TWO RIDE TOGETHER
I
Often in these weeks the three rode together; seldom Percival and Dora met out of Rollo's company. Brief moments while they waited him, brief moments when he rode ahead of them, these were the most frequent of their intimacies; more rarely came chance half-hours, and most rare of all half-hours planned when she admitted they could be contrived. He suffered nothing that their meetings should be thus fugitive and at caprice, in main, of Rollo's moods and movements. That none as yet should know their secret ministered to rather than chafed his ardour; that, when their eyes met, their eyes spoke what in all the world only they two knew, was of itself as darling a thing as when to all the world she should be known for his alone. Then she would be his own, but their secret the price of it; now he might not claim her, but ah, their secret, theirs!
So secret it was, and she so much her rare and chaste and frozen self, that even between them it was hardly spoken. He never had lost his first awe and wonder at her beauty; and it filmed all his intercourse with her and all his thoughts of her as with a gossamer veil that, forbidding rough movements, forbade him touch her with the close words of his passion that might bruise her or give her alarm. More by signs than ever by words they spoke their secret. Words carried them over the passing subjects that any might discuss; signs revealed the secret that was theirs alone. When they met the faintest deepening of her colour shades would show it, when they parted came a last glance and again those shades would glow; when he sometimes touched her hand, her hand would stay and speak it; when he sometimes held her eyes, ah, then their secret stirred! In those few half-hours when alone they came together, meeting near the Abbey, riding through the lanes, then with none to see them he would hold her hand and feel it tell him of their secret while their lips told empty words.
It was in these weeks, indeed, that he came to know he found it a little hard to make conversation with her. That something of her character was manifested in this difficulty he had no suspicion, nor that in his solution of it her disposition was clearer yet revealed. He found she was not greatly interested to hear of himself; then found her most alert, and oftenest brought the little laugh he loved to hear, the deepening he loved to see of those strange shades of colour on her cheeks, by speaking to her of herself, or listening while of herself she told him. At first he gave her glimpses of the van life with Japhra on the road; her curiosity was not aroused. Something of the famous fight he told her, and in vigorous passages of when the sticks came out, and of the wild scenes that followed the crime of poor old Hunt, whom she had known: he saw she was not greatly entertained. Later, as events ran along, he gave them to her—told her of the day when it was found that his increasing activities with the dear old Rough 'Uns made it necessary he should live over there, no longer ride daily to and fro from "Post Offic," and of how jolly, jolly good they were to him and of the funny evenings in their company; told her of the day when the Rough 'Uns had announced they thought it proper to advancement of their business that a couple of hunters should be bought for him so that he might ride to hounds and keep among the horsey folk when the hunting season opened; told her of the day when he had from Aunt Maggie the news that the affection between herself and Ima had arranged that Ima was coming to spend the approaching winter—and likely every winter—with her; all these he brought to Dora, but slowly came to see they but little took her interest.
The discovery no more gave him suspicion that she was at fault in sympathy than of itself it vexed him, as one commonly might be vexed in such a case. It was himself he blamed when, recalling how he had talked and how little had been her response, he feared that he had tired her by his enthusiasms or, as reproaching himself he termed them, his meanderings. Clumsy he called himself, inept, dull-witted; and pictured her, his darling and his goddess, his frozen, rarest, perfect Snow-White-and-Rose-Red, and hated to have blundered all his dulness on so rare and exquisite a thing. Glad, then, the finding that he could entertain her by exercise of what a thousand-fold entranced himself—by encouraging her to speak of herself, her doings, her reflections, just as in the drive in that hour when first he knew he loved her she had spoken of her school. Lightest and most prattling what she told, and light and very passing what she thought; but spoken in her quaintly precise mode of speech and in her cold, high tone, and bringing from her her cold little laugh, and on her cold white cheek lighting those flames of colour. When he watched her with others he saw her perfect face set in its strangely still, aloof expression; when she spoke with him, and spoke of herself, he was content only to listen so he might see it light and sometimes see their secret make it flame.
More than once while she so spoke and he so listened, "But I told you that," she would say; "I perfectly recollect telling you."
And he: "Well, tell me again;" and at the note of his voice she would seem to catch her breath as though some sharpness checked her breathing, and he would see their secret flutter in her eyes and see it stain its signal like a red rose on her cheeks.
