CHAPTER XXVIIIA MARTYRISOLINEwas panting when she arrived at the top of the field behind Crishowell Vicarage. She sat for a time to rest, looking down at the cherry-tree whose blossoms were beginning to strew the grass beneath it. It was a still day and she could hear her uncle’s voice calling her name from the orchard. She rose and flitted along the hedge like a wild bird. Before her, the Twmpa’s shoulder rose out of the green plateau, restful and solid. Even to her unresponsive mind it suggested peace and a contrast to the worries on which she had just turned her back. The whole afternoon was before her; she needed no excuse for absenting herself. Had the Vicar not applauded her for remaining unseen when Mr. Fenton had appeared the week before? Lady Harriet would start for home fairly early if she wished to get to Waterchurch by a reasonable hour, and she knew that her uncle had visits that would take him out as soon as the guest had left. The day was her own and the Pedlar’s Stone was over there in its place a couple of miles away; as the sun declined the little hollow below the sheltering brushwood would have its waiting, watching occupant. It was Wednesday, too, which, inasmuch as it was one of Mr. Lewis’ visiting days in the direction of the Wye, she often spent at the trysting-place. She was harassed, and she felt that Rhys would put her troubles temporarily out of her head.She lingered on the plateau, scanning the long expanse of green for sign of a human figure, and, seeing none, pressed forward, and turned down into the ill-famed bit of ground.She passed the stone and approached the little hollow from a different direction, stepping so softly on the short turf that Rhys did not hear her footstep. She stood looking down. His back was turned to her as he sat, and he was gazing intently at something in his hand. While she looked he carried it to his lips again and again. As he did so she made a slight movement.He sprang up, and seeing her, dropped his treasure, and came up the side of the hollow to meet her. She recognized a little daguerreotype of herself that she had once given him.“Is that the way you treat my picture, Mr. Kent?” she exclaimed, the little playful gaiety which so attracted him returning to her with his presence.“Don’t say, ‘Mr. Kent.’ Why will you never call me by my name?” said Rhys.“I do not know it, you see.”“I mean my Christian name, Rh——Robert.”She looked at him smiling, without answering; he gazed back at her, feasting his eyes.“Well, what have you to say?” said she at last.“I love you,” said he.“But you have told me that many, many times before,” she observed.“I am never tired of telling you, Isoline.”“Perhaps I am tired of hearing it.”“But you can’t really hate it, or you would not come,” he replied without tact.“Do not be too sure. You cannot even guess what made me come to-day.”“Tell me.”It always pleased Isoline to see how completely she could work upon Rhys; the very name of another man on her lips was poison to him. Also she was really perturbed herself and felt that sympathy would be supporting.“I have been very much disturbed,” she began; “a gentleman has asked me to marry him.”Rhys felt as if some one had taken up an arrow and shot it straight into his heart. The stab was almost physical.“Who is it?” he asked thickly.“Do not look so wild. It is young Mr. Fenton of Waterchurch Court.”His lips were trying to frame a question, but he had not the courage to utter it. She smiled.“I do not mean to marry him.”For answer he caught her hand and covered it with kisses.“Please stop!” she cried, “or I cannot tell you anything. Do be reasonable, Mr. Kent!”“You will not marry him! You cannot! Oh, Isoline, promise me! promise me! Do not take away your hand. I will not let you go till you say you do not care for him.”“Have I not told you that I mean to refuse him?”“What? You have not done it yet?” cried Rhys, “and you said he had asked you! What have you done? What have you done?”Isoline was a little ruffled; there was so much she wished to tell him and so much that she dared not tell him, that she was finding it difficult to steer between the two.“He asked my uncle,” she said hastily.“What did he say to him?”“Oh, my uncle wishes me to do as I like, and, of course, I could not think of it. He is so poor that he never should have dreamed of such a thing.”“Poor devil, I suppose he could not help it,” said Rhys, feeling almost kindly towards Harry now that he knew there was no danger.It is difficult to imagine what Walters proposed to himself in the future, or how far he looked beyond the actual present. His higher imagination once awakened, he attributed to Isoline every high quality, and, like Harry, he mistook her inability to respond to emotion for an intense purity of mind. So did he worship her, so far did he deem her above him in every virtue, that she was as safe with him in this lonely place as ifshe had been in the sitting-room of her uncle’s house. What could be the end he scarcely allowed himself to think. Even were he at home, reinstated, he could not suppose that she would stoop down to him, and as he was a penniless outcast, with no prospect of anything but exile at best, his position was hopeless. Every day that he stayed where he was he risked the little that was left him, but he barely thought of that; he only knew that separation from