i have been here before,
but when or how i cannot tell.
sudden light.
"my dearest dear, will you come for a little walk?"
"muy se?ora mia, with all the pleasure in life."
lettice, who was stooping over a new kitten which she had adopted since the departure of geraldine, straightened herself and looked at gardiner with a discouraging expression. they were at the back of the house; she had been about to climb the steep hill orchard to watch the sunset when her minute friend charged out of the kitchen door, on her weak little legs no thicker than matches, with her tiny triangular tail flourishing in the air. lettice had not, however, expected her host to follow directly on the kitten's heels.
he stood there laughing. "it's time for your evening constitutional. you haven't been out once since denis went off. he left you in my charge; i shan't feel i'm doing my duty if i don't accept your very pressing invitation."
"i was not speaking to you," said lettice deliberately.
he only laughed again.
"i know that; you never do speak to a christian if you can possibly get out of it, do you? give me that atom. no, i won't hurt her; i've some milk for her here—she was just going to drink it when she heard your welcome footstep and affection was too much for her. come on, vidita mia."
dexterously, even tenderly, he detached the clinging claws from lettice's shoulder, and set down the mite at the saucer. the little head nodded over it, sniffing tentatively, and then[pg 95] out came a minute pink tongue and she began to lap, crouching down and crooning a contented purr. lettice liked the way gardiner lifted out a paw which had insinuated itself into the saucer, and stroked one finger down four inches of tabby spine. then he looked up.
"as a matter of fact, i've an errand on hand, at the farm where we get our milk. will you come with me? i wish you would. i'm bored of my own company."
"is it far?" asked lettice defensively.
"mile. don't come if you're fagged, but sacrifice yourself to oblige a fellow-creature if it's only laziness—or unsociability."
"well," said lettice, permitting herself the hint of a smile. she liked again the quick way he picked himself up, taking her at her word to the instant.
"come on, then. there's only just time; i've masses of letters to write before the post goes, and i know you aren't going to be hurried."
for all his quickness (and he was instinctively quick and light in every movement), lettice found him a more considerate companion than denis, who walked her off her legs. their way led up through the steep hill orchard to the grassy hill-side above. once he stopped and turned to help her over the rough ground, but when she silently avoided seeing his extended hand, he did not offer it again. denis, rooted in his old-fashioned courtesy, had never learned to leave her alone. this was a very different type of mind; less restful, because more perceptive. when they reached the crest of the hill he pulled up. lettice tried to persuade herself it was not done to let her get her breath, but she was quite sure it was.
"see that hedge over there?" he said, pointing across the expanse of level silvery grass. "well, you'd never think it, but beyond that it's nothing but arable flats, beet and cabbages and potatoes, all the way to rochehaut. anything duller you can't imagine. and yet under this very spot where we're standing there's a cave that's never been explored, running lord knows how deep into the hill. [pg 96]stalactites and stalagmites and an underground river. i went in once with my torch, but i had to come back—too unsafe. some day i'll have that place shored up and made accessible, and charge five francs for admission, like the caves of han. leg-up for the bellevue, what? i like this sort of mixed grill, you know, wild and tame together—i like all this country. no, not that way—there's some view from the crucifix you see against the sky-line, but we haven't time for it to-night. along here, through the wood."
lettice looked round, before following him into the copse of starveling firs, and gorse, and ragged heather. from where they stood, a little below the crucifix, they could not see the valley; only the silvery undulating hill-side, and the evening sky, and the grasses leaning sidelong in the wind. it was lonely and bare enough to please her. "are you going to stop here?" she asked.
"i am. d.v. what? oh yes, i'm pious in my way, especially when i get off alone among these hills. i believe i belong here—sort of ancestral feeling; talking of which, i'll show you something rather queer at the farm when we get there. yes, i'm going to stay, if i'm let." he walked on, twirling his stick in the air. "last time i was up here it was with miss o'connor," he added irrelevantly.
lettice was a good deal surprised; she thought she understood now why he had not wished to come alone. she had not been told, but she knew, as well from his looks as from dorothea's headlong flight, that the explosion had come. gardiner might keep up his laugh, that eternal laugh which grated on a sensitive ear like the squeaking of a pen, but he could not hide the change in his features, pinched and sharpened by suffering. suffering—yes—pain: physical pain, that was what his face betrayed: not grief. his dark eyes—they were, the poet decided, like the depths of a pine-wood: dark blackish-brown, with undertones of dark green—were like those of a dog that has been run over. no one else seemed to notice anything wrong; at the pension one woman had remarked casually that mr. gardiner was looking seedy, that was all; but then no one but lettice held the key.