II
It was by one definite step—not observed as such by him at the time nor any significance in it apprehended—that they passed from this stage of reserve on the matter between them and came towards its open entertainment. The afternoon following Rollo's departure with Lady Burdon on the long foreign tour marked the event, and Percival, meeting Dora by chance, was in some loss of spirits at the fact. He found her in very different case. Her mood was high. She had the air of one who has made a success or who has escaped some shadowing mischief. He could suppose no cause for such a thing or he would have said her bearing signified relief, removal of some oppression, freedom from some weight that had burdened her mind and that now, displaced, suffered her mind to run up, made her tread lighter.
"There's something different about you to-day," he told her; then, while she laughed, and while he caught more glee than commonly he knew in the little sound he loved to hear, found the exact expression for the change he saw, and named the new step in their relations—"You are as if you'd suddenly got a holiday."
"Well, it is true that I somehow feel like that," she declared, "though why I should, I am sure I cannot imagine."
Yet dimly she knew, dimly in these later days had felt closing about her the purpose of her training, and when Percival spoke of the two years—the "frightfully long time"—for which old Rollo was gone, knew it half unknowingly for the period of her holiday. Another, more freely schooled than she, had known it clearly, had questioned, revolved, examined the sudden lightness that was hers, had realised it came of freedom from constant reminder of an end that seemed to wait her, and had inquired of herself, Why then glad?—Is that end unwelcome?
It was not hers so to examine; or examining, so to realise; or realising, so to ask; nor asking, and being answered "Yes, unwelcome," to think to make resistance and crush the end before it came. Not hers whose schooling in her mother's hands had made for and had won the stifling of such processes of thought; not hers who was caparisoned and trained for certain purpose; not hers who had responded in faultless beauty and in cloistered mind. Hers, if she stretched her hands and on a sudden found that purpose walled about her, only to follow on between the walls, not to break through them; to glance at them or run them with her fingers and see them silk and proper to her life, not beat against them, find them steel behind the silk, cry "Trapped! Trapped!" and wildly beat for outlet. Hers, if she raised her eyes and saw her purposed end far down the narrow way, only to accept and move towards it, not to halt, doubt, fear; hers to glance, and know, and think it meet and proper to her life, not start and shrink, cry "No! No! No!" and seek escape while yet escape might be.
So she was circumstanced; yet there remains, be restraint never so firmly chilled into the bones, the purely primeval instinct of delight in freedom; so she was trained, but scarcely yet had recognised purpose, walls, or end. She only, as she told Percival, "somehow felt" that she had holiday, and holiday her mood in the months that went. Why she felt so, she was sure, as she said, she could not imagine; but as the butterfly, content to live among the flowers of a hothouse and never know itself prisoner, will airily toss aloft through the open door yet scarcely think itself escaped, so, content to have remained, but gaily floating free, blithe and new her mood when now they met. Less frequent their meetings, the common excuse of Rollo being denied, but ah, more fond! Fewer their secret exchanges, but ah, more dear! Holiday her mood, and fluttering she came to him, and was swinging in his ardour from her prison to his heart; from his heart to her prison, swinging in his ardour, and had no more than glimpses—transient tremors—of her prison's walls.
III
He had her engaged in such a glimpse—a little fearfully suspicious that there were walls about her—on a day when they were hunting together. Mrs. Espart changed her earlier intention of returning to town in the Autumn after Rollo and his mother had left. To encourage her position in the country-side formed part of her own share of the plans for the young people that were to crystallise when the return was made to Burdon Old Manor, and she began to centre Abbey Royal in the social round of the neighbourhood. Her daughter's betrothal to Lord Burdon, when it was done and announced, should thus, as she schemed, lose nothing that was possible to the stir it would make. She was able to use the local Hunt as a prominent part of these intentions, did not ride herself, but horsed Dora well, subscribed handsomely and was gladly taken up by the Master in her suggestion of a bi-monthly meet at the Abbey.
Thus it was after hounds that Percival and Dora were given best chance to meet. The Rough 'Uns' idea of mounting Percival for the field proved successful to them as happy to him; Dora, in pursuance of her mother's plans, had encouragement—and wanted none—rarely to miss a meet. Hounds had run far on that day when she was caught by Percival engaged in one of those transient glimpses of her state that sometimes in these days came to puzzle her. He threw her into it, and that at a moment most unlikely, for circumstances had it that she was uncomfortable and out of temper. A bold fox carried the few who could follow him—they two among them—to a point fifteen miles from the Abbey before hounds ran into him. It was late afternoon, rain falling, when Percival and Dora started to hack the long stretch home, and they were little advanced on the road, and she feeling the wet, when she pronounced her feelings by telling him petulantly: "You should not have made me come on. I would have turned back long ago."