her would mean shipwreck.In spite of the airs of sophistication she gave herself, Isoline was very innocent of the forces that actually sway mankind. Shrewdness she had, and a very distinct determination to further her own interests, but her knowledge was what might be called a drawing-room knowledge; it had no cognizance of the larger things of life. Her dreams began and ended with visions of new dresses, good position, power in small ways, admiration—still of a drawing-room sort—and little likes and dislikes. Of large hates and loves and hopes, abstract principles, of the only things to be dignified by the name of real life, she had no idea. Natures like hers are more safely guarded from the greater temptations than are the salt of the earth, for these may fall and rise again higher, but, for such as Isoline, there is neither rising nor falling.It was seldom that her life had presented such a difficulty to her as it did now. She was certain that Harry would make a determined effort to see her, and she would give a great deal to be spared the ordeal. She had eluded his father and to-day she had eluded his mother, but she thought, rightly enough, that it would be a much more difficult thing to elude him. Had her aunt been in Hereford she would have begged to be allowed to return to her, but Miss Ridgeway’s health had not improved, and, a few days before, she had received the news that her stay abroad would be indefinite.There was one friend in the city from whom she might ask the favour of a refuge, and she had made up her mind, as she pursued her way to the meeting-place, to suggest the plan toher uncle, and, with his permission, leave Crishowell for a time. If this could be settled she would depart as soon as her friend could take her.Harry’s proximity had once made the place endurable, but now that it had become an actual disadvantage, she was only too ready to go. She would be glad to get back for a little to the diversions and society of a town. There would be no mysterious admirer to amuse her, but in all probability she would see Rhys again on her return, and even if she did not—well, it would not make so very much difference. She was beginning to be a little embarrassed by his demonstrative devotion, and his clothes had looked so shabby of late, that the possibilities with which she had endowed him at first were fading into the commonplace. Hereford would be a relief. She was a good deal disenchanted with things generally.They parted that evening only a few paces from the stone. The days were long and light now, and he could not go with her more than a few yards from its neighbourhood as he had been wont to do in early spring. It was only as they said good-bye that she told him of her possible departure.Poor Rhys, it was a blow; but the thought that it was struck to escape Harry’s importunities softened it a great deal. Her absence would not be a long one, she assured him, so he let her go with a sigh and went back to his hiding-place in the hollow.Isoline hurried along homewards. She was longing to see her uncle, and to hear what Lady Harriet had said, for she knew very well that it was not alone the wish to see Howlie which had brought her. She was anxious to get his consent to her departure as soon as possible and write to her Hereford friend, for the moment she should receive that lady’s invitation she would start. It was unfortunate that she could not get it for a few days to come, for Harry would be sure to make trouble before she could set off. Everything was most trying.She walked into the Vicarage to find Mr. Lewis in his study.“You have had a long walk,” he said, looking at her over the top of his book.“Yes,” she replied, “I have been up near the foot of the mountain.”“I called for you once or twice; Lady Harriet Fenton was here, and she asked to see you, but you had gone.”“Oh, did you, uncle?”“Poor child,” said the old man, taking off his glasses and laying down his book, “it has been very hard for you, I know.”“Did she say anything about me, uncle?”“She did. I am afraid, my little girl, I have not very pleasant news for you. Mr. Fenton is not going to make any provision for Harry which would enable him to marry. In fact, he cannot afford to do it. And such being the case, he will not give his consent.”She looked out of the window at the fading light.“Then I suppose there is nothing to be done,” she said, taking up her hat, which she had laid upon a chair as she came in.He had not expected such entire and unprotesting submission, and he was rather surprised; he watched her as she went to the door, rather expecting to see her composure give some sign of wavering. She paused, her fingers on the handle.“Uncle,” she began, “I wish I could go away from here for a little.”“It would not be a bad plan,” said he, after a moment’s thought, “but what can we do? Your aunt is away, you see, and there seems no prospect of her coming back.”“There is Mrs. Johnson. Could I not go to her? There was an idea of my staying there before it was arranged that I should come here. She has often invited me. You know her, uncle. Could you not ask her to take me for a short time? I want to get away, indeed I do.”The Vicar thought that he detected emotion in her voice.“Isoline, are you very unhappy about this? You say solittle, my dear. I am so sorry for you, and I wish I could help you.”