"Not for me." ... And no more.
In a couple of minutes the Major was out again.
"Only had one packet left," he said, and with an air of extreme punctiliousness and magnanimity replaced one penny in Frank"s hand. He had the air of one who is insistent on the little honesties of life.
There was also a faintly spirituous atmosphere about him, and his eyes looked a little less sunken.
Then he handed over the cigarettes.
"Shouldn"t mind one myself," he said genially.
Frank gave him one before lighting his own.
"You"re a good sort," said the Major, "and I wish I could give you one of my old cigars I used to give my friends."
"Ah! well, when your ship comes home," observed Frank, throwing away his match.
The Major nodded his head as with an air of fallen grandeur.
"Well," he said, "_vorwarts_. That means "forward," my dear," he explained to Gertie.
Gertie said nothing. They took up their bundles and went on.
(V)
It was not till a week later that Gertie did that which was to effect so much in Frank--she confided in him.
The week had consisted of the kind of thing that might be expected--small negligible adventures; work now and then--the Major and Frank working side by side--a digging job on one day, the carrying of rather dingy smoke-stained hay on another, the sc.r.a.ping of garden-paths that ran round the small pink house of a retired tradesman, who observed them magnificently though a plate-gla.s.s window all the while, with a cigar in his teeth, and ultimately gave them ninepence between them.
They slept here and there--once, on a rainy night, in real lodgings, once below a haystack. Frank said hardly a word to Gertie, and did little more than listen to the Major, who was already beginning to repeat himself; but he was aware that the girl was watching him.
The crisis came about under circ.u.mstances that might be expected--on a rather sentimental kind of Sunday evening, in a village whose name I forget (perhaps it was Escrick) between Selby and York. Frank had made a small excursion by himself in the morning and had managed to hear ma.s.s; they had dined well off cold bacon and beans, and had walked on in the afternoon some miles further; and they came to the village a little after six o"clock. The Major had a blister, which he had exhibited at least four times to the company, and had refused to go further; and as they came to the outskirts of the village, volunteered to go and look for shelter, if the two would wait for him at a stile that led across fields to the old church.
The scene was rather like the setting of the last act in a melodrama of a theater on the Surrey side of the Thames--the act in which the injured heroine, with her child, sinks down fainting as the folk are going to church in the old village on a June evening among the trees--leading up to moonlight effects and reunion. There was no organ to play "off," but the bells were an excellent subst.i.tute, and it was these that presently melted the heart of Gertie.
When the Major had disappeared, limping, the two climbed over the stile and sat down with their bundles under the hedge, but they presently found that they had chosen something of a thoroughfare. Voices came along presently, grew louder, and stopped as the speakers climbed the stile. The first pair was of a boy and girl, who instantly clasped again mutual waists, and went off up the path across the field to the churchyard without noticing the two tramps; their heads were very near together.
Then other couples came along, old and young, and twice a trio--one, two young men in black, who skirmished on either side of a very sedate girl in white; one, two girls who shoved one another, and giggled, walking in step three yards behind another young man with his hat on one side, who gloried in being talked at and pretended to be rapt in abstraction. Then some children came; then a family--papa walking severely apart in a silk hat, and mamma, stout and scarlet-faced, in the midst of the throng.
Finally there came along a very old Darby and Joan, who with many Yorkshire e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns helped one another over the stile, and moved on with bent heads, scolding one another affectionately. It was as this last couple reached the spot where the path ran into the corn that the peal of four bells broke out, and Gertie broke down.
Frank had not been noticing her particularly. He was gloomy himself; the novelty of the whole affair had gone; the Major was becoming intolerable, and Frank"s religion was beginning to ebb from his emotions. Ma.s.s this morning had not been a success from an emotional point of view; he had had an uncomfortable seat on a pitch-pine bench in a tin church with an American organ; the very young priest had been tiresome and antipathetic.... Frank had done his best, but he was tired and bored; the little church had been very hot, and it was no longer any fun to be stared at superciliously by a stout tradesman as he came out into the hot sunshine afterwards.
Just now he had been watching the figures make their appearance from the stile, re-form groups and dwindle slowly down to the corn, and their heads and shoulders bob along above it--all with a kind of resentment.
