the next day was the day janet had promised to have tea with quentin at redpale farm. she had prepared for it carefully, telling her brothers she was going shopping in east grinstead, and would not be home till late.
as soon as dinner was over, she slipped upstairs to dress. she was in a state of fever, and for the first time thought of her clothes. she had never troubled about them when she went to meet quentin in the woods, but now she was going to his house—a thrill ran through her; she had never in her life been inside redpale farm, but now she would see the room where quentin sat and thought of her in the long, dark evenings—which he had told her of so often—when the stars crawled through veils of wrack, and the wind piped down the valley of the hammer ponds.
memories of his few pronouncements on clothes rose to guide her. he liked her to come to him as a fragment of the day on which he waited. to-day was a brown day, hiding under rags of mist from a pale, sun-washed sky—so she put on a brown dress, of a long-past fashion, and mended in places, but beautiful in clinging folds about her—and in her breast she pinned the last yellow rose of the garden.
[pg 76]
"good-bye, janey," called len from the orchard.
"good-bye," sang out nigel.
she waved her hand to them, not trusting herself to speak.
as soon as she was out of sight, she climbed into the fields, and walked across them to old surrey hall. here were the tangled borders of kent—she plunged through a hedge of elder and crack-willow, and was in the next county. quentin always used to say that there was a difference between the three counties, even where they touched in this corner. surrey was park-like, and more sophisticated than the other two; one had wide, green spaces and dotted trees. sussex was moor-like, covered with wild patches and pines, hilly and bare; kent was untidy, tangled and lush, full of small, twisting lanes, weighted orchards and huddled farms. janet passed the flat gable-end of anstiel, buried in the thickets of its garden, and came out on the gated road. this wound down the valley of the hammer ponds to redpale, scarlets and clay. it was seldom used, as there were gates every few hundred yards to prevent the cattle from straying, and in winter the hammer ponds sometimes overflowed.
redpale was the first of the valley farms, and stood in a reed-grown hollow beside a wood. it was an old house, with a carnival of reds in its huge, sloping roof. janet stole quickly through the yard and came up the garden to the door. it was opened before she reached it, and quentin seized her hands.
[pg 77]
"you've come at last—i've been watching for you."
he dragged her into the passage, banged the door, and kissed her in the dark.
"come into the study," he cried eagerly. "come and hallow me a hundred lonely evenings in one hour."
he took her into a low, book-lined room, where a fire was burning. a chair was pulled up to the fire, and over it was spread a gorgeous eastern rug.
"you're to sit there, janey. i prepared that rug for you—it has your tintings, your browns and whites and reds. sit down, and i'll sit at your feet."
she sat down, but before he did so, he fetched a jug of chrysanthemums, and put them on the table beside her.
"now you're posed, janey sweet—posed for me to gaze at and worship. you don't know how often i've dreamed of you in that chair, with old oak at your back, flowers at your elbow, and firelight in your eyes. one night i really thought i saw you there, and i fell at your knees—as i do now—and took your hand—as i do now. but it was only a dream, and i sat on in my own chair and watched our two fetches sitting there before me, you in the chair and i at your feet."
he kissed her hands repeatedly, and his poor, hot kisses seemed to drain love and pity in a torrent from her heart.
"quentin, i'm so glad i came. is this where[pg 78] you sit in the evenings? now i shall know how to imagine you when i think of you after supper."
"'when you think of me after supper'—you quaint woman! how funnily you speak!"
he laughed, and hid his face in her knees. but the next moment his head shot up tragically.
"i've bad news for you, dear."
"oh, what is it?..."
"baker has returned my poems."
"oh!..."
"yes—there they are."
he pointed to the grate, where one or two fragments of charred paper showed among the cinders.
she bowed her face over his.
"i thought you were happy when i came."
"happy! of course i was happy when you came. janey, if you come to me on my death-bed, i'll be happy—if you come to me in hell, i'll sing for joy."
"did baker write about the poems?"
