Guy and Pauline Part 24

Mrs. Grey looked helplessly round her, but as neither of her two elder daughters was present she had nothing to say; and Pauline, who thought that all the fuss was due to nothing but Monica's unwarranted interference, had nothing to say either; so they walked along the herbaceous borders each with a demeanour of reproach for the other's failure to understand. The snapdragons lolled upon the sun with gold-bloomed anthers, and drank more and still more colour until they were drenched beyond the deepest dyes of crimson, extinguis.h.i.+ng the paler hues of rose and chrome which yet at moth-time would show like lamps when the others had dulled in the discouragement of twilight.

"You mustn't think anything more about it," said her mother after a long silence. "I'm sure it was only heedlessness. I don't think you can say I'm too strict with you and Guy. Really, you know, you ought to have had a very happy June. You've been together nearly all the time."

"Darling," said Pauline utterly penitent for the least look that could have wounded her mother's feelings. "You're sweet to us. And Guy loves you nearly as much as I do."

The gong sounded upon the luteous air of the evening; and Pauline with her arm closely tucked into her mother's arm walked with her across the lawn toward the house.

"It's no good looking crossly at me," she said when like a beautiful ghost Monica came into the dining-room. "I've explained everything to Mother."

"I'm very glad you have," Monica answered austerely; and because she would not fall in with her own forgiving mood, Pauline took the gentle revenge of not expostulating with her that evening when there was an opportunity. Nor would she let Margaret refer to the subject. Her sisters were very adorable, but they knew nothing about love and it would only make them more anxious to lay down laws if she showed that she was aware of their disapproval. She would be particularly charming to them both this evening, but her revenge must be never to mention the incident to either.

The princ.i.p.al result of her mother's rebuke had been to drive away Pauline's anger with Guy and the jealousy of his friend. All she thought now was of the time when next they would meet and when she would be able to laugh with him over the absurdity of other people pretending to know anything about the ways of love or of lovers like themselves. She decided also that, as a penance for having been angry with Guy, she would take care to enquire the very first thing about the mystery of the inscription on the window. Oh, but how she hoped his friend had not come to stay at Plashers Mead, for that would surely spoil this Summer of theirs.

The next afternoon, when Pauline went into the paddock, Guy was waiting for her on the mill-stream, her place in the canoe all ready as usual.

"Have you found your friend?" she asked, faithful to her resolution.

"Not a sign of him," said Guy. "What on earth he came for, I can't think. Miss Peasey never saw him and of course she never heard him. He must have been bicycling. However, don't let's waste time in talking about Michael Fane."

Pauline smiled at him with all her heart. How wonderful Guy was to reward her so richly for the little effort it had cost to enquire about his friend.

"I've been prospecting this morning," he announced as they shot along in the direction of the bridge. "They haven't started to make hay on the other side, so I'm going to paddle you furiously upstream until we find some secret and magical meadow where we can hide and forget about yesterday's fiasco."

They glided underneath the bridge and left it quivering in the empty sunlight behind them; they swept silently over the mill-pool while Pauline held her breath. Then the banks closed in upon their canoe and Guy fought his way against the swifter running of the river, on and on, on and on between the long gra.s.ses of the uncut meadows, on and on, on and on past the waterfall where the Abbey stream joined the main stream and gave it a wider and easier course.

"Phew, it's hot," Guy exclaimed. "Sprinkle me with water."

She splashed him laughing; and he seized her hand to kiss her dabbled fingers.

"Laugh, my sweet sweet heart," he said. "It was your laugh I heard before I ever heard your voice, that night when I stood and looked at you and Margaret as if you were two silver people who had fallen down from the moon."

Again she sprinkled him laughing, and again he seized her hand and kissed her dabbled fingers.

"They're as cool as coral," he said. "Why are you wrinkling your nose at me? Pauline, your eyes have vanished away!"

He plucked speedwell flowers and threw them into her lap.

"When I haven't got you with me," he said, "I have to pretend that the speedwells are your eyes, and that the dog-roses are your cheeks."

"And what is my nose?" she asked, clapping her hands because she was sure he would not be able to think of any likeness.

"Your nose is incomparable," he told her: and then he bent to his paddle and made the canoe fly along so that the water fluted to right and left of the bows. Ultimately they came to an island where all the afternoon they sat under a willow that was pluming with scanty shade a thousand forget-me-nots.

