With a sigh she faded to him: with a sigh the dog sat down by his master"s neglected stick: with a sigh the April wind stole through the thickets of gorse and out over the down. And always more and more dauntlessly the larks flung before them their fountainous notes to pierce those blue s.p.a.ces that burned between the clouds. No more was said of the past that morning, and with April come they were happy sitting up there, although, as Guy said, such weather could hardly be expected to last. And since this walk was a great exception to the rule of their life, they were back at the Rectory very punctually, so that by propitiating everybody with good behaviour they might soon demand another exception.
That night there recurred to Pauline when she was in her room a sudden memory of what Guy had said to her about girls with whom he had had love-affairs; and with the stark forms of shadows they made a procession across her walls in the candlelight. She wished now she had let Guy tell her more, so that she could give distinguishing lineaments of humanity to each of these maddening figures. What were they like and why, taken unaware, was she set on fire with rage to know them? For a long while Pauline tossed sleeplessly on that bed to which usually morning came so soon; and even when the candle was put out, she seemed to feel these forms of Guy"s confession all about her. To-morrow she must see him again; she could no longer bear to think of him alone. These shapes that from his past vaguely jeered at her were to him endowed, each, with what memories. Oh, she could cry out with exasperation even in this silent house where she had lived so long unvexed.
"What is happening to me? What is happening to me?" asked Pauline, as the darkness drew nearer to her. "Why doesn"t Margaret come?"
She jumped out of bed and ran trembling to her sister"s room.
"Pauline, what is it?" asked Margaret starting up.
"I"m frightened, Margaret. I"m frightened. My room seemed full of people."
"You goose. What people?"
"Oh, Margaret, I do love you."
She kissed her sister pa.s.sionately; and Margaret, who was usually so lazy, got out of bed and came back with her to her room; where she read aloud Alice in Wonderland, sitting by the bed with her dark hair fallen about her slim shoulders.
In the morning the impression of the night"s alarm remained sharply enough with Pauline to make her anxious to see Guy, without waiting for the ordained interval to which they should submit; and all that day, when he did not come, for the first time she felt definitely the clamorous and persistent desire for his company, the absence of which the old perfection of her home was no longer able to counteract. For the first time in her life the Rectory had a sort of emptiness; and there was not a room on this tediously beautiful day, nor any nook in the garden, which could calm her with the familiar a.s.surance of home. When the time for music came round, that night, it seemed to Pauline not at all worth while to play quartets in celebration of a day that had been so barren of events.
"Don"t you want to play?" they asked her in surprize.
"Why should we play?" she countered. "But I"ll listen to you, if you like."
Of course she was persuaded into taking her part, and never had she been so often out of tune and never had her strings snapped so continuously.
Always until to-night the performance of music had brought to her the peaceful irresponsibleness of being herself in a pattern: now this sense of design was irritating her with an arduous repression, until at last she put down her violin and refused to play any more. Pauline felt that the others knew the cause of her ill-temper, but none of them said anything about Guy and, with her for audience in one of the Caroline chairs, they played trios instead.
Next day when Guy did come, it was wet; and Pauline wished Margaret would leave them together, so that they could talk: but Margaret stayed all the afternoon in the nursery, and Pauline made up her mind that somehow she must go for another walk with Guy.
She found her mother alone in the drawing-room before dinner.
"Mother, don"t you think, Guy and I might go for a walk to-morrow?"
"Oh, Pauline, you only went for a walk together the day before yesterday. And you really must remember you"re not engaged. The Wychford people will gossip so, and that will make your father angry."
"Well, why can"t we be engaged openly?"
"No, not yet. Now, please don"t ask me. Pauline, I beg you will say no more about it."
"Then I can go to-morrow," said Pauline. "Oh, Mother, you are so sweet to me."
Mrs. Grey looked rather perplexed and as if she were vainly trying to determine what she had said to make Pauline suppose that leave for walks had been given. However, she evidently supposed it had; and when next Guy came to the Rectory, Pauline whispered to him they could go for a walk if they did not have to go through Wychford. She could not understand herself when she found it so difficult to tell Guy this delightful news, for it was she who had managed it; and yet here she was blushing in the revelation.
The fact that Wychford was out of bounds really made their walk more magical, for Pauline and Guy went past the lily-pond and the lawn in front of the house and slipped through the little wicket in the high grey wall, as it were, in the very eye of the nursery-window. They dallied for a while in the paddock, peering for fritillary buds; then they crossed the rickety bridge to the water-meadows, a territory not spied upon, silver-rosed with lady-smocks. To-day they would visit the peninsula where under the moon they first had met.
Pauline, as they walked over the meads, no longer had the desire to ask Guy more about his tale of old loves. His presence beside her had rested her fears; and she made up her mind that the disquiet of the other evening had been mere fatigue after the excitement of the day.