“I can bear anything if I can only get away,” said the girl.“Well, I will write,” said he, “I believe you are acting wisely.”“And ask her to let me come as soon as possible. I feel—I think—the change will be good. And I do not want to see any one, or to talk about what has happened. I need not, uncle, need I? Mr. Harry Fenton will not come here, will he?” Her voice trembled a little.“Come here, child,” said he, holding out his hand, “and do not be afraid to speak out. You are going away to avoid seeing Harry again, are you not?”A direct question demands a direct answer, and she hardly felt prepared to give one; she did not know to what it might commit her. She hesitated.“I had rather not see him,” she said at last, slipping her hand out of the Vicar’s; “must I do it?”“Well, I think so, if he wishes it,” he said slowly; “you are certainly doing sensibly in taking Mr. Fenton’s refusal of consent as final, for, in marrying, you would be condemning yourself to a life of poverty which you are not fitted to endure. But, though you now wish to free yourself, remember that you accepted Harry. If he wants to hear your decision from your own lips, I think he has a right to do so.”“But why should he?” she asked plaintively, “surely he can believe you when you tell him, uncle?”“Surely, my dear, if you ever loved him at all, you will understand how he feels.”“I think it will be very inconsiderate of him if he comes here and makes a fuss when he knows it is impossible.”“People are sometimes inconsiderate when they are in trouble—young people especially.”“Then they ought not to be so,” replied Isoline, with decision.She was accustomed to carry about little moral precepts toprotect her from difficulties, as other people carried umbrellas to protect them from the rain. When the difficulties came down undeserved upon her head, she would take one out and unfurl it, so to speak.Mr. Lewis smiled faintly; he had some perception of ironies.“Do you not think thatyouare being a little inconsiderate? You may be in trouble, but somehow I do not fancy your trouble is so great as Harry’s.”His voice had meaning in the last part of his sentence.A look of dislike shot at him which was hidden by the dusk pervading the room.“Then I must see him?” she said.“You can do as you like,” said the Vicar, returning to his book, “but I think you ought to.”As the door closed behind her he reflected that he had never before come so near to understanding his niece.Isoline ran up to her room, controlling herself with difficulty as she went; when she reached the door she darted in and locked it.“Every one is against me—every one!” she sobbed as she sat down upon the bed.
ISOLINEwas panting when she arrived at the top of the field behind Crishowell Vicarage. She sat for a time to rest, looking down at the cherry-tree whose blossoms were beginning to strew the grass beneath it. It was a still day and she could hear her uncle’s voice calling her name from the orchard. She rose and flitted along the hedge like a wild bird. Before her, the Twmpa’s shoulder rose out of the green plateau, restful and solid. Even to her unresponsive mind it suggested peace and a contrast to the worries on which she had just turned her back. The whole afternoon was before her; she needed no excuse for absenting herself. Had the Vicar not applauded her for remaining unseen when Mr. Fenton had appeared the week before? Lady Harriet would start for home fairly early if she wished to get to Waterchurch by a reasonable hour, and she knew that her uncle had visits that would take him out as soon as the guest had left. The day was her own and the Pedlar’s Stone was over there in its place a couple of miles away; as the sun declined the little hollow below the sheltering brushwood would have its waiting, watching occupant. It was Wednesday, too, which, inasmuch as it was one of Mr. Lewis’ visiting days in the direction of the Wye, she often spent at the trysting-place. She was harassed, and she felt that Rhys would put her troubles temporarily out of her head.
She lingered on the plateau, scanning the long expanse of green for sign of a human figure, and, seeing none, pressed forward, and turned down into the ill-famed bit of ground.She passed the stone and approached the little hollow from a different direction, stepping so softly on the short turf that Rhys did not hear her footstep. She stood looking down. His back was turned to her as he sat, and he was gazing intently at something in his hand. While she looked he carried it to his lips again and again. As he did so she made a slight movement.
He sprang up, and seeing her, dropped his treasure, and came up the side of the hollow to meet her. She recognized a little daguerreotype of herself that she had once given him.
“Is that the way you treat my picture, Mr. Kent?” she exclaimed, the little playful gaiety which so attracted him returning to her with his presence.
“Don’t say, ‘Mr. Kent.’ Why will you never call me by my name?” said Rhys.
“I do not know it, you see.”
“I mean my Christian name, Rh——Robert.”
She looked at him smiling, without answering; he gazed back at her, feasting his eyes.
“Well, what have you to say?” said she at last.
“I love you,” said he.
“But you have told me that many, many times before,” she observed.
“I am never tired of telling you, Isoline.”
“Perhaps I am tired of hearing it.”