Problems faded out upon the languid air, for Pauline was too well content with Guy's company to spoil the June peace. At last, however, she disengaged herself from his caressing arm and turned to him a serious and puzzled face. And when she was asking her question she knew how all the afternoon it had been fretting the back of her mind.

"Why was Mother angry with me yesterday because I came into Plashers Mead to say good-night to you?"

"Was she angry?" asked Guy.

"Well, Monica saw us and got home before me and told her, and she was worried at what people would think. What would they think?"

Guy looked at her: then he shook his fist at the sky.

"Oh, G.o.d, why must people try...."

She touched his arm.

"Guy, don't swear. At least not ... you'll call me superst.i.tious and foolish," she murmured dismayfully, "but really it hurts me to hear you say that."

"I don't think you anything but the most lovely and perfect thing on earth," he vowed pa.s.sionately. "And it drives me mad that people should try to spoil your naturalness ... but still ... it was thoughtless of me."

"But why, why?" she asked. "That's the word Mother used about you. Only, why, why? Why shouldn't I go and say good-night?"

"Dear, there was no harm in that. But you see, village people might say horrid things.... I was dreadfully to blame. Yes, of course I was."

She flushed like a carnation at dawn; and when Guy put his arms round her, she drew away.

"Oh, Guy," she said brokenly. "I can't bear to think of being alone to-night. I shall be asking questions all the night long, I know I shall. It's like that horrid mill-pool."

"Mill-pool?" he echoed, looking at her in perplexity.

She sighed and stared sadly down at the forget-me-nots.

"You wouldn't understand: you'd think I was hysterical and stupid."

Silently they left the island, and silently for some time they floated down the stream: then Pauline tossed her head bravely.

"Love's rather cruel in a way."

Guy looked aghast.

"Pauline, you don't regret falling in love with me?"

"No, of course not, of course not. Oh, I love you more than I can say."

When Guy's arms were round her again, Pauline thought that love could be as cruel as he chose; she did not care for his cruelty.

_July_

Guy had been conscious ever since that rose-gold evening of the ragged robins of new elements having entered into his and Pauline's love for each other. All this month, however, June creeping upon them with verdurous and m.u.f.fled steps had plotted to foil the least attempt on Guy's part to face the situation. Now the casual indiscretion of yesterday brought him sharply against it, and, as in the melancholy of the long Summer evening he contemplated the prospect, it appeared disquieting enough. In nine months he had done nothing: no quibbling could circ.u.mvent that deadly fact. For nine months he had lived in a house of his own, had accepted paternal help, had betrothed himself; and with every pa.s.sing month he had done less to justify any single one of the steps. What were the remedies? The house might be sub-let: at any rate his father's bounty came to an end this quarter: engaging himself formally to Pauline, he could throttle the Muse and become a schoolmaster, and in two years perhaps they could be married. It would be a wrench to abandon poetry and the hope of fame, indeed it would stagger the very foundations of his pride; but rather than lose Pauline he would be content to remain the obscurest creature on earth.

Literature might blazon his name: but her love blazoned his soul. Poetry was only the flame of life made visible, and if he were to sacrifice Pauline what gasping and ign.o.ble rushlight of his own would he offer to the world?

Yet could he bear to leave Pauline herself? The truth was he should have gone in March when she was in a way still remote and when like a star she would have shone as brightly upon him absent or present. Now that star was burning in his heart with pa.s.sionate fires and fevers and with quenchless ardours. It would be like death to leave her now; were she absent from him her very name would be as a draught of liquid fire. More implacable, too, than his own torment of love might be hers. If he had gone in March, she would have been gently sad, but in those first months she still had other interests; now if he parted from her she would merely all the time be growing older and they would have between them and their separation the intolerable wastage of their youth. Pauline had surrendered to love all the simple joys which had hitherto occupied her daily life; and if she were divided from him, he feared for the fire that might consume her. It was he who had kindled it upon that rosaureate evening of mid-May, and it was he who was charged with her ultimate happiness. The accident of yesterday had reminded him sharply how far this was so, and a sense of the tremendous responsibility created by his love for her lay heavily upon Guy. He must never again give her family an occasion to remonstrate with her: he had been the one to blame, and he wished Mrs. Grey had spoken to him without saying anything to Pauline. How sad this long evening was, with reluctant day even now at half-past-nine o'clock still luminous in the West.

Next morning there was a letter for Guy from his father.