of love—and therefore to be skipped by all those
who are tired of the subject
above the knoll the afternoon sun hung in a golden mist. the heat veiled it, and the blue of the surrounding sky faded into golden shadows near its circle and swept in a vast arc to limitless distance. the knoll, humped like a camel’s back, stood out a vivid green against the darker wall of trees behind it. far below, the white sand of the cove caught the sun and shone like a pearl, and beyond it was the blue carpet of the sea.
morelli sat, cross-legged, on the knoll. in his hands was his flute, but he was staring straight below him down on to the cove. he waited, the air was heavy with heat; a crimson butterfly hovered for a moment in front of him and then swept away, a golden bee buzzed about his head and then lumbered into the air. there was silence; the trees stood rigid in the heat.
suddenly morelli moved. two black specks appeared against the white shadows of the beach; he began to play.
punch was lying on the cliff asleep. to his right, curving towards the white sand, was a sea-pool slanting with green sea-weed down into dark purple depths. the sun beat upon the still surface of it and changed it into burning gold. below this the sea-weed flung green shadows across the rock. it reflected through the gold the straight white lines of the road above it, and the brown stem, sharp like a sword, of a slender poplar. it seemed to pass through the depths of the pool into endless distance. besides the green of the sea-weed and the gold of the sun there was the blue of the sky reflected, and all these lights and colours mingled and passed and then mingled again as in the curving circle of a pearl shell. everything was metallic, with a hard outline like steel, under the blazing sun.
tony turned the corner and came down the hill. he was in flannels and carried in one hand a large tea-basket. his body, long and white, was reflected in the green and blue of the pool. it spread in little ripples driven by a tiny wind in white shadows to the bank.
he was whistling, and then suddenly he saw toby and punch asleep in the grass. he stopped for a moment in the road and looked at them. then he passed on.
the white sand gleamed and sparkled in the sun; the little wind had passed from the face of the pool, and there was no movement at all except the very soft and gentle breaking of tiny waves on the sand’s edge. a white bird hanging for the moment motionless in the air, a tiny white cloud, the white edge of the breaking ripples, broke the blue.
tony sat down. from where he was sitting he could see the town rising tier upon tier into a peak. it lay panting in the sun like a beast tired out.
the immediate problem was whether morelli or miss minns would come. a tiny note in a tiny envelope had arrived at the “man at arms” that morning. it had said:
dear mr. gale,
thank you so very much. it is charming of you to ask us. we shall be delighted to come.
yours sincerely
janet morelli.
it wasn’t like her, and short though it was he felt sure that somebody had watched her whilst she did it. and “we”? for whom did that stand? he had felt so sure in his heart of hearts that no one except janet would come that he was, at first, bitterly disappointed. what a farce the whole thing would be if anyone else were there! he laughed sarcastically at the picture of miss minns perched horribly awry at the end of the boat, forcing, by her mere presence, the conversation into a miserable stern artificiality. and then suppose it were morelli? but it wouldn’t be, of that he was sure; morelli had other things to do.
he glanced for a moment up to the cliff where punch was. he didn’t want the whole town to know what he was about. punch could keep a secret, of course, he had kept a good many in his time, but it might slip out; not that there was anything to be ashamed of.
as a matter of fact, he had had some difficulty in getting away from the hotel; they had been about him like bees, wanting him to do things. he had noticed, too, that his mother was anxious. since the day of the picnic she had watched him, followed him with her eyes, had evidently longed to ask him what he was going to do. that, he knew, was her code, that she should ask him nothing and should wait; but he felt that she was finding the waiting very difficult. he was quite sure in his own mind that alice had spoken to her, and, although he would give everything in the world to be pleasant and easy, he found, in spite of himself, that he was, when he talked to her, awkward and strained. there was something new and strange in her attitude to him, so that the old cameraderie was quite hopelessly gone, and the most ordinary conventional remark about the weather became charged with intensest meaning. this all contrived to make things at the hotel very awkward, and everyone was in that state of tension which forced them to see hidden mysteries in everything that happened or was said. the lesters had been barely on speaking terms at breakfast time and maradick hadn’t appeared at all.
