it settled which was Viola's room.
He moved round to the front of the cottage, treading softly on the turf lest a sound should reveal his presence. Perhaps she was awake. It was not part of their secret that he should come out at night to gaze at her window. He must not reveal himself.
The wood extended a little way on to the moor by the side of the cottage. It was the point that had hidden it from them in the afternoon. But it faced open ground across a narrow fenced-in strip of garden. The whole of its front could be seen obliquely from the wood.
He stood in the shadow of a giant holly—and saw her.
She was sitting at a window, her chin resting on her hand, looking out across the moor to where the sea lay gleaming in the radiance of the moon. She was in white; her dusky hair lay about her shoulders and framed her young face, in which the dark eyes were set.
It was only a glimpse that he had of her, for he stole silently away, abashed at having surprised a revelation not meant for his eyes.
But it was like the glimpse that he had had of the fairies dancing. It thrilled and calmed him at the same time. He knew now that the fairies had not revealed all the secret to him. Viola was the secret, towards which all his life and all that he had learned of nature had been leading him. Viola lay at the warm, sweet heart of it all. Everything was changed by that vision he had had of her, and soon he would see her and tell her so.