But it had been a rare run, and he was beneath the vigour of it. "Come, it was a great run," he said. "It was worth it, Dora."
"Nothing is worth getting wet like this. You know how I hate getting wet."
She was much wetter, and would give him no words, before a new trial necessitated that she should speak again. Her saddle was slipping, she said, and when he alighted and found the girths had loosened and then that she must get down: "No, I'll try it a little farther," she told him very vexedly. "We're nearly there now. To move is hateful. The wet is touching me right through."
She gave him no answer to his "I'm awfully sorry, Dora;" but presently said: "It's no good, I must get down, I suppose."
He looked up at her as he stood to help her from the saddle.
"You're angry, Dora?"
"Well, of course I am angry."
He acted upon an impulse that swept out her temper and put her to that transient glimpse that vaguely showed her vague misgivings. He had watched her as they rode in silence, watched the rain that swept against her face run down her face that was like marble in her chill and in her loss of temper. Cold as it her eyes that met his now, and he had a sudden impression of her—all marble, all frozen snow, his darling!—that seemed to embody all his every thought of her frozen beauty and frozen quality since first he knew her, and that taxed beyond his power the restraint that frozen quality ever had set upon him. Beyond his power!—and as he brought her down he not released her, almost roughly turned her to him; and with no word almost roughly clasped her to him; and with "Dora!" kissed her wet face and held her while startled she protested; and kissed again, again, again, again.
"No, I will not let you go! No, you have been cold to me! No, you shall not go! I have never kissed you since that once I kissed you. I will kiss you now. No, I will not let you go. I love you, love you, love you!"
She bent her face away. He felt her panting in his arms and pressed her to him; and with his hands could feel how wet she was, and with his body felt her warm against him through her soaking clothes; and passion of love broke from him in words, as passion of love he pressed upon her face.
"Turn your face to me, Dora. You shall. I have endured enough. Turn your face to me—your wet, cold, sweet face that I love. Give me your lips. Give me your lips. I will kiss your lips and you shall kiss me. Put your arms round me. Dora, put your arms round me. Now kiss me, kiss me— Ah! I love you, I love you—my darling, my beautiful, my Snow-White-and-Rose-Red. Keep your arms there, Dora, Dora, my Dora!"
His voice had run hoarse and broken in his passion; now, when obedient she gave him her lips, obedient clung to him—her will, her physical discomfort and her natural impassivity burnt up as in a flame by this sudden assault—deep his voice went and strong:—
"That is all done now—all those days when I have been afraid to touch my darling, afraid to tell her every hour, every moment, how I love her for fear of frightening her. You are in my arms, my darling, and I can feel my darling's heart, and those days can never come again. You shall remember when you see me how I have held you here. You shall remember how you lie in my arms and that they hold you strongly, strongly, and that it is your safe, safe place. Look up at me! Ah, ah, how beautiful you are—your eyes, your lips, your cold, sweet face with the rain all wet on it. Kiss me! Ah, Dora—we were meant to meet, meant to love."
She answered him more by the abandonment with which she lay in his arms than by the faltering sentences in which she sometimes whispered while they stood there. She was whispering, "I never meant you should think I was afraid. Percival, I never meant you should think I did not want to speak about our love. Only—" when she shivered violently, and he chid himself for keeping her there, and for warmth's sake, he leading the horses, they walked the last mile to the Abbey. Ardently then he talked to her of future plans. He told her that late in the next year it was arranged he was to go out to the Argentine with some ponies. A big business was like to be established there, arising out of a sale to a South American syndicate, and he was to arrange it and to select and bring back ponies of a native strain for the development of a likely type. When he returned—"This is why I am telling you, darling,"—the good old Rough 'Uns had declared he should formally be made partner in what had now become a great enterprise. "I shall claim you then, my darling. I shall be able to claim you then."
She surprised him—and, not aware of her reason, thrilled him—by halting suddenly and clasping his hands that had been holding hers. "Oh, don't leave me, Percival! Percival, don't go away!"
He kissed her adoringly. "Do you love me so?"
She clung to him and only said: "Don't leave me, Percival. Percival, you must not," and while he sought to soothe her plea—and still was thrilled to hear it—suddenly went into a tempest of weeping, changing his tender happiness to tenderest concern.