then, when the afternoon had come, his mother had asked him to come out with them. he had had to refuse, and had only been able to give the vaguest of reasons. they knew that he was not going with mr. maradick, because he had promised to walk with mr. lester. what was he going to do? he spoke of friends in the town and going for a row. it had all been very unpleasant. life was, in fact, becoming immensely complicated, and if miss minns were to appear he would have all this worry and trouble for nothing.
he gazed furiously at the hard white road. the pool shone like a mirror; the road, the poplar, the sky were painted on its surface in hard vivid outline. suddenly a figure was reflected in it. some one in a white dress with a large white hat, her reflexion spread across the length of the pool. the water caught a mass of golden hair and held it for a moment, then it was gone.
tony’s eyes, straining towards the hill, suddenly saw her; she was alone. when he saw her his heart began to beat so furiously that for a moment he could not move. then he sprang to his feet. he must not be too sure. perhaps miss minns was late. he watched her turn down the path and come towards him. she was looking very cool and collected and smiling at him as she crossed the sand.
“isn’t it a lovely day?” she said, shaking hands. “i’m not late, am i?”
“no, i was rather early;” and then, suddenly, “is miss minns coming?”
“oh, no,” janet laughed, “it was far too hot. she is sleeping with all the curtains drawn and the doors and windows shut. only i’m not to be late. oh, dear! what fun! where’s the boat?”
the excitement of hearing that she really was alone was very nearly too much for tony. he wanted to shout.
“oh, i say, i’m so glad. no, i don’t mean to be rude really; i think miss minns awfully decent, simply ripping” (this, i am afraid, due to general pleasure rather than strict veracity), “but it would have put a bit of a stopper on the talking, wouldn’t it? and you know there are simply tons of things that i want to talk about. the boat’s round here, round the corner over these rocks. i thought we’d row to mullin’s cave, have tea, and come back.”
they moved across the sand.
punch had woke at the sound of voices and now was staring in front of him. he recognised both of them. “the couple of babies,” he said, and he sighed.
and at that precise moment some one else came down the path. it was alice du cane. she carried a pink parasol. her figure lay for a moment on the surface of the pool. she was looking very pretty, but she was very unhappy. they had asked her to go out with them, but she had refused and had pleaded a headache. and then she had hated the gloom and silence of her room. she knew what it was that she wanted, although she refused to admit it to herself. she pretended that she wanted the sea, the view, the air; and so she went out. she told herself a hundred times a day that she must go away, must leave the place and start afresh somewhere else. that was what she wanted; another place and she would soon forget. and then there would come fierce self-reproach and miserable contempt. she, alice du cane, who had prided herself on her self-control? the kind of girl who could quote henley with satisfaction, “captain of her soul?” at the turn of the road she saw punch and toby; then across the white sand of the cove two figures.
he said good-day, and she smiled at him. then for a moment she stopped. it was tony, she could hear his laugh; he gave the girl his hand to cross the rocks.
“a beautiful day, isn’t it?” she said to punch, and passed down the road.
they found the boat round the corner of the rocks lying with its clean white boards and blue paint. it lay with a self-conscious air on the sand, as though it knew at what ceremony it was to attend. it gurgled and chuckled with pleasure as it slipped into the water. whilst he busied himself with the oars she stood silently, her hands folded in front of her, looking out to sea. “i’ve always wanted to know,” she said, “what there is right out there on the other side. one used to fancy a country, like any child, with mountains and lakes, black sometimes and horrible when one was in a bad mood, and then, on other days, beautiful and full of sun. . . .”
they said very little as the boat moved out; the cove rapidly dwindled into a shining circle of silver sand; the rocks behind it assumed shapes, dragons and mandarins and laughing dogs, the town mounted like a pyramid into the sky and some of it glittered in the light of the sun like diamonds.