[pg 97]
if his frankness surprised her, it surprised himself more, for he had by no means intended to mention dorothea. he sheered off the subject in a hurry. "i've been up here most evenings lately," he said. "madame hasquin has a bureau on which i've set my heart; she means me to have it in the end, but i can't get her to terms. no, it's not the money, it's the fun—sheer delight in bargaining. i don't mind. it's rather jolly up here in the evenings, you get the sunset; and it's soul-refreshingly lonely. this wood—you'd never guess there was a house within five minutes, would you? stand still a moment."
he laid his hand on her arm to detain her, and the silence fell on them like a pall. not a leaf stirred; the firs raised their black spikes rigid against the sky, some erect, some doubled and contorted like ogres. brambles, crouching low, thrust out long stealthy clutching claws across the track. the sky was golden, and gold were the strips of water lying in the ruts, winding away to the open hill and safety; but the wood was dark, dark, and already in its depths, here and there, a glow-worm had lit its tiny keen speck of unearthly fire, glass-green, steady, burning but unconsumed. "that's the way to the cave," murmured gardiner, his voice dropping, his grip tightening on her arm. "cosas de brujas—witches, i mean. never tell me a wood isn't alive!"
he meant it. lettice, who professed to be stolid, found herself responding to his fancy with an involuntary thrill. there was something wrong about the place; it had its finger on its lip; it seemed to hold a secret of its own, to threaten them with it, to jeer at their unforeseeing ignorance.
the silence was broken by a sudden outburst of merry childish laughter and the sharp barks of a dog. gardiner laughed too, releasing her. "and now come on. round this corner—mind the gate, it'll pinch your fingers, better let me. there: what do you think of that?"
they were clear of the wood and out on the open hill-side, looking down into a valley, a green crease among velvet-green hills softly molded, falling away to a line of trees, among which tinkled the crystal cascades of a brook. on[pg 98] the upward slope beyond rose a group of buildings. a round squat tower, a line of loopholed wall; the low white front of a dwelling-house, rising among golden ricks; the flickering brightness of a bonfire, a tall, slender ribbon of golden incandescence, burning in a golden fume, gilding the dark branches of the orchard, loosing flakes of flame and drifts of lavender-gray smoke into the lavender-blue of the sky. two children and a dog were dancing round it, feeding it with masses of golden bracken; it was their laughter which had broken into the enchanted wood.
"when the bellevue started life as a convent, that was the convent farm," said gardiner. "fortified—lord, yes, they needed forts in those days; it dates from spanish times. didn't you know that? there's not much of the old stuff left in my bellevue, bar the gateway and the salle, which is substantially the old refectory. but that old tower down there is pretty much as it was in the beginning. ferme de la croix, they call it; convent of the holy cross, you'd say, but i don't myself believe that's the origin of the name. come on down and i'll show you."
lettice had not contributed much in words to the conversation, but she had done her part for all that, in following the quick turns of his mind. they went down, crossed a bridge built of slabs of uncut stone, and were greeted at the door by a woman of fifty who looked seventy. she had not a tooth in her head; it was hard to believe she was the mother and not the grandmother of the two tow-headed children. "eh, monsieur, quelles nouvelles?" but the sweetness of her smile redeemed the plainness of her face.
gardiner followed her down a white passage, not one line of which was true, into a low-pitched, pleasant living-room, with scarlet geraniums in the window. there beside the open hearth stood the bureau, black as bog oak and richly carved, with shining brass handles on drawers that slipped in and out at the touch of a finger. madame chattered in her abominable walloon french, gardiner laughed and argued back; it was sadly plain to lettice, who could distinguish such niceties, that he had picked up the accent of[pg 99] the country. there are disadvantages in being imitative. they came to the question of price, and lettice, feeling herself de trop, withdrew to the open door. she waited there, between rose and crimson hollyhocks, making love to a lean flanked sandy cat who rushed effusively out of the stable-yard, and reared herself on hind legs to press her hard head against the visitor's hand. the children had disappeared, but their voices were heard in the orchard. in the west, soft bluish clouds were floating on lakes of burning rose. a big star was born above the dark spires of the enchanted wood, keen silver in the faint and fading gold.
gardiner came out in high good-humor. "you've brought me luck," he said. "madame's given in at last. i've had my eye on the bureau ever since the first time i came up here—haven't i, madame? and now, when's the four-poster coming? when i've been at you about it for another couple of years—is that the idea?"