"Dora! Why, what is it? What is it, my darling? Tell me, tell me—ah, don't, don't cry, don't tremble like that."
She had not controlled herself to answer him when sound of wheels came down the road, lamps through the gloom. She checked herself, and was at her horse's head when there drew up a carriage sent from the Abbey to meet her and bring her back in shelter from the rain. A groom took her horse and, standing by the door as she entered, prevented explanation she might have made—had she been able to explain.
IV
Had she been able—for the thing that caused her sudden tears and sudden plea was no more than a glimpse, one of those transient glimpses of the walls, of the purpose, of the end of her training; differing from other glimpses that sometimes came in that it caught her unstrung. If it flickered again in the weeks that followed, it little more disturbed her than sudden shadow across the garden disturbs the butterfly passing among the flowers; a flicker of misgiving, a vague disturbance—gone. The year's end took her away with her mother to town. Succeeding Autumn that brought them back started Percival to the Argentine.
"I just miss everybody by going by this boat," he told Aunt Maggie, sitting with her far into the night before his departure. "There's Ima coming to you to look after you till I get back and not coming till next week, so I just miss her; and old Japhra bringing her, so I miss seeing him too; and then"—he paused for the briefest moment—"there's Dora and her mother staying another fortnight abroad so I miss them; and old Rollo and Lady Burdon due next month—I miss them all. It's the rottenest luck."
"They'll all be here for you when you get back," Aunt Maggie said.
He paused again before he spoke. "Yes. That's where my luck's going to be dead in. I could tell you something, Aunt Maggie," and he laughed. "But I won't—yet. My luck—look here, tell old Japhra this from me; tell him I'm coming back for—he'll understand—the Big Fight, and going to win it!"
NEWS OF HUNT. NEWS OF ROLLO. NEWS OF DORA
I
The great Argentine trip—an affair of so much consequence in its bearing on the development of pony-breeding as to attract the attention of the "Field" in a series of articles that spoke in highest terms of "Messrs. Hannafords' well-known establishment" and of "the far-reaching effects of their new enterprise"—occupied six months. Six weeks—or days—they seemed to Percival as they fled on the novelty and the busy interests that attended him while in South America. Six years he found them on the long voyage home in the steamer that brought him and the purchases from native stock of whose blood "the far-reaching effects" were to be produced; and twice and three times six years he declared to himself he seemed to have been away as, in the closing hours of an April afternoon, the train brought him in sight—at last! at last!—of homeland scenes, of Plowman's Ridge along the eastward sky.
Quite a little party was assembled on Great Letham platform to greet him. The Rough 'Uns had driven over in two separate carts—one that should carry him to Aunt Maggie and the other that should bear his luggage—and they were there, their faces to be seen afar like crimson lamps of their excitement, and Mr. Hannaford's leg-and-cane cracks rising high above the din of escaping steam in which the train drew up, and Stingo almost completely voiceless with huskiness for more than an hour back. And Stingo had brought Japhra, arrived at the little horse farm to take up Ima after her winter with Aunt Maggie; and Mr. Hannaford had brought Ima, and they were there—Japhra with his tight mouth twitching, and deep in his puckered face his bright little eyes gleaming; and Ima, standing a shade apart, a tinge of colour crept beneath her skin, and on her lips and in her eyes her gentle smile. To complete the greeting there came shrill, ridiculous chuckles from a stout, soft gentleman, and from his sister little hops and little flutters and "Therehe is! He'llhithis head leaning out like that! He'sbrownerthan ever! Oh,Percival!"
And "Percival!" from them all in all their different keys, and he among them before the train was stopped, and turning from glad face to glad face, and caught up in the midst of it with a sudden wave of the old thought, like a knock at the heart, like a catch at the throat—"How jolly, jolly good they all are to me!"
Like a knock at the heart, like a catch at the throat, it took him, and checked him a moment in his responses to the congratulations and was mirrored in the flicker that went across his face. His eyes caught Japhra's and it was the look of understanding he read there, he thought, that brought Japhra to him for another word before he drove away. In the station yard the traps were waiting. "You, longside o' me—partner!" bellowed Mr. Hannaford and must shake Percival's hand again for the meaning of that word. "Up behind, Ima, my dear. We'll takepartnerhome while Stingo leaves that box at the farm and then comes on with the rest of the luggage."