janet tried to realise her sensations. in the first place she had never been out in a boat before; secondly, she had never been really alone with tony before; thirdly, she had had no idea that she would have felt so silent as she did. there were hundreds of things that she wanted to say, and yet she sat there tongue-tied. she was almost afraid of breaking the silence, as though it were some precious vase and she was tempted to fling a stone.
tony too felt as though he were in church. he rowed with his eyes fixed on the shore, and janet. now that the great moment had actually arrived he was frightened. whatever happened, the afternoon would bring tremendous consequences with it. if she laughed at him, or was amazed at his loving her, then he felt that he could never face the long dreary stretches of life in front of him; and if she loved him, well, a good many things would have to happen. he realised, too, that a number of people were bound up with this affair of his; his mother, alice, the maradicks, even the lesters.
“they didn’t mind your coming alone?” he said at last.
“oh, no, why should they?” she said, laughing. “besides, father approves of you enormously, and i’m so glad! he’s never approved of anyone as a companion before, and it makes such a difference.”
“is he kind to you?”
“father! why, of course!”
“are you fond of him?”
“why do you want to know?”
“i must know; i want to know all about it. we can’t be real friends unless there’s complete confidence. that’s the best of being the ages we are. as things are, we can’t have very much to hide, but later on people get all sorts of things that they have done and said that they keep locked up.”
“no,” said janet, smiling, “i haven’t got anything to hide. i’ll try and tell you all you want to know. but it’s very difficult, about father.”
“why?” said tony.
“well, you see, i haven’t known other people’s fathers at all, and up to quite lately i didn’t think there was anything peculiar about mine, but just lately i’ve been wondering. you see there’s never been any particular affection, there hasn’t been any question of affection, and that’s,” she stopped for a moment, “that’s what i’ve been wanting. i used to make advances when i was quite tiny, climb on his knee, and sometimes he would play, oh! beautifully! and then suddenly he would stop and push me aside, or behave, perhaps, as though i were not there at all.”
“brute!” said tony between his teeth, driving the oar furiously through the water.
“and then i began to see gradually that he didn’t care at all. it was easy enough even for a girl as young as i was to understand, and yet he would sometimes be so affectionate.” she broke off. “i think,” she said, looking steadily out to sea, “that he would have liked to have killed me sometimes. he is so furious at times that he doesn’t in the least know what he’s doing.”
“what did you do when he was like that?” asked tony in a very low voice.
“oh, one waits,” she said very quietly, “they don’t last long.”
she spoke dispassionately, as though she were outside the case altogether, but tony felt that if he had morelli there, in the boat with him, he would know what to do and say.
“you must get away,” he said.
“there are other things about him,” she went on, “that i’ve noticed that other people’s fathers don’t do. he’s wonderful with animals, and yet he doesn’t seem really to care about them, or, at least, he only cares whilst they are in certain moods. and although they come to him so readily i often think that they are really afraid as i am.”
she began to think as she sat there. she had never spoken about it all to anyone before, and so it had never, as it were, materialised. she had never realised until now how badly she had wanted to talk to some one about it.
“oh, you have been so fortunate,” she said, a little wistfully, “to have done so many things and seen so many people. tell me about other girls, are they all beautiful? do they dress beautifully?”
“no,” he said, looking at her. “they are very tiresome. i can’t be serious with girls as a rule. that’s why i like to be with you. you don’t mind a fellow being serious. girls seem to think a man isn’t ever meant to drop his grin, and it gets jolly tiresome. because, you know, life is awfully serious when you come to think about it. i’ve only realised,” he hesitated a moment, “during this last fortnight how wonderful it is. that’s, you know,” he went on hurriedly, “why i really like to be with men better. now a fellow like maradick understands what one’s feeling, he’s been through it, he’s older, and he knows. but then you understand too; it’s jolly funny how well you understand a chap.”
he dropped his oars for a moment and the boat drifted. they were rounding the point, and the little sandy beach for which they were making crept timidly into sight. there was perfect stillness; everything was as though it were carved from stone, the trees on the distant hill, the hanging curtain of sky, the blue mirror of the sea, the sharply pointed town. a flock of white sheep, tiny like a drifting baby cloud, passed for a moment against the horizon on the brow of the hill. there was a very faint sound of bells.