"no—only a damned printed slip; he doesn't think 'em worth a letter. it's all over with me, janey—with us both. i'll never be good for anything—i'm a rotter, a waster, a spring poet. we're both done for—our love isn't any more use."
"can't you hope, dear?"
"can you?"
she began to cry.
she had always fought hard against tears when she was with quentin, but this afternoon her disappointment was too bitter. she realised the sour facts to which hope and trust had long blinded[pg 79] her—that quentin would never win his independence, and therefore that marriage with him was impossible till his father's death. she saw how much she had unconsciously relied on baker's acceptance of the poems, their last hope. quentin's words had scattered a crowd of little delicate dreams, scarcely realised while she entertained them, known only as they fled like angels from the door. after those three weary years of waiting she had dreamed of being his at last—his wife, his housemate—no longer meeting him in the dark corners of woods, but his before the world, honoured and acknowledged. now that dream was shattered—the three weary years would become four weary years, and the four, five—and on and on to six and seven. the woods would still rustle with their stealthy footsteps, their tongues still burn with lies ... she covered her face, and wept bitterly—with all the impassioned weakness of the strong.
"oh, i'm so ashamed...."
"why?"
"because i'm crying. but, quentin, i feel broken, somehow. our love's so great, and we're parted by such little things."
"janey, janey...."
she sobbed more dryly now—anguish was stiffening her throat.
"must we wait all those years?" he whispered.
"what else can we do?"
he whispered again. "must we wait all those years?"
[pg 80]
she lifted her face, understanding him suddenly.
"quentin, you and i must do nothing to—degrade our love."
"but it's degraded already—it's thwarted, and all thwarted things are degraded. if we fling aside our fears and triumph over circumstances, then it will be exalted, not degraded."
she did not speak.
"janey," he continued, his voice muffled in her hands, which he held against his mouth. "you and i have been locked out of paradise—but we can climb over the gates."
she was still silent. quentin had never spoken to her so openly before—after earlier disappointments he had sometimes hinted what he now expressed; but his love had never made her tremble; violent as it was, it was reverent.
"janey ... will you climb over the gates of paradise with me?"
"no, dear."
"why?"
"because our love's not that sort."
"it's the sort that waits and is trampled on."
"it's strong enough to wait."
"how white your face is, janey!—you speak brave words, but you're trembling."
"yes, i'm trembling."
"because you're not speaking the truth; you're lying—in the face of love. you see plainly that if you and i wait till we can marry, we shall wait for ever. our only chance is to take matters into our own hands, and let circumstances and opportunities be damned. you make out that you're[pg 81] denying love for its own good—that's another lie. 'wait,' you say, because you're afraid. why, what have we been doing all these years but 'wait'?—wait, wait; wait till our hearts are sick and our hopes are dust. if we wait any longer our love will die—and then will you find much comfort in the thought that we have 'waited'?"
"but there's the boys, quentin."
an oath burst from young lowe.
"the boys! the boys!—that's your war-cry, janey. i'm nearly sick of it now. and how appropriate!—your brothers are such models of good behaviour, ain't they?"
"don't, quentin—it's for that very reason...."
"yes," he said bitterly, "i remember how your reasons go—the boys have their secrets, so you must be without one; the boys have made a pretty general hash of law and order, so you must be a kind of sunday-school ma'am. really, janet!"
"you don't understand what it is to live with people who think you ever so much better than you really are—you have to keep it up somehow."
"but surely you don't think you'll be committing a crime by giving our love a chance. you can't be such a prude as to stickle for a ceremony—a few lines scribbled, a few words muttered."
"it wouldn't be so bad if that were all. but it's no good trying to prove that you're simply offering me marriage with the ceremony left out. in some cases that might be true, but not in ours. you can't give the name of marriage to a few hurried meetings, all secrecy and lies. things are[pg 82] bad enough as they are, without adding—that mockery."
quentin sighed.