Plump Mr. Purdie and birdlike little Miss Purdie had started to walk; Stingo was throating "Come along, Japhra, come along, Japhra," in a husky whisper that no one could hear but himself; Mr. Hannaford was beginning the tremendous operation of hoisting himself up on one side of the cart while Percival, a foot on the step, was about to swing himself up on the other, when Japhra turned and came back to him.
"Thy hand a last time, master!"
"Hullo, what's this for?" Percival laughed; but saw Japhra's face grave, and went on: "You caught my eye on the platform just now, Japhra. I saw you knew how I felt. That's it, eh?"
"Something of that," Japhra answered him. "Ay, a thought of that came to me then." The note of his voice was as earnest as his eyes, and he added, "Master, there was another matter to it that I saw."
"Well, you were always the thought-reader," said Percival, and smiled at him quizzically. "What was it, Japhra?"
"That thou art out for something else than we know."
"You could see that? Well, you shall know to-morrow."
The earnest look in Japhra's eyes went deeper. "Comes it so soon?"
"A few hours, Japhra."
There came an impatient hail from Mr. Hannaford, settled at last in the trap above them.
"Well, press my hand to it," Japhra said; and as he held Percival's hand, "press—let me feel thy grip, master. Something bids me to it. Ay, thou art strong. Be strong in thine hour."
As the trap swung out of the station yard Percival saw him still standing there as though he still would speed that message. He turned about in his seat to elude Ima in his chatter with Mr. Hannaford, and they were not two miles upon the road before he was launched upon what gave him need for strength.
II
Strangers were rare in Great Letham. Every figure passed as they rattled through the town was familiar to Percival. The turn into the high road took them by one—a tall, straight man with something of a stiff air about him, as though his clothes were uncomfortable—that looked at them with a swift glance as they overtook him.
"Hullo," said Percival. "That's a new face. Who's that?"
"Why, that's a bit of news for you,partner," said Mr. Hannaford. "Bless my eighteen stun proper if it ain't. There's two or three o' them chaps about—'tecs."
"'Tecs?—detectives? Why, what's up, Mr. Hannaford?"
"There's been an escape from Dartmoor prison. Three of 'em in a fog. And one—you'd never guess!"
"Not old Hunt?"
"Hunt sure enough,partner."
"Hunt—good lord, poor old Egbert Hunt! And those chaps? After him? Do they think he's here?"
"They didn't know what to think," said Mr. Hannaford, and with a laugh at them for their puzzlement went into explanation. A fortnight ago the escape was made, it appeared. Two caught—one shot—but Hunt still missing. Traces of him in four burglaries, and each one nearer this way, and now the 'tecs here on the belief that he was making for the country-side he knew.
Percival met Ima's eyes and saw in them sympathy with the feelings given him by this news. "I knew you would be sorry," she said.
"Sorry!—why, Ima, it's awful, it's dreadful to me to think of poor old Egbert like that. One of them shot—and he hiding, terrified, no shelter, no food. When they catch him—I know what he is. He'll be mad—do anything. They'll shoot him down, perhaps."
She touched his hand and he was moved to catch hers that touched him and saw the blood tide up into her face. He had seen much of her in the winter following his illness when she had lived with Aunt Maggie. They were brother and sister, he had told her in those days, and when he had spoken of that night on Bracken Down before the fight: "Oh, it is forgotten," she had told him. "Forgotten, and forgotten all the foolish words I spoke. Nothing in them, Percival. Yes, you are my brother. I am your sister. That is it."
And now was sister. He did not notice that she caught her breath when the blood came into her face as he took her hand, nor that she disengaged his clasp before she spoke. Only that in her gentle voice, "You must not let it upset you, Percival," she told him. "You are coming back so happy. You must not let this spoil it."
"But it does," he said. "It does. I can't enjoy myself—I can't be happy while he's near here perhaps—those brutes after him. We'll have to look out for him, Ima. You and I. He'll not be afraid of us. We'll go all round the place together. He'll come to us if he sees us."
"Yes—yes," she said, and seemed glad.
"What does old Rollo say?"
"Ah, Lord Burdon—Lord Burdon is longing to see you. Of Hunt I don't know what he says. But of you—Percival, he's longing for you. He's not been very well. He's kept to the house. He sent word how he had looked forward to meeting you at the station but could not, and begged you would go up to him as soon as ever you arrived. You must."