they were both very silent. the oars cut through the water, the boat gave a little sigh as it pushed along, there was no other sound.
they sat on the beach and made tea. tony had thought of everything. there was a spirit lamp, and the kettle bubbled and hissed and spluttered. tony busied himself about the tea because he didn’t dare to speak. if he said the very simplest thing he knew that he would lose all self-control. she was sitting against a rock with her dress spread around her.
she looked up at him with big, wide-open eyes.
“your name is tony, isn’t it?” she said.
“yes,” he answered.
“i suppose it is short for anthony. i shall call you tony. but see, there is something that i want to say. you will never now, after we have been such friends, let it go again, will you? because it has been so wonderful meeting you, and has made such a difference to me that i couldn’t bear it. if you went away, and you had other friends and—forgot.”
“no, i won’t forget.”
he dropped a plate on to the sand and came towards her.
“janet.” he dropped on to his knees beside her. “i must tell you. i love you, i love you, janet. i don’t care whether you are angry or not, and if you don’t feel like that then i will be an awfully decent friend and won’t bother you about love. i’ll never talk about it. and anyhow, i ought, i suppose, to give you time; a little because you haven’t seen other fellows, and it’s not quite fair.”
he didn’t touch her, but knelt on the sand, looking up into her face.
she looked down at him and laughed. “why, how silly, tony dear, i’ve loved you from the first moment that i saw you; why, of course, you must have known.”
their hands touched, and at that moment tony realised the wonderful silence and beauty of the world. the sea spread before them like a carpet, but it was held with the rocks and sand and sky in breathless tension by god for one immortal second. nature waited for a moment to hear the story that it had heard so often before, then when the divine moment had passed the world went on its course once more. but in that moment things had happened. a new star had been born in the sky, the first evening star, and it sparkled and glittered above the town; in the minstrels’ room at that moment the sun shone and danced on the faces of the lions, beneath the tower the apple-woman paused in her knitting and nodded her head solemnly at some secret pleasant thought, on the knoll the birds clustered in chattering excitement, far on the horizon a ship with gleaming sails rose against the sky.
“janet, darling.” he bent down and kissed her hand. then he raised his face, hers bent down to his—they kissed.
half an hour later they were in the boat again; she sat on the floor with her head against his knee. he rowed very slowly, which was natural, because it was difficult to move the oars.
the evening lights began to creep across the sky, and the sun sank towards the horizon; other stars had stolen into the pale blue sky; near the sea a pale orange glow, as of a distant fire, burned. the boat shone like a curved and shining pearl.
tony had now a difficult business in front of him. the situation had to be made clear to her that his people must not be told. he was quite resolved within himself in what way he was going to carry the situation through, but he could not at all see that she would consider the matter in the same light. it would take time and considerable trouble to convey to her a true picture of the complicated politics of the gale family.
“janet, dear,” he said, “we have now to be sternly practical. there are several things that have to be faced. in the first place, there is your father.”
“yes,” she said, a little doubtfully.
“well, how will he take it?”
“i don’t know.” she looked up at him and laid her hand very lightly upon his knee. the yellow light had crept up from the horizon, and was spreading in bands of colour over the sky; the sea caught the reflexion very faintly, but the red glow had touched the dark band of country behind them and the white road, the still black trees were beginning to burn as though with fire.
“well,” said tony, “of course i shall tell him at once. what will he say?”
“i don’t know. one never can tell with father. but, dear, must you? couldn’t we wait? it is not that i mind his knowing, but i am, in some way, afraid.”
“but he likes me,” said tony; “you told me yourself.”