"you're an extraordinary woman, janey; you breathe the pure spirit of recklessness and paganism—and then suddenly you give vent to feelings that would become hesba stretton. you're a moralist at bottom—every woman is. there's no use looking for the greek in a woman—they're all semitic at heart, every one of 'em. you'll begin to quote the ten commandments in a minute."
janey said nothing, and for some time they did not move. the wind rushed up to the farmhouse, blustered round it, and sighed away. the sunshine began to slant on the woods, tarnishing their western rims.
then suddenly the kettle began to sing. they both lifted their heads as they heard it—it reminded them of the meal they were to have together.
"janey, will you make tea?"
she stood up quickly as his arms fell from her waist. this sudden, most domestic, diversion was a relief. she began to prepare the meal, and he crouched by the fire and watched her.
"you shall pour out tea, love—then we'll do things in the grand style, and smash the tea-pot."
while she waited for the tea to draw she came over to the mirror above the fireplace and began to arrange her hair. the firelight played on her as she stood there, her arms lifted, her head thrown back, half her face in shadow, half flushed in the glow.
"janey, you are the symbol of love—all light[pg 83] and darkness and disarray. it's cruel of you to stand like that—it's profane. for you're not love, you're morality."
"it's funny, quentin, but you never can understand my reasons for what i do—it's because they're not poetic enough, i suppose."
"you don't seem to have any reasons at all—only a moral sense."
he rose and went to sit at the table, resting his chin on his hands. she came behind him and bent over him.
"dear one, i've seen such a lot of unhappy love that i've made up my mind ours shall be different.... i refuse you because i love you too much."
quentin sighed impatiently.
"if i did what you ask," continued janey tremulously, "our love would die."
"nonsense!—how dare you say such things! why should it die?"
"i—i don't know—but i'm sure it would. oh, quentin, i know you don't understand my reasons, because i really haven't given them to you properly. they're things i feel more than things i know."
she went and sat down opposite him, and began to pour out tea.
"let's talk of something that isn't love."
he laughed.
"let's breathe something that isn't air. everything's love—if we talked about flowers, or books, or animals, or stars, we should be talking about love. without love even our daily newspapers wouldn't appear."
[pg 84]
"then don't let's talk of anything—let's hold our tongues."
"very well, janey."
he smiled at the simplicity of the woman who thought she could silence love by holding her tongue.
for some minutes they sat opposite each other, swallowing scalding tea, crumbling cake upon their plates. their first meal together, on which they had both set such store, had become an ordeal of mistrust and silence. the sunset was now ruddy on the woods, and the sky became full of little burning wisps of cloud, like brands flung out of the west. they hurried over the sky, and dropped behind a grass-grown hill in the east, crowding after one another, kindling from flame to scarlet, from scarlet to crimson. the wind came and fluttered again round the house—darkness began to drop into the room. outside, a rainbow of colours gleamed and flashed in the sunset, as it struck the hammer ponds and the wet flowers of the garden—but the window looked east, and there was nothing but the firelight to wrestle with the shadows that crept from the corners towards the table. soon the table with the food on it became mysterious, gloomed with shadows and half-lights—then the dimness crept up the bodies of quentin and janey, leaving only their white faces staring at each other. they had given up even the pretence to eat—their eyes were burning, and yet washed in tears.
suddenly janey sprang to her feet.
"i must go."
[pg 85]
"go—why, it's barely five."
"but i must."
he rose hurriedly. for a moment they faced each other over the unfinished meal, then quentin came towards her.
"you're frightened, janey?"
"yes."
"of me?"
"no."
"but of yourself...."
she began to tremble violently, and suddenly his arms were round her, her sobs shaking them both.
"my little janey...."
"quentin, quentin ... be merciful ... i'm in your power."
he looked down into her drowning eyes, at the pure outlines of her face, seen palely through the dusk.
"i'm in your power," she repeated vaguely.
"janey ... janey," he whispered, "you're in my power ... but i'm in love's. love is stronger than either of us—and love says 'over the gates!—over the gates!'"
