However, the 1st of February arrived next morning, and Oxford was left behind. Pauline sighed with relief when they were seated in the train, and the twenty miles of country to Shipcot that generally seemed so dull were as green and welcome as if they were returning from a Siberian exile.
"You know, Monica, I really don"t think we ought to stay with people. I don"t think it"s honest to spend such a hateful week as that in being pleasant," she declared.
"I didn"t notice that you were taking much trouble to hide your boredom," said Monica. "It seems to me that I was always in a state of trying to steer people round your behavior."
"Oh, but Professor Stretton loves me," said Pauline.
She was trying not to appear excited as the omnibus swished and slapped through the mud towards Wychford. She was determined that in future she would lead that inclosed and so serene life which she admired in her eldest sister. n.o.body could criticize Monica except for her coldness, and Pauline knew that herself would never be able to be really as cold as that, however much she might a.s.sume the effect.
"Grand weather after the snow," said the driver.
The roofs of Wychford were sparkling on the hillside, and earth seemed to be turning restlessly in the slow Winter sleep.
"This mud"ll all be gone with a week of fine days like to-day," said the driver.
Plashers Mead was in sight now, but it was Monica who pointed to where Guy and his dog were wandering across the meadows that were so vividly emerald after the snow.
"I think it is," agreed Pauline, indifferently.
In the Rectory garden a year might have pa.s.sed, so great was the contrast between now and a week ago. Now the snowdrops were all that was left of the snow, and a treasure of aconites as bright as new guineas were scattered along the borders. Hatless and entranced, the Rector was roaming from one cohort of green spears to another, each one of which would soon be flying the pennons of Spring. Pauline rushed to embrace him, and he, without a word, led her to see where on a sunny bank Greek anemones had opened their deep-blue stars.
"_Blanda_," he whispered. "And I"ve never known her so deep in color.
Dear me, poor old Ford tells me he hasn"t got one left. I warned him she must have sun and drainage, but he would mix her with _Nemorosa_ just to please his wife, which is ridiculous--particularly as they are never in bloom together."
He bent over and with two long fingers held up a flower full in the sun"s eye, as he might have stooped to chuck under the chin a little girl of his parish.
Monica had brought back a new quartet, which they practised all that Candlemas Eve. When it was time to go to bed Mrs. Grey observed in a satisfied voice that, after all, it must have been charming at the Strettons".
"Oh no, Mother; it was terribly dull," Pauline protested.
"Now, dear Pauline, how could it have been dull, when you"ve brought back this exquisite Schumann quartet?"
Margaret came to Pauline"s room to say good night, sat with her while she undressed, and tucked her up so lovingly that Pauline was more than ever delighted to be back at home.
"Oh, Margaret, how sweet you are to me! Why? Is it because you really do miss me when I go away?"
"Partly," said Margaret.
"Why are you smiling so wisely? Have you put something under my pillow?"
Pauline began to search.
"There"s nothing under your pillow except all the thoughts I have to-night for you."
Once more Margaret leaned over and kissed her, and Pauline faded into sleep upon the happiness of being at home again.
Next day after lunch her mother and sisters went to pay a long-postponed call upon a new family in the neighborhood, because Margaret insisted they must take advantage of this glorious weather which would surely not last very long.
Pauline spent the early afternoon with the Rector and Birdwood, writing labels while they sowed a lot of new sweet-peas which had been sent to the Rector for an opinion upon their merits. The clock was striking four when Guy strolled into the garden. Somehow Pauline"s labels were not so carefully written after his arrival, and at last the Rector advised her to take Hazlewood and show him _Anemone blanda_. They left the big wall-garden and went across the lawn in front of the house to the second wall-garden, where most of the Rector"s favorites grew as it pleased them best.
"Oh, they"ve all gone to bed," said Pauline.
Guy knelt down and opened the petals of one.
"They"re exactly the color of your eyes," he said, looking up at her.
Pauline was conscious that the simple statement was fraught with a significance far greater than anything which had so far happened in her life. It was ringing in her ears like a bugle-call that sounded some far-flung advance, and involuntarily she drew back and began to talk nonsense breathlessly, while Guy did not speak. Nor must she let him speak, she told herself, for behind that simple comparison how many questions were trembling!
"Oh, I wonder if the others are back yet," she finally exclaimed, and forthwith hurried from the garden towards the house. She wished she must not look back over her shoulder to see Guy following her so gravely. Of course, when they were standing in the hall, the others had not come back; and the house in its silence was a hundred times more portentous than the garden. And what would Guy be thinking of her for bringing him back to this voicelessness in which she could not any longer talk nonsense? Here the least movement, the slightest gesture, the most ordinary word, would be weighted for both of them with an importance that seemed unlimited. For the first time the Rectory was strangely frightening; and when through the silent pa.s.sages they were walking towards the nursery it was the exploration of a dream. Yet, however undiscoverable the object that was leading them, she was glad to see the nursery door, for there within would surely come back to her the ease of an immemorial familiarity. Yet in that room of childhood, that room the most bound up with the simple progress of her life, she found herself counting the birds, berries, and daisies upon the walls, as if she were beholding them vaguely for the first time. Why was she unpicking Margaret"s work or folding into this foolish elaboration of triangles Monica"s music. And why did Guy behave so oddly, taking up all sorts of unnatural positions, leaning upon the rickety mantelshelf, balancing himself upon the fender, pleating the curtains, and threading his way with long legs in and out, in and out of the chairs?
"Pauline!"
He had stopped abruptly by the fireplace, and was not looking at her when he spoke. Oh, he would never succeed in lifting even from the floor that match which with one foot he was trying to lift on to the other foot.
"Pauline!"
Now he was looking at her; and she must be looking at him, for there was nothing on this settee which would give her a good reason not to look at him. The room was so still that beyond the closed door the hoa.r.s.e tick of the cuckoo-clock was audible; and what was that behind her which was fretting against the window-pane? And why was she holding with each hand to the brocade, as if she feared to be swept altogether out of this world?
"Pauline!"
Was it indeed her voice on earth that said "yes"?
"Pauline, I suppose you know I love you?"
And she was saying "yes."
"Pauline, do you love me?"
And again she had said "yes...."
Outside in the corridor the cuckoo snapped the half-hour; then it seemed to tick faster and a thousand times faster. She must turn away from Guy, and as she turned she saw that what had been fretting the window-pane was a spray of yellow jasmine. Upon the cheek that was turned from him the dipping sun shed a warm glow, but the one nearer was a flame of fire.
"Pauline!"
He had knelt beside her in that moment; and, leaning over to his nearness, Pauline looked down at her hand in his, as if she were gazing at a flower which had been gathered.
SPRING
MARCH
The doubts and the joys of the future broke upon Guy with so wide and commingled a vision, that before the others got home and even before Janet came in with tea, he hurried away from that nursery, where over the half-stilled echoes of childhood he had heard the sigh of Pauline"s a.s.sent. The practical side of what he had done could be confronted to-morrow, and with a presage of hopelessness the word might have lain heavily upon his mind, if on the instant of sinking it had not been radiantly winged with the realization of the indestructible spirit that would henceforth animate all the to-morrows of time. No day could now droop for him, whatever the difficulties it brought, whatever the hazards, when he had Pauline and Pauline"s heart; and like disregarded moments the years of their life went tumbling down into eternity, as the meaning of that sighed-out a.s.sent broke upon his conscience with fresh glory.