"Why, of course I will," Percival said, and with recollection of Rollo—and of Rollo longing for him—was temporarily removed from the gloom that had beset him and returned to the anticipation of all that awaited him.
"I will, of course. He's not ill?"
"He's ever so much stronger since he came back. Only a cold that keeps him in. He has to keep well for the festivities, of course."
Her reference was to the great twenty-fourth birthday celebrations—the coming of age according to Burdon tradition—and Percival agreed eagerly. "Why, rather! He'll want all his voice for the speeches! I was afraid once I'd not get back in time. As it is, I've only just done it. The nineteenth, next week, his birthday, isn't it?"
"Next Thursday," Ima said, smiling to see him smile again.
"Touch and go!" laughed Percival. "I might easily have missed it." He turned to Mr. Hannaford. "Mr. Hannaford, you'll have to stay a bit when we get home—have tea—and then drive me over to the Manor. We're talking about Lord Burdon and the festivities. Great doings, eh?"
"Why, great doings is the word for it," said Mr. Hannaford. "Bless my eighteen stun proper if it ain't. Everybody invited a score o' miles round. Going to roast a nox whole, marquees in the grounds, poles with ribbons on 'em from the church to the Manor—"
"From the church! What, is there going to be a service?"
"Service!" said Mr. Hannaford. "Why, how's he going to be married without?"
Percival almost jumped to his feet. "Married! Is he going to be married?"
"What, don't you know,partner?"
"I've not had letters for months.Married! Good lord, old Rollo married! Why, that's tremendous. Ima, why ever didn't you tell me? Married! Whom to?"
Mr. Hannaford was enormously pleased at this excitement. "Give 'ee three guesses,partner."
Percival cried: "Why, I couldn't guess in a thousand. It fairly knocks me. Old Rollo going to be married! Go on—tell me!"
"Go on—guess," said Mr. Hannaford.
"How can I guess? I don't know his London friends. I shan't even know her name."
"Well, you'll ha' left your memory where you left that string o' little 'orses if 'ee don't. Ever heard o' Upabbot?" He twisted round to wink advertisement of his humour to Ima. "Got any sort of a glimmering rec'lection of Abbey Royal?—why, Miss Espart!"
PRELUDE TO THE BIG FIGHT
I
Percival said in a quiet voice, "Put me down. Put me down—I'm going to walk."
"So you're no hand at guessing, partner. Own up to that," was Mr. Hannaford's response. Then he cried, "Hi, what's up with 'ee? What be doing?" for Percival had stretched a sudden hand to the reins and the horse swerved sharply. "Whoa!" bellowed Mr. Hannaford, and dragged up with a wheel on the brink of a ditch. "Might ha' had us out!" he turned on Percival. "Bless my eighteen stun proper if 'ee mightn't!"
It was a wild face that fronted him, blotchy in red and white as it were freshly bruised. "Well, put me down!" Percival cried at him fiercely. "Put me down when I ask you!" and as he slowly drew the rug from his knees and put out a foot to the step he turned back on Mr. Hannaford and flamed "I suppose I can walk if I want to?" and dropped heavily to the road. His feet landed on the edge of the ditch. He blundered forward and came with hands and knees against the hedge. The stumble shook his hat from his head and he turned and went hatless past the tail of the cart and a few paces down the road.
Mr. Hannaford released with a rushing explosion the immense breath that he had been sustaining during the whole of these proceedings. He turned amazed eyes on Ima: "What's happened to him?"
She sprang to the road. "Percival!" and followed him.
He turned at the sound of her feet; and at the look on his face she stopped.
"Well?" he demanded. "Well? What is it now?"
"You have left your hat," she said. "I will bring it to you."
Some wit that came to her gave her these ordinary words in place of questioning him, and he came back to her quickly. "I don't want my hat," he told her. He looked up towards Mr. Hannaford. "I'm sorry I pulled you up like that. I want to walk, that's all. I'm going along the Ridge—to stretch my legs."
"There's something wrong with 'ee," said Mr. Hannaford. "What is it, boy?"
"Nothing. I want a walk, that's all."
Mr. Hannaford pointed across the Ridge. "There's a storm coming up. Best ride."
"I'll be home before that." He turned and went slowly towards a gate that gave to the fields approaching the downside. Ima hesitated and then went swiftly after him as he fumbled with the latch.
"Percival, I will walk with you."
He turned upon her a face from which the gentler mood was gone.
