CHAPTER XI
Therewas no need for us to announce ourselves. Dandy, who in two weeks has made himself known to the whole village, had finished with every preliminary. As the three figures came in sight round a sudden bend of the cliff path, we could see him trotting amiably by their side.
"And the invalid," said Bellwattle, in a whisper.
"And the invalid," I repeated, below my breath, but I know she did not hear me. I scarcely heard myself.
Another moment, in which my eyes were staring through the darkness at that dim third figure which I knew to be Clarissa, and then we had met. A nervous, hurried introduction took place. I caught no word of it then but the name—Clarissa's name. They said Miss Fawdry. That was all I heard. It was what I saw which occupied all my attention. Clarissa was dressed in black—just as I had imagined. A thick veil covered her face, falling to her shoulders, so that only a dim line of the features could be seen behind it. She bowed to us both in a quaint, timid, old-fashioned way. I shall never forget this my first meeting with Clarissa on that wild headland of those cliffs in Ireland. There will never die out of my ears the long, lonesome cries of the sea birds, the sound of the waters rolling to the rocks three hundred feet below, or those vivid stillnesses which fall upon you between the sound of the waves and the child-cries of the gulls away at sea. These things and that little black figure of a girl whom I had come some hundreds of miles to meet on the bare credit of a story—these I shall never forget.
It could not have been so pregnant a moment with Bellwattle. For if indeed she guesses—as well I know she must—there is bound to be many a mistake in her speculations. Doubtless, she thinks I have met Clarissa before; that, like some Knights of the Round Table, I am pursuing the lady to whom my heart is captive. Whatever she thinks, there will be romance to it. There is not that in a woman capable to conceive so prosaic a mission as mine. Thank God for it too. A woman will stitch the thread of love into the heel of an old sock while a man is impatiently waiting to put it on. For romance to a man is the winning and riding away—away into the heart of a sunset—but to a woman it is all horizon and beyond.
Whatever, then, she thought at our first meeting, there was no such confusion in her mind as was in mine; wherefore she went straight to the point, inquiring of Clarissa's health because, I suppose, it was the most natural thing to say.
"Are your eyes any better, Miss Fawdry?" she asked.
The Miss Fennells glanced quickly at her, and in those glances I felt the cruel power of their coercion. By those glances they forced her to give the answer that she made.
They were no better, she said, quietly.
"But they're no worse, my dear," added Miss Teresa, cleverly. "I'm sure the doctor that Harry made you see in London has treated you the right way."
She made no reply to that. When forced to play a part, it must be difficult to enter with one's whole heart into the spirit of it. I could hear in her silence the brokenness of spirit, that exhaustion of courage which must come when the wings have been beating, ceaselessly beating against the bars of a cage.
They gave her a moment in which to make answer, and then, glad, no doubt, of her silence, they declared they must be going home. Miss Mary held out her hand.
"Good-night, Mrs. Townshend," she said.
But it needed very little cleverness to be cleverer than that.
"Oh, we're coming back, too," said Bellwattle. "We had just agreed to turn when we heard your voices."
So we all set back for Ballysheen. Now, this was the moment I had been waiting for. Their suspicion fell least upon me. By her questions alone, if not also from the fact that she was a neighbor, it was their strategy to manœuvre that Bellwattle should walk with them. Not for one moment would they have trusted her alone with Clarissa; wherefore, the path being a narrow one, Miss Teresa walked first, leaving Bellwattle in the charge of Miss Mary. And so it fell out that I walked with Clarissa alone.
You may imagine how, with those few moments before me, my thoughts were like leaves on a swollen stream. Round and round my head they eddied and swirled, and not a one could I grasp to give it words. We must have walked fifty yards before a thing was spoken. Now, this is not my way with women. As a rule I talk to them with ease. True, it is while they are talking to Dandy, and doubtless that gives me confidence. But in this case everything seemed different. I might never have spoken to a woman before. But when we had walked so far in silence it came to desperation with me. I said anything; what, indeed, seemed nonsense at the time. In the light of things, as I see them now, I can imagine that it was the very best beginning I could have made.
"Are you happy in Ireland?" said I.
She looked round at me quickly. From an utter stranger I can understand how odd that question must have seemed.