“But you can’t really hate it, or you would not come,” he replied without tact.
“Do not be too sure. You cannot even guess what made me come to-day.”
“Tell me.”
It always pleased Isoline to see how completely she could work upon Rhys; the very name of another man on her lips was poison to him. Also she was really perturbed herself and felt that sympathy would be supporting.
“I have been very much disturbed,” she began; “a gentleman has asked me to marry him.”
Rhys felt as if some one had taken up an arrow and shot it straight into his heart. The stab was almost physical.
“Who is it?” he asked thickly.
“Do not look so wild. It is young Mr. Fenton of Waterchurch Court.”
His lips were trying to frame a question, but he had not the courage to utter it. She smiled.
“I do not mean to marry him.”
For answer he caught her hand and covered it with kisses.
“Please stop!” she cried, “or I cannot tell you anything. Do be reasonable, Mr. Kent!”
“You will not marry him! You cannot! Oh, Isoline, promise me! promise me! Do not take away your hand. I will not let you go till you say you do not care for him.”
“Have I not told you that I mean to refuse him?”
“What? You have not done it yet?” cried Rhys, “and you said he had asked you! What have you done? What have you done?”
Isoline was a little ruffled; there was so much she wished to tell him and so much that she dared not tell him, that she was finding it difficult to steer between the two.
“He asked my uncle,” she said hastily.
“What did he say to him?”
“Oh, my uncle wishes me to do as I like, and, of course, I could not think of it. He is so poor that he never should have dreamed of such a thing.”
“Poor devil, I suppose he could not help it,” said Rhys, feeling almost kindly towards Harry now that he knew there was no danger.
It is difficult to imagine what Walters proposed to himself in the future, or how far he looked beyond the actual present. His higher imagination once awakened, he attributed to Isoline every high quality, and, like Harry, he mistook her inability to respond to emotion for an intense purity of mind. So did he worship her, so far did he deem her above him in every virtue, that she was as safe with him in this lonely place as ifshe had been in the sitting-room of her uncle’s house. What could be the end he scarcely allowed himself to think. Even were he at home, reinstated, he could not suppose that she would stoop down to him, and as he was a penniless outcast, with no prospect of anything but exile at best, his position was hopeless. Every day that he stayed where he was he risked the little that was left him, but he barely thought of that; he only knew that separation from her would mean shipwreck.
In spite of the airs of sophistication she gave herself, Isoline was very innocent of the forces that actually sway mankind. Shrewdness she had, and a very distinct determination to further her own interests, but her knowledge was what might be called a drawing-room knowledge; it had no cognizance of the larger things of life. Her dreams began and ended with visions of new dresses, good position, power in small ways, admiration—still of a drawing-room sort—and little likes and dislikes. Of large hates and loves and hopes, abstract principles, of the only things to be dignified by the name of real life, she had no idea. Natures like hers are more safely guarded from the greater temptations than are the salt of the earth, for these may fall and rise again higher, but, for such as Isoline, there is neither rising nor falling.
It was seldom that her life had presented such a difficulty to her as it did now. She was certain that Harry would make a determined effort to see her, and she would give a great deal to be spared the ordeal. She had eluded his father and to-day she had eluded his mother, but she thought, rightly enough, that it would be a much more difficult thing to elude him. Had her aunt been in Hereford she would have begged to be allowed to return to her, but Miss Ridgeway’s health had not improved, and, a few days before, she had received the news that her stay abroad would be indefinite.
There was one friend in the city from whom she might ask the favour of a refuge, and she had made up her mind, as she pursued her way to the meeting-place, to suggest the plan toher uncle, and, with his permission, leave Crishowell for a time. If this could be settled she would depart as soon as her friend could take her.
Harry’s proximity had once made the place endurable, but now that it had become an actual disadvantage, she was only too ready to go. She would be glad to get back for a little to the diversions and society of a town. There would be no mysterious admirer to amuse her, but in all probability she would see Rhys again on her return, and even if she did not—well, it would not make so very much difference. She was beginning to be a little embarrassed by his demonstrative devotion, and his clothes had looked so shabby of late, that the possibilities with which she had endowed him at first were fading into the commonplace. Hereford would be a relief. She was a good deal disenchanted with things generally.
They parted that evening only a few paces from the stone. The days were long and light now, and he could not go with her more than a few yards from its neighbourhood as he had been wont to do in early spring. It was only as they said good-bye that she told him of her possible departure.
