"You mustn"t give up your music and your pigeons."
They both laughed at the absurd conjunction.
"How can I play when I"m thinking of you always, every second? Why, when I do anything but think of you, every object and every word floats away as it does when I"m tired and trying to keep awake in a big room."
"You can play to me," he argued, "even when I"m not there."
"Guy darling, I do, I do; but you"ve no idea how hopelessly playing to an absent lover destroys the time."
The memory of Mr. Hazlewood"s visit was soon lost in the celebration of their anniversary month. As they had promised themselves in Summer, they went on moonlit expeditions to gather mushrooms; and at the waning of the moon they rose early on many milkwhite dawns instead, when the mushrooms at such an hour were veritably the spoil of dew, gleaming in their baskets under veils of gossamer. On these serene mornings the sound of autumnal birdsong came to them out of misted trees, so that they used to talk of the woods in the next Springtime, themselves moving about the wan vapours with that very air of people who scarcely live in the present. There was in this plaintive music of robins and thrushes a regret for the days of Summer spent together that were now pa.s.sed away, and yet a more robust melody might have affronted the wistful air of these milkwhite dawns. The frail notes of the birds hinted at silence beyond, and through the opalescent and transuming landscape Guy and Pauline floated in fancy once more down the young Thames from Ladingford. The sad stillness of the year"s surrender to decline admonished them to garner these hours, making a ghost even of the sun as if to warn them of the fleeting world, the covetous and furtive world.
They wonderfully enjoyed these hours, but Pauline when at breakfast the mushrooms came fizzling to the table could never believe that she had been with Guy, and she used often to be discontented on being reminded by her mother of how much of the day she had already spent in his company. Looking back at these immaterial mornings of autumnal mist, she saw them upon the confines of sleep: silvery s.p.a.ces they seemed that were not robbed from any familiar time.
There was during all this month a certain amount of congratulation which had to be endured, and Margaret was angry one day because Mr. and Mrs.
Ford came over from Little Fairfield and alluded at tea to their hope of Richard and her soon being engaged. Pauline was naturally subject to the inquisitiveness of everybody, but as she could not without being absent-minded talk about anything except Guy, she found the general curiosity not very troublesome. Guy, however, resented this atmosphere of enquiry and was always more and more anxious to carry her out of reach of Wychford gossip.
One day in mid-October they had set out together with the intention of taking a long walk to the open upland country on the other side of the town, when, as they were going up High Street, they saw two of the local chatterboxes.
"I will not stop and talk to Mrs. Brydone and Mrs. Willsher," Guy grumbled. "Let"s cut up Abbey Lane."
They turned aside and were making their way to the path that led under the Abbey wall to the high road, when they saw Dr. Brydone and his son coming from that direction.
"Really, there"s a conspiracy of Brydones to waylay us this afternoon,"
Guy exclaimed petulantly. "We shall have to go through the Abbey grounds."
Pauline had pa.s.sed the wicket, which he had impulsively flung open, before she realized the violation of one of her agelong rules.
"It"s really rather jolly in here to-day," said Guy. "I think we"re duffers not to come more often, you know."
The autumn wind was booming round the plantation, and sweeping up the broad path down the hillside with a skelter of leaves that gave a wild gaiety to the usually tristful scene.
"Why shouldn"t we explore inside?" suggested Guy. "There"s something so exhilarating about this great West wind. Almost one could fancy it might blow away that ghost of a house."
Pauline hesitated: since earliest childhood the Abbey had oppressed her with ill omen, and she could not overcome her prejudice in a moment.
"You"re not really afraid when you"re with me?" he persisted.
Pauline surrendered, and they went across the etiolated lawn toward the entrance. The wind was roaring through every crevice, and the ivy was scratching restlessly at the panes or shivering where through the gaps it had crept in with furry tendrils.
"It"s rather fun to be walking up this staircase as if this were our own house," said Guy.
Pauline had an impulse to go back, and she made a quick step to descend.
"Where are you going?"
"Guy, I think I feel afraid."
"Afraid of what?"
"Oh, not of anything. Just afraid."
"Come, foolish one," he whispered gently.
And she, though it was against her will, followed him up the echoing empty stairs.
They went into every room, and Guy declared how they with their love were restoring to each of them the life it had known in the past. Here was a pleasant fancy, and Pauline hoped it might be true. In the thought that their presence was in a way the bestowal of charity on these maltreated halls she lost much of her alarm and began to enjoy the solitude spent with Guy. Whether they looked out at the wilderness that once was a garden or at the rank lawn in front, the thunderous wind surging round the house brought them closer together in the consciousness of their own shelter and their own peace in this deserted habitation.
"Now, confess," said Guy. "Haven"t we been rather stupid to neglect such a refuge?"
"But, Guy, we haven"t needed a refuge very often," objected Pauline, who for all that she was losing some of her dread of the Abbey was by no means inclined to set up a precedent for going there too often.
"Not yet," he admitted. "But with winter coming on and the wet days that will either keep us indoors or else prevent us from doing anything but walk perpetually along splashy roads, we shan"t be sorry to have a place like this to which we can retreat in comparative comfort."
"Oh, Guy," Pauline asked anxiously. "I suppose we ought to come here?"
"Why on earth not?"
"Don"t be angry. But the idea just flashed through my mind that perhaps Mother wouldn"t like us to come here very often."
He sighed deeply.
"Really, sometimes I wonder what is the good of being engaged. Are we for ever to be hemmed in by the conventions of a place like Wychford?"
"Oh, but I expect Mother wouldn"t mind really," said Pauline, rea.s.suring herself and him. "I"m always liable to these fits of doubt. Sometimes I feel quite weighed down by the responsibility of being grown up."
She laughed at herself, and the laughter ringing through the hollow house seemed to return and mock her with a mirthless echo.
"Oh, Guy," she exclaimed. "Oh, Guy, I wish I hadn"t laughed then. Did you hear how strangely it seemed as if the house laughed back at me?"
She had gripped his arm, and Guy startled by her gesture exclaimed rather irritably that she ought to control her nerves.
"Well, don"t let"s stay in this room. I don"t like the green light that the ivy is giving your face."
"What next?" he grumbled. "Well, let"s go out on the balcony."
They went half way downstairs to the door that opened on a large bal.u.s.traded terrace with steps leading from either end into the ruined garden. The wind beat against them with such force here that very soon they went back into the house, and Guy found a small room looking out on the terrace, in which he persuaded Pauline to come and sit for a while.
All the other rooms in the house had been so dreadfully decayed, so much battered by every humiliation time could inflict upon them that this small parlour was in contrast positively habitable. It gave the impression of being perhaps the last place to which the long vanished owners had desperately held. There was a rusty hob-grate and in the window a deep wooden seat; while the walls were still painted with courtly scenes, and the inlaid wooden floor gave a decency which everywhere else had been destroyed by the mouldering boards.
"I say, it would be fun to light a fire some time," said Guy. "This is just the room for us."
"It"s rather a frightening room," said Pauline doubtfully.
"Dearest, you insist on being frightened by everything this afternoon,"
he answered.
"No, but this room is frightening, Guy," she persisted. "This seems so near to being lived in by dead people."
"And what can dead people do to you and me?" he asked with that sidelong mocking smile which she half disliked, half loved.