These people had found their life; he was still looking for his. He was watching, too, the strangely unreal appearance of the sunlit fields, the long shadows, the golden smoky light, and the church tower, set among cypresses half a mile away--yet without any conscious sentiment. He had not said a word to Gertie, nor she to him, and he was totally taken by surprise when, after the first soft crash of bells for evening service, she had suddenly thrown herself round face forward among the gra.s.ses and burst out sobbing.
"My dear girl!" said Frank, "whatever"s the matter?" Then he stopped.
Fortunately, the procession of worshipers had run dry, and the two were quite alone. He sat upright, utterly ignorant of what to say. He thought perhaps she was in pain ... should he run for the Major or a doctor?...
Then, as after a minute or two of violent sobbing she began a few incoherent words, he understood.
"Oh! I"m a wicked girl ... a wicked girl ... it"s all so beautiful ...
the church bells ... my mother!"
He understood, then, what had precipitated this crisis and broken down the girl"s reserve. It was, in fact, exactly that same appeal which holds a gallery breathless and tearful in the last act of a Surrey-side melodrama--the combination of Sunday quiet, a sunset, church bells, a.s.sociations and human relationships; and Gertie"s little suburban soul responded to it as a bell to a bell-rope. It was this kind of thing that stood to her for holiness and peace and purity, and it had gone clean through her heart. And he understood, too, that it was his presence that had allowed her to break down. The Major"s atmosphere had held her taut so far. Frank was conscious of a lump in his own throat as he stared out, helpless, first at the peaceful Sunday fields and then down at the shaking shoulders and the slender, ill-clad, writhed form of Gertie.... He did not know what to do ... he hoped the Major would not be back just yet. Then he understood he must say something.
"Don"t cry," he said. "The Major--"
She sat up on the instant in sudden consternation, her pretty, weak, sunburned face disfigured with tears, but braced for the moment by fear.
"No, no," said Frank; "he isn"t coming yet; but--"
Then she was down again, moaning and talking. "Oh!... Oh!... I"m a wicked girl.... My mother!... and I never thought I should come to this!"
"Well, why don"t you chuck it?" said Frank practically.
"I can"t!... I can"t! I ... I love him!"
That had not occurred to this young man as a conceivable possibility, and he sat silenced. The church-bells pealed on; the sun sank a little lower; Gertie sobbed more and more gently; and Frank"s mind worked like a mill, revolving developments. Finally, she grew quiet, lay still, and, as the bells gave place to one of their number, sat up. She dabbed at her eyes with a handful of wet gra.s.s, pa.s.sed her sleeve across them once or twice, and began to talk.
"I ... I"m very silly, Frankie," she said, "but I can"t help it. I"m better now. Don"t tell George."
"Of course I shan"t!" said Frank indignantly.
"You"re a gentleman too," said Gertie. (Frank winced a little, interiorly, at the "too.") "I can see that you"re polite to a lady. And I don"t know however I came to tell you. But there it is, and no harm"s done."
"Why don"t you leave him?" said Frank courageously. A little wave of feeling went over her face.
"He"s a gentleman," she said.... "No, I can"t leave him. But it does come over you sometimes; doesn"t it?" (Her face wavered again.) "It was them bells, and the people and all."
"Where"s your home?"
She jerked her head in a vague direction.
"Down Londonwards," she said. "But that"s all done with. I"ve made my bed, and--"
"Tell me plainly: does he bully you?"
"Not to say bully," she said. "He struck me once, but never again."
"Tell me if he does it again."
A small, sly, admirative look came into her eyes. "We"ll see," she said.
Frank was conscious of a considerable sense of disappointment. The thing had been almost touching just now, as the reserve first broke up, but it was a very poor little soul, it seemed to him, that had at last made its appearance. (He did not yet see that that made it all the more touching.) He did not quite see what to do next. He was Christian enough to resent the whole affair; but he was aristocratic enough in his fastidiousness to think at this moment that perhaps it did not matter much for people of this sort. Perhaps it was the highest ideal that persons resembling the Major and Gertie could conceive. But her next remark helped to break up his complacency.