Poor Rhys, it was a blow; but the thought that it was struck to escape Harry’s importunities softened it a great deal. Her absence would not be a long one, she assured him, so he let her go with a sigh and went back to his hiding-place in the hollow.
Isoline hurried along homewards. She was longing to see her uncle, and to hear what Lady Harriet had said, for she knew very well that it was not alone the wish to see Howlie which had brought her. She was anxious to get his consent to her departure as soon as possible and write to her Hereford friend, for the moment she should receive that lady’s invitation she would start. It was unfortunate that she could not get it for a few days to come, for Harry would be sure to make trouble before she could set off. Everything was most trying.
She walked into the Vicarage to find Mr. Lewis in his study.
“You have had a long walk,” he said, looking at her over the top of his book.
“Yes,” she replied, “I have been up near the foot of the mountain.”
“I called for you once or twice; Lady Harriet Fenton was here, and she asked to see you, but you had gone.”
“Oh, did you, uncle?”
“Poor child,” said the old man, taking off his glasses and laying down his book, “it has been very hard for you, I know.”
“Did she say anything about me, uncle?”
“She did. I am afraid, my little girl, I have not very pleasant news for you. Mr. Fenton is not going to make any provision for Harry which would enable him to marry. In fact, he cannot afford to do it. And such being the case, he will not give his consent.”
She looked out of the window at the fading light.
“Then I suppose there is nothing to be done,” she said, taking up her hat, which she had laid upon a chair as she came in.
He had not expected such entire and unprotesting submission, and he was rather surprised; he watched her as she went to the door, rather expecting to see her composure give some sign of wavering. She paused, her fingers on the handle.
“Uncle,” she began, “I wish I could go away from here for a little.”
“It would not be a bad plan,” said he, after a moment’s thought, “but what can we do? Your aunt is away, you see, and there seems no prospect of her coming back.”
“There is Mrs. Johnson. Could I not go to her? There was an idea of my staying there before it was arranged that I should come here. She has often invited me. You know her, uncle. Could you not ask her to take me for a short time? I want to get away, indeed I do.”
The Vicar thought that he detected emotion in her voice.
“Isoline, are you very unhappy about this? You say solittle, my dear. I am so sorry for you, and I wish I could help you.”
“I can bear anything if I can only get away,” said the girl.
“Well, I will write,” said he, “I believe you are acting wisely.”
“And ask her to let me come as soon as possible. I feel—I think—the change will be good. And I do not want to see any one, or to talk about what has happened. I need not, uncle, need I? Mr. Harry Fenton will not come here, will he?” Her voice trembled a little.
“Come here, child,” said he, holding out his hand, “and do not be afraid to speak out. You are going away to avoid seeing Harry again, are you not?”
A direct question demands a direct answer, and she hardly felt prepared to give one; she did not know to what it might commit her. She hesitated.
“I had rather not see him,” she said at last, slipping her hand out of the Vicar’s; “must I do it?”
“Well, I think so, if he wishes it,” he said slowly; “you are certainly doing sensibly in taking Mr. Fenton’s refusal of consent as final, for, in marrying, you would be condemning yourself to a life of poverty which you are not fitted to endure. But, though you now wish to free yourself, remember that you accepted Harry. If he wants to hear your decision from your own lips, I think he has a right to do so.”
“But why should he?” she asked plaintively, “surely he can believe you when you tell him, uncle?”
“Surely, my dear, if you ever loved him at all, you will understand how he feels.”
“I think it will be very inconsiderate of him if he comes here and makes a fuss when he knows it is impossible.”
“People are sometimes inconsiderate when they are in trouble—young people especially.”
“Then they ought not to be so,” replied Isoline, with decision.
She was accustomed to carry about little moral precepts toprotect her from difficulties, as other people carried umbrellas to protect them from the rain. When the difficulties came down undeserved upon her head, she would take one out and unfurl it, so to speak.
Mr. Lewis smiled faintly; he had some perception of ironies.
“Do you not think thatyouare being a little inconsiderate? You may be in trouble, but somehow I do not fancy your trouble is so great as Harry’s.”
His voice had meaning in the last part of his sentence.
A look of dislike shot at him which was hidden by the dusk pervading the room.
“Then I must see him?” she said.
“You can do as you like,” said the Vicar, returning to his book, “but I think you ought to.”
As the door closed behind her he reflected that he had never before come so near to understanding his niece.
Isoline ran up to her room, controlling herself with difficulty as she went; when she reached the door she darted in and locked it.
“Every one is against me—every one!” she sobbed as she sat down upon the bed.