"Do I like Ireland, do you mean?" she asked, and that was the first time properly that I heard her voice. It was a whisper, full of timidity. I had to bend my head to catch the words, and they sounded like the steps of feet in satin slippers through some far-off corridor of an old house. This is my way of describing things. It may mean nothing to you. I only know I heard the tiny heel taps, and unconsciously I lowered my voice to answer to them.
"No," said I, and my voice ran almost to a whisper too. "No—I didn't mean that. You're shut up all day in that room with the white lace curtains. I don't suppose you can either like or dislike Ireland. You never see it. No—I meant what I said. Are you happy in Ireland?"
I swear if I had not said it in a whisper it would have frightened her. As sure as Fate, she would have run away. But because I whispered—by the chance of God, too, perhaps—she just spoke out of her little heart and told me she was not.
It was so simple and so genuine an admission that, though I knew it well, I was still utterly unprepared to hear her confess it. It took me completely by surprise. I found myself marvelling at her ingenuousness, for, as you must know well, it was so unlike her sex, who will seldom admit to any emotion but what does justice to their appearance, and never will they confess it to a total stranger.
It disarmed me. Had she said she was happy, indeed, I could have gone on gaily, knowing what I believed. But there is no so violent an interruption to conversation as the sudden truth. For a few moments it left me in silence. I could not have believed it possible that she was so unhappy as that, and all through my mind there surged an overwhelming tide of bitter resentment against those who were the cause of it. I cursed that young cub in England from the bottom of my heart. I have no doubt my eyes had a ludicrous expression in them as I glanced at the Miss Fennells before us.
"What makes you unhappy?" I asked, at length.
She looked nervously about her as though there might be listeners everywhere.
"It's not like where I come from. It's all so dark and grey. It was so bright in Dominica. I know the sun shines here, like it did to-day—but it's so different."
"White lace curtains make a difference," said I. "So do black dresses. Why don't you wear your canary-colored satin?"
For just one instant, she stopped quite still. I was almost sure that I had frightened her too much; but perhaps it was only with curiosity that her eyes burnt through that thick impenetrable veil. Of course, she was curious. I guess how her heart set beating straight away.
"What do you know about my satin dress?" she asked, as we walked on again.
"I know a lot," said I; and then it seemed to me the moment I had been waiting for. I took the letter from my pocket.
"Are you good at keeping secrets?" I asked.
She bent her head. Every one is good at keeping secrets, but you must ask them first. They never know how good they are until they are waiting for a secret to be told.
"Well, I want you to read this letter," I went on. "Don't let the Miss Fennells see it. Tuck it away into your dress. Read it to-night, and when you can, let me have an answer. I don't know how you can manage it; you must find that out for yourself; but let me have an answer. I shall stay here in Ballysheen till I get it. You heard my name, didn't you? Bellairs—I'm staying with the Townshends. Send the answer there—to their house—if you can."
So I gave Clarissa the letter. I saw her bury it in the stiff bodice of that black prison dress where her heart beat warm against it.
I had given it only just in time. A few more paces and we had come to the end of the cliff path. Here, as you know, it broadens to a wide road and the wall begins, protecting the field where stands the Miss Fennells' house.
By clever manœuvring they made us all come into line, and we walked the remainder of the distance, talking of such ordinary things as the Miss Fennells are conversant with. Their range of topics, I must admit, is most limited even then. When we had said good-night and I had felt the first touch of Clarissa's hand—a slight hesitating little hand it is—Bellwattle and I walked home.
She said not a word to me. That is so wise in women. However wrong in fact their guessing may be, there is a fundamental instinct of right about it which tells them what the circumstances demand. A man, guessing as she had been, would have poured questions upon me, asking me what I thought of Clarissa, and not because he was curious, but only to find out if he were right. Now, a woman never does that. To begin with, she knows she is right, and, filled as she is with curiosity, she asks no questions. She just finds out.
So Bellwattle said nothing. She just let me think. And over and over again I thought: "Will she go home if I tell her to? Will she go home if I tell her to?"
But there was a little thought that kept creeping in between each one of those questions. "Will she ever go home if I tell her to?" I said to myself, and then I thought how warm that letter would be when, in the secrecy of her bedroom, Clarissa should take it from her dress to read. And the more I asked myself the one, the more I pictured to myself the other.
"It's the very devil," said I at last to Bellwattle, "when you can't think the thing you want to think."
"Do you think you really want to?" said she.
Now, what the devil did she mean?