This secluded world from which they were now approaching the even greater seclusion of their peninsula gave itself all to her and Guy.
"How often have I been here without you," said Guy. "How often have I wished you were beside me, and now you are beside me."
They were standing in a wreath of snowy blackthorn, that almost veiled even the narrow entrance to this demesne they held in fief of April.
"What did you think about me that night we met?" Guy asked.
And for perhaps the hundredth time she whispered how she had liked him very much.
"Why don"t you ask me what I thought about you?"
"What did you?" she whispered again.
"I went to sleep thinking of you," he said. "I did not know your name. I loved you then, I think. Pauline, when next September comes, we"ll pick mushrooms together, shall we? And I shall never gather any mushrooms, because I shall always be gathering your hands. And the September afterward. Pauline! Shall we be married? Pauline Hazlewood! Say that."
She shook her head.
"Whisper it."
But she could not, and yet in her heart the foolish names were singing together.
"How can I leave you?" Guy demanded.
"Leave me?" she echoed.
"I ought. I ought. You see, if I don"t, I shall never persuade my father that we must be married next year. I must go to London and show that I"m in earnest."
"But when will you go?" said Pauline in deep dismay.
"Is your voice sad?" he asked. "Pauline, don"t you want me to go?"
"Of course I don"t," she replied, turning up to his a face so miserable that he held her to him and vowed he would not go.
"My dearest, I only thought it was my duty, but if you will believe in me, then let me stay in Wychford. After all, you are young. I am young.
Why, you won"t be twenty till May morning. And I shan"t be twenty-three till next August. Even if we wait three years to be married, we shall be always together, and it won"t seem so long."
So with her arm in his Pauline walked on through the lady-smocks, thinking that never had anyone a lover so wonderful as this long-legged lover beside her.
Holy Week was at hand, and in the variety of functions that Monica insisted her father should hold and her family attend Pauline saw little of Guy, although he came very often to church, sitting as stiff and awkward, she thought, as a bra.s.s knight on a tomb. However, it pleased her greatly Guy should come to church, since it pleased her family. Yet that was least of all the true reason, and Pauline used to send the angels that came to visit her down through the church to visit Guy; her simple faith glowed with richer illumination when she thought of him in church, and while her mother and Monica tried to pull the Wychford choir through the notation of Solesmes, and while Margaret knelt apart in carved abstraction, Pauline prayed that Guy would all his life wish to keep Holy Week with her like this.
Pauline hurried through a shower to church on Easter Morning, and shook mingled tears and raindrops from herself when she saw that Guy was come to Communion. So then that angel had travelled from her bedside last night to hover over Guy and bid him wake early next morning, because it was Easter Day. With never so holy a calm had she knelt in the jewelled shadows of that chancel or retired from the altar to find her pew imparadised. When the people came out of church the sun was shining, and on the trees and on the tombstones a mult.i.tude of birds were singing.
Never had Pauline felt the spirit of Eastertide uplift her with such a joy, joy for her lover beside her, joy for Summer close at hand, joy for all the joy that Easter could bring to the soul.
There were Easter eggs at breakfast dyed yellow, blue and purple. There were new white trumpet daffodils for the Rector to gaze at. There was satisfaction for Monica in having defeated for ever Anglican chants, and for Margaret a letter from Richard, though, to be sure, she did not seem so glad of this as Pauline would have wished. There was all that happy scene and a new quartet for her mother; and for Guy and herself there was a long walk this afternoon to wherever they wanted to go.
At the beginning of the week Monica and Margaret went away on a visit, to which they set out with the usual lamentations now redoubled because they suddenly realized it was universal holiday time. With her two eldest daughters away from the Rectory, Mrs. Grey was no match for Pauline; so she and Guy had a week of freedom, wandering over the country where they willed.
Wychford down saw them, and the water-meadows of the western valley. The road to Fairfield knew their footsteps, and they even went to tea with Mr. and Mrs. Ford, who talked of Richard out in India and bemoaned the inferiority of their garden to the Rector"s. They wandered by treeless roads that led to the hills, and to the gra.s.sy solitudes that seemed made to be walked over hand in hand. Once they went as far as the forest of Wych, a wild woodland that lay remote from any village and where along the glades myriads of primroses stared at them. Yet, though that day had seemed to Pauline almost more delicately fair than any of their days, it ended dismally with April in black misfeature, and before they reached home they were wet through.
By ill luck her mother met her just as she was hurrying up to her room.
"Pauline," she said with a good deal of agitation. "I must forbid these walks with Guy every day. Wet to the skin! Oh dear, how careless of him to take you so far. You must be reasonable and unselfish. It"s so difficult for me. Father asked where you were this afternoon, and I had to pretend to be deaf. He notices more than you think. Now really Guy must not come for a week, and there must be no more walks."