"Oh, for God's sake let me alone," he cried, and passed through the gate and left her.
II
He found that he kept stumbling as he pressed along.
He tried to give attention to lifting his feet but stumbled yet. He found that he could not think clearly. He tried to take a grasp of his thoughts and place them where he would have them go, but they persisted in form of words that Mr. Hannaford had spoken, in swift gleams of pictures that answered the words and then round about the words again. "Ever heard o' Upabbot?" Ah, every well-remembered street of it arose before his mind! "Got any sort of a glimmering recollection of Abbey Royal?" Ah, he could scent the very flowers banked along the drive! "Why, Miss Espart." Blankness then—some thick oppressive darkness suddenly shutting down upon him; some bewildering, vaguely sinister blanket of dread that stifled thought—then suddenly out of it and back again to "Ever heard o' Upabbot?"
The ground beneath him flattened abruptly under his feet. He stumbled more violently than before, and was jolted to recognition that Plowman's Ridge was gained. Of long habit he straightened himself to meet the wind. It suited the unreal conditions that seemed to surround him, it was a part of the dream in which he seemed to be, that something that should have been here seemed to be missing. What? He stood a moment looking dully about him. The question merged into and was lost in the circle of thought that beset him as he followed his right hand and turned along the Ridge. He had stumbled a full mile and more when there struck his face that which informed him what had been missing when first he reached the crest. Wind came against him, and he realised there had been no wind where, ever and like an old friend, wind ran to greet him. Aroused, he pulled up short. He had come far. That was Little Letham lying beneath him, Burdon Old Manor in those trees. Late afternoon gave before evening down the valley. Heavy the wind and close. He turned his head and saw against the further sky great storm clouds pressing down upon the Ridge. He raised his eyes and saw a figure come towards him, crossing the Ridge and walking fast from Little Letham, turning towards him as he gave a cry.
"Dora!"
He went forward some swift paces, the stumbling gone from his feet and his mind sprung tensely out of its dull circling; then he stopped. She too was halted. She had turned sharply about at his cry and was poised towards him where she turned. There were perhaps twenty yards between them, and the quickly deepening gloom admitted him her face whitely and without clear outline through the dusk. He did not move, nor she. There came from her to him a rattle of breeze, presage of the storm that gathered, and he saw her skirts fan out upon it. There struck his face a heavy raindrop, skirmishing before the gale, and he drew a quick breath and went forward to her—nearer, and saw her faultless face and felt the blood drum in his ears; nearer, and her clear voice came to him and he could hear his heart.
She said: "Percival!"
"Dora, I have come back."
Her face, that he watched with eyes whose burning he could feel, was as emotionless as motionless she fronted him. It might have been frozen, so still it was; and she a carven thing, so still she stood; and her eyes set jewels, so still were they. His breathing was to be heard as of one that breathes beneath a heavy load. When she did not answer—and when answered he knew himself by her silence—"There is only one thing I want to hear from you," he said. "Tell me it."
Her voice was a whisper. "Oh, must you ask me that already?"
He said stupidly: "But I have come back."
She said: "O Percival, it is a long time."
He had known her voice precise and cold—as icicles broken in a cold hand!—as was its habit and as he thrilled to hear it. He had known it faltering and atremble and scarcely to be heard when she was in his arms. Now there was a new note in it that he heard. There was a weary droop, as though she were tired. "But it is a long time," she said again. "I asked you not to leave me."
He was trembling. "Tell me what has happened."
Her reply was, "I asked you not to leave me, Percival."
"You and—" There was a name he had difficulty in saying. He turned away and went a step, fighting for it among the scenes in which her words surrounded it. Then came to her again and pronounced it. "You and Rollo. Is it true?"
"Yes, it is true."
He said brokenly: "But I have held you in my arms. How can it be true? I have kissed you and you have kissed me and clung to me. You have loved me. I have come back for you. How can it be true?"
Her face answered him. Beneath his words the crimson flamed as though in crimson blood it would burst upon her cheeks—flamed in those strange pools of colour where her colour lay, and drove her white as driven snow about them—flamed and called his own blood as flame bursts out of flame. He caught her in his arms. "You are mine! What has he done to you? Mine, mine, what has he dared?"
She struggled and pressed her face away from his that approached it. "You must not! You must not! Percival, you must not!"
"Ah, your voice, your voice tells me that you are mine!" he cried: and cried it again in revulsion of triumph over the unthinkable torment that had possessed him. "Your voice tells me!" and again in savagery of heat at a thought of Rollo, "Mine—your voice tells me you are mine!"
