Her little figure in its cloak, among the dark yews, was hardly to be seen in the dusk. The garden was silence itself, and the gate in the wall was open. Once on the road beside the river she could hardly restrain herself from running, so keen was the air, so free and wide the evening solitude. All things were at peace; nothing moved but a few birds and the tiniest intermittent breeze. Overhead, great thunderclouds kept the sunset; beneath, the blues of the evening were all interwoven with rose; so, too, were the wood and sky reflections in the gently moving water. In some of the pools the trout were still lazily rising; pigeons and homing rooks were slowly pa.s.sing through the clear s.p.a.ce that lay between the tree-tops and the just emerging stars; and once Laura stopped, holding her breath, thinking that she saw through the dusk the blue flash of a kingfisher making for a nest she knew. Even in this dimmed light the trees had the May magnificence--all but the oaks, which still dreamed of a best to come. Here and there a few tufts of primroses, on the bosom of the crag above the river, lonely and self-sufficing, like all loveliest things, starred the dimness of the rock.
Laura"s feet danced beneath her; the evening beauty and her pa.s.sionate response flowed as it were into each other, made one beating pulse; never, in spite of qualms and angers, had she been more physically happy, more alive. She pa.s.sed the seat where she and Helbeck had lingered on Easter Sunday; then she struck into a path high above the river, under spreading oaks; and presently a little bridge came in sight, with some steps in the crag leading down to it.
At the near end of the bridge, thrown out into the river a little way for the convenience of fishermen, was a small wooden platform, with a railing, which held a seat. The seat was well hidden under the trees and bank, and Laura settled herself there.
She had hardly waited five minutes, absorbed in the sheer pleasure of the rippling river and the soft air, when she heard steps approaching the bank. Looking up, she saw Mason"s figure against the sky. He paused at the top of the rocky staircase, to scan the bridge and its approaches.
Not seeing her, he threw up his hand, with some exclamation that she could not hear.
She smiled and rose.
As her small form became visible between the paleness of the wooden platform and a luminous patch in the river, she heard a cry, then a hurrying down the rock steps.
He stopped about a yard from her. She did not offer her hand, and after an instant"s pause, during which his eyes tried to search her face in the darkness, he took off his hat and drew his hand across his brow with a deep breath.
"I never thought you"d come," he said huskily.
"Well, certainly you had no business to ask me! And I can only stay a very few minutes. Suppose you sit down there."
She pointed to one of the rock steps, while she settled herself again on the seat, some little distance away from him.
Then there was an awkward silence, which Laura took no trouble to break.
Mason broke it at last in desperation.
"You know that I"m an awful hand at saying anything, Miss--Miss Fountain.
I can"t--so it"s no good. But I"ve got my lesson. I"ve had a pretty rough time of it, I can tell you, since last week."
"You behaved about as badly as you could--didn"t you?" said Laura"s soft yet cutting voice out of the dark.
Mason fidgeted.
"I can"t make it no better," he said at last. "There"s no saying I can, for I can"t. And if I did give you excuses, you"d not believe "em. There was a devil got hold of me that evening--that"s the truth on"t. And it was only a gla.s.s or two I took. Well, there!--I"d have cut my hand off sooner."
His tone of miserable humility began to affect her rather strangely. It was not so easy to drive in the nail.
"You needn"t be so repentant," she said, with a little shrinking laugh.
"One has to forget--everything--in good time. You"ve given Whinthorpe people something to talk about at my expense--for which I am not at all obliged to you. You nearly killed me, which doesn"t matter. And you behaved disgracefully to Mr. Helbeck. But it"s done--and now you"ve got to make up--somehow."
"Has he made you pay for it--since?" said Mason eagerly.
"He? Mr. Helbeck?" She laughed. Then she added, with all the severity she could muster, "He treated me in a most kind and gentlemanly way--if you want to know. The great pity is that you--and Cousin Elizabeth--understand nothing at all about him."
He groaned. She could hear his feet restlessly moving.
"Well--and now you are going to Froswick," she resumed. "What are you going to do there?"
"There"s an uncle of mine in one of the shipbuilding yards there. He"s got leave to take me into the fitting department. If I suit he"ll get me into the office. It"s what I"ve wanted this two years."
"Well, now you"ve got it," she said impatiently, "don"t be dismal. You have your chance."
"Yes, and I don"t care a haporth about it," he said, with sudden energy, throwing his head up and bringing his fist down on his knee.
She felt her power, and liked it. But she hurried to answer:
"Oh! yes you do! If you"re a man, you _must_. You"ll learn a lot of new things--you"ll keep straight, because you"ll have plenty to do. Why, it will "hatch you over again, and hatch, you different," as somebody said.
You"ll see."
He looked at her, trying hard to catch her expression in the dusk.
"And if I do come back different, perhaps--perhaps--soom day you"ll not be ashamed to be seen wi" me? Look here, Miss Laura. From the first time I set eyes on you--from that day you came up--that Sunday--I haven"t been able to settle to a thing. I felt, right enough, I wasn"t fit to speak to you. And yet I"m your--well, your kith and kin, doan"t you see? There can"t be no such tremendous gap atween us as all that. If I can just manage myself a bit, and find the work that suits me, and get away from these fellows here, and this beastly farm----"
"Ah!--have you been quarrelling with Daffady all day?"
She looked for him to fly out. But he only stared, and then turned away.
"O Lord! what"s the good of talking?" he said, with an accent that startled her.
She rose from her seat.
"Are you sorry I came to talk to you? You didn"t deserve it--did you?"
Her voice was the pearliest, most musical, and yet most distant of things. He rose, too--held by it.
"And now you must just go and make a man of yourself. That"s what you have to do--you see? I wish papa was alive. He"d tell you how--I can"t.
But if you forget your music, it"ll be a sin--and if you send me your song to write out for you, I"ll do it. And tell Polly I"ll come and see her again some day. Now good-night! They"ll be locking up if I don"t hurry home."
But he stood on the step, barring the way.
"I say, give me something to take with me," he said hoa.r.s.ely. "What"s that in your hat?"
"In my hat?" she said, laughing--(but if there had been light he would have seen that her lips had paled). "Why, a bunch of b.u.t.tercups. I bought them at Whinthorpe yesterday."
"Give me one," he said.
"Give you a sham b.u.t.tercup? What nonsense!"
"It"s better than nothing," he said doggedly, and he held out his hand.
She hesitated; then she took off her hat and quietly loosened one of the flowers. Her golden hair shone in the dimness. Mason never took his eyes off her little head. He was keeping a grip on himself that was taxing a whole new set of powers--straining the lad"s unripe nature in wholly new ways.
She put the flower in his hand.
"There; now we"re friends again, aren"t we? Let me pa.s.s, please--and good-night!"
He moved to one side, blindly fighting with the impulse to throw his powerful arms round her and keep her there, or carry her across the bridge--at his pleasure.
But her light fearlessness mastered him. He let her go; he watched her figure on the steps, against the moonlight between the oaks overhead.
"Good-night!" she dropped again, already far away--far above him.