“yes, but his liking anybody never means very much. it’s hard to explain; but it isn’t you that he likes so much as something that you’ve got. it is always that with everybody. i’ve seen it heaps of times. he goes about and picks people up, and if they haven’t got the thing he’s looking for he drops them at once and forgets them as soon as he can. i don’t know what it is that he looks for exactly, but, whatever it is, he finds it in the animals, and in the place even; that’s why he lives at treliss.”
janet was very young about the world in general, but about anything that she had herself immediately met she was wise beyond her years.
she looked at him a moment, and then added: “but of course you must speak to him; it is the only thing to do.”
“and suppose,” said tony, “that he refuses to give his consent?”
“oh, of course,” janet answered quietly, “then we must go away. i belong to you now. father does not care for me in the least, and i don’t care for anyone in the world except you.”
her calm acceptance of the idea that he himself had intended to submit to her very tentatively indeed frightened him. his responsibility seemed suddenly to increase ten-fold. her suggesting an elopement so quietly, and even asserting it decisively as though there were no other possible alternative, showed that she didn’t in the least realise what it would all mean.
“and then, of course,” she went on quietly, “there are your people. what will they say?”
“that’s it, dear. that’s the dreadful difficulty. they mustn’t be told at all. the only person in the family who really matters in the least is my mother, and she matters everything. the governor and my brother care for me only as the family, and they have to see that that isn’t damaged.”
“and they’d think that i’d damage it?” said janet.
“yes,” said tony, quietly, “they would. you see, dear, in our set in town the two things that matter in marriage are family and money. you’ve got to have either ancestors or coin. your ancestors, i expect, are simply ripping, but they’ve got to be in debrett, so that everyone can look them up when the engagement’s announced. it isn’t you they’d object to, but the idea.”
“i see; well?”
“well, if mother knew about it; if it was public she’d have to support the family, of course. but really in her heart of hearts what she wants is that i should be happy. she’d much rather have that than anything else; so that if we are married and it’s too late for anyone to say anything, and she sees that we are happy, then it will be all right, but she mustn’t know until afterwards.”
tony stopped, but janet said nothing. then he went on: “you see there was a sort of idea with people, before we came down here, that i should get engaged to some one. it was more or less an understood thing.”
“was there, is there anyone especially?” asked janet.
“yes; a miss du cane. we’d been pals for a long time without thinking about marriage at all; and then people began to say it was time for me to settle down, and rot like that—and she seemed quite suitable, and so she was asked down here.”
“did you care about her?”
“oh! like a friend, of course. she’s a jolly good sort, and used to be lots of fun, but as soon as all this business came into it she altered and it became different. and then i saw you, and there was never more any question of anyone else in all the world.”
tony dropped the oars and let the boat drift. he caught her golden hair in his hands and twined it about his arm. he bent down and touched her lips. she leaned up towards him and they clung together. about them the sea was a golden flame, the sky was a fiery red, the country behind them was iron black. the boat danced like a petal out to sea.
then, with her arm about his neck, janet spoke again. “your father would like you to marry this lady?” she asked.
“yes. he thinks that i am going to.”
“ah! now i understand it all. you cannot tell them, of course; i see that. we must do it first and tell them afterwards. and father will never consent. i am sure of it. oh, dear! what fun! we must go away secretly; it will be an elopement.”
“what a ripping rag!” said tony eagerly. “oh! darling, i was so afraid that you would mind all those things, and i didn’t want to tell you. but now that you take it like that! and then, you see, that’s where maradick comes in.”
“mr. maradick?”
“yes. he’s really the foundation-stone of the whole affair. it’s because mother trusts him so absolutely completely that she’s feeling so safe. he knows all about it, and has known all about it all the time. mother depends on him altogether; we all depend on him, and he’ll help us.”
the sun lay, like a tired warrior, on the breast of the sea; the clouds, pink and red and gold, gathered about him. the boat turned the creek and stole softly into the white shelter of the cove. above the heads of the lovers the stars glittered, about them the land, purple and dark with its shadows, crept in on every side. some bell rang from the town, there was the murmur of a train, the faint cry of some distant sheep.
their voices came softly in the dusk:
“i love you.”
“janet!”
“tony!”
the night fell.