"jamis, ja-mais," said madame, vigorously shaking her head, laughing all over her wrinkles. "non, monsieur, non. je tiens à mon lit, savez-vous!"
"et moi aussi, j'y tiens, et je vas l'avoir, savez-vous?" gardiner laughed back, cheerfully ungrammatical. he laid his hand again on lettice's arm—a small elegant brown hand: in nothing was he more un-english than in the shape and size of his hands and feet: lettice looked down on it with an insulted expression which was quite wasted, as he wheeled her round to face the house—"here's what i said i'd show you; it really is rather queer. that stone above the arch—do you see?"
the farm had a square-shouldered doorway; the headpiece was a single massive block of stone. deep carved thereon, in the same old-fashioned numerals which appeared on the lintel of the bellevue, was the same date: 1548. above the date was lettering, moss-grown and indistinct.
"can you read it?" asked gardiner.
was there anything requiring eyes which lettice could not read? "manuel de la cruz," she spelt out.
"cruz," gardiner corrected her, giving to the "z" its soft[pg 100] castilian lisp. "now i do not in the least believe the convent, and consequently this farm, was dedicated to the holy cross. i believe it was named for its founder. but the odd part of the story is that it's my name as well. my mother was half spanish—born florentina de la cruz; and i'm called after her: henry de la cruz gardiner."
"well, that is queer," said lettice, for once with conviction.
"isn't it? there aren't so many traces left of the spanish occupation; i call it something of a coincidence that that should have survived, and that i should come on it—should actually take over and settle down in the house built by my namesake. of course it's a not uncommon name in spain, but it does set one thinking. and see here, too." he dragged her across to the tower. the gateway was half ruinous; one of the jambs had fallen, bringing some of the stones along with it, and others seemed ready to follow. "no, this isn't war's alarms, though as a matter of fact i have found a cannon ball embedded in the barn. jules backed the engine into it the other day. this lintel's all cock-eye, but you can still see the cross and initials—can you?—carved on the end here." he was tracing out the mark.
"take care!" said lettice suddenly.
she was too late. the stone above—perhaps he had brushed against it; at any rate, it settled down, quietly and inexorably, grinding his hand between itself and the block below. lettice's arm sprang out; she could be quick on occasion, but he was quicker still. "no! keep off!" he cried out, instantly fending her off, shouldering her out of the way; and in the same breath he inserted the point of his stick into the crevice. a very slight leverage, and the upper stone tipped and fell to the ground, in a shower of dust and rubble. he drew away his hand and stepped back. "they ought to have that seen to, i'll warn madame," he said. "it's jolly dangerous, with those kids about."
"you've hurt yourself," said lettice.
"yes, i've done myself proud this time," he said, and[pg 101] coolly put his hand behind his back. "don't look at it, it isn't pretty. i'll cut in and get some warm water out of madame, and do it up."
he turned and walked off to the house. unfortunately, in turning he forgot that his hand was behind him, and lettice saw it. it was dripping blood; he left his trail across the golden straw to the door. lettice stayed where she was. she was not going where she was not wanted. she felt a little sick; not for the sight of blood, but in sympathy with him. she had seen him change color. yet he was cool enough; she could hear his voice inside, answering madame's exclamation as lightly as ever. presently he came out again, with a white-bandaged paw, and a face not much less pallid than the linen.
"thanks so much for not fussing," he said. "i had a gay ten minutes with madame; i thought she was going to embrace me. let's get on home now, do you mind? all this bobbery has taken the dickens of a time, and i've masses of things still to do before dinner."
lettice fell in beside him without a word. for once in her life, she walked fast. gardiner was silent too, twirling his stick in his left hand instead of the right. they had reached the hill of the crucifix, and were descending the orchard, before lettice opened her lips.
"you won't be able to write your letters. how will you manage?"
he shrugged his shoulders. "make shift with my left hand, i suppose."
"you'd better let me do them for you."
"it's nearly eight o'clock. time for you to have your supper and go to by-by."
"i don't always go to bed at nine," said lettice.
"would you really be so good as to do it, for once?"
"of course."
"servidor de ustéd, se?orita," said gardiner, "que sus piés besa—your servant, madam, who kisses your feet: i don't know why i want to talk spanish to you, but i undoubtedly do—i shall be inexpressibly grateful."