The colour was gone from her face. She was so white and so still in his arms that he desisted the action of his face towards her, but held her close, close. There came from her lips: "No, no! you must not. It is wrong."
"How can it be wrong? You say No, but your voice tells me. I have come back for you, my Dora."
"Ah, be kind to me, Percival."
"How should I be unkind to my darling?"
He felt a tremor run through her. "You must not call me that, Percival. It should never have been. I thought you would forget."
What, had he not triumphed then? Torment came ravening back at him again like a wild thing, and with a sudden burst and clamour, shaking him where he stood, old friend wind with that old hail—or mock?—of ha! ha! ha! in his ears. He said intensely: "You thought I would forget? While I was away you thought I would forget? Dora, you never thought it!"
She stirred in his clasp to disengage herself: "No, no—before that. When we were together."
He broke out: "Explain! Explain!" He let her from his arms and she stood away from him, stress on her face. "Oh, there is something I do not understand in this," he cried. "Explain—tell me."
She told it him. "Percival, I was always to marry Rollo," she said.
He stared at her. "How can you mean—always?"
"I should have told you. I knew it."
He pronounced in a terrible voice "Rollo!" Then he said thickly: "What, when you were with me—in those days, those days! You knew it? He had spoken to you then?"
She caught her hands to her bosom in an action of despair. "No, no!" she cried; and then, "Oh, how can I explain?" and then found the word that helped her with force of a thousand words to name her meaning. "It was—holiday," she said.
He remembered it. He remembered, and its memory came like a lamp to guide him. He said slowly, "When Rollo went—I remember you were different. Dora, do you mean it was always arranged you were to marry Rollo?"
She said, "Always—always!"
He cried, "But you loved me!"
She wrung her hands at that, and cried in the most pitiful way, "I thought you would forget. I don't know what I thought. It was holiday. It should not have been. Oh, why must we talk of it?"
"Dora, they are forcing you to marry him."
"I was always to, Percival. I was always to."
"You want to?"
"Well, I was always to."
Her voice was that of a child whose young intelligence by no means can take a lesson. Sufficient to one such that the thing is so as he sees it and cannot be otherwise; and to her sufficient—trained and schooled and cloistered for that sufficiency—that, as she said, she was always to. Ah, she had had holiday, but not enough to loose her; she had tossed among the flowers, but had fluttered home at nights. Now the mate she toyed with was knocking at her prison; she could see and could remember, but she could not fly. Quickly after the end of their months together, and very certainly after Rollo's return, she had discovered what long she had dimly seen. Clearly the purpose and the walls and the end of her training had been presented to her. Passively she had accepted them.
But how explain it? How explain what herself she did not know? She looked from night that came stealing up the valley to his face that had a shade of night. She heard the wind that now was in gusty beat against them, and above the sound could hear his breathing. She could only wring her hands and say again: "Percival, I was always to;" and when he did not answer, "Let me go now, Percival."
He answered her then. "You loved me. How can you do this? You loved me. Why did you not tell me?"
She cried as if she were distracted, "Oh, oh! I asked you not to leave me. It was a long time. You were not here."
He caught on to that. "I am here now. It shall not be. Dora, I am here now!"
"It is done," she said. "It is done!"
He seemed for the first time to realise the complete abandonment, the unresisting resignation to her fate, that was in her every word and tone. His voice went very low.
"Dora, are you going to marry him?"
"I was always to." It was the beginning and the end of her will. "I was always to." She had no question of it.
He threw up his arms in wild despair at its repetition. "O my God! What a thing to tell me! What a thing to be! Why? Why? Do you love him? Is he anything to you? Why were you always to marry him?"
She gave the reason her mother had never concealed from her. "He is Lord Burdon. It was arranged long ago. My mother—"
The sound he made stopped her. As if he had been stabbed and choked his life out on the blow, "Ah!" he cried. "That is it. Because he is what he is. If he were like me this would never have happened. If he were not what he is it would be ended."
She appealed "Percival! Percival!" wrung her hands and turned and went a step. When she looked again she saw his face as none had ever seen it, twisted in pain and dark with worse than pain. He was not looking at her, but down upon Little Letham where Burdon Old Manor lay. She approached him and spoke his name, touched him, but he did not move.
She left him there and once looked back. He still stood as she had left him.