by the time the coffee was made, and the porridge, and mary had emerged from the tent, washed and brushed and sparkling, she bethought her of the boy. “i’ll fetch him,” she told senhouse. “he must be fed.” senhouse nodded, so she went back to her g?te of the night. the boy had disappeared, and with him her cloak.
senhouse chuckled when he heard her faltered tale. “nature all over—bless her free way,” he said. “she’ll lap you like a mother—and stare you down for a trespasser within the hour. she takes her profit where she finds it, and if she can’t find it will cry herself to sleep. don’t you see that you were so much to the good for our friend? well, what have you to regret? you warmed him, cuddled him, fed him—and he’s gone, warmed, cuddled, and fed. you’ve been the bona dea—and he’s not a bit obliged to you; very likely he thinks you were a fool. perhaps you were, my dear; but i tell you, fools are the salt of the earth.”
“yes, i know,” mary said. “of course i don’t mind the cloak. he wanted it more than i did. but what will become of him—poor little pinched boy?”
senhouse picked up a bleached leaf of rowan—a gossamer leaf—and showed it to her. “what will become of that, think you? it all goes back again. nothing is lost.” he threw it up, and watched it drift away on the light morning wind. then, “come and have your breakfast,” he bade her.
as they ate and drank she found herself talking to him of matters which london might have shrieked to hear. but it seemed not at all strange that senhouse should listen calmly, or she candidly discuss them. he had not shown the least curiosity either to find her here or to know why she had come; in fact, after his question of “no trouble, i hope?” and her reply, he had become absorbed in what he had to do that day—the meal to be prepared, and the plantation of mariposa lilies which he was to show her. “the work of three years—just in flower for the first time. you’re lucky in the time of your visit—another week and you would have missed them.” but her need to speak was imperious, and so she gave him to understand.
she told him, therefore, everything which had been implied in former colloquies—and found him prepared to believe her. indeed, he told her fairly that when he had first heard from her that she was to marry john germain he recognized that she would not be married at all. “mind you,” he went on, “that need not have mattered a bit if the good man had had any other career to open to you. it was a question of that. you might have been his secretary, or his confidante, or his conscience, or his housekeeper. but he’s so damned self-contained—if you’ll forgive me for saying that—that he and the likes of him start in life filled up with everything except nature. there was really nothing for you to be to him except an object of charity. nor did he want you to be anything else. he actually bought you, don’t you see, so that he might do his benevolence comfortably at home. you were to be beneficiary and admiring bystander at once. and you must have made him extremely happy until you began to make use of his bounties, and learn by what you had to do without them. where was he then? it’s like a mother with a sucking child. she makes it strong, makes a man of it; and then, when it leaves her lap and goes to forage for itself, she resents it. what else could she expect? what else could germain expect? he gives you the uses of the world; you find out that you are a woman with parts; you proceed to exercise yourself—and affront him mortally. i’ll warrant that man quivering all over with mortification—but i am sure he will die sooner than let you know it.”
her eyes shone bright. “yes, that’s true. he is like that. well, but——”
senhouse went on, speaking between pulls at his pipe. he did not look at her; he looked at his sandalled feet.
“i may be wrong, but i do not see what you owe him that has not been at his disposal any day these two years and a half. i suppose, indeed, that the blessed law would relieve you—but by process so abominable and disgusting that a person who would seek that way of escape would be hardly fit to be let loose on the world. that being so, what are you to do? the fact is, germain’s not sane. one who misreads himself so fatally, so much at another’s expense, is not sane. then, i say, the world’s before you, if you have courage enough to face the policeman. he can’t touch you, you know, but he can stare you up and down and make you feel mean.” then he looked at her, kindly but coolly—as if to ask, well, what do you make of that? and if he saw what was behind her hot cheeks and lit eyes he did not betray the knowledge.
she could herself hardly see him for the mist, and hardly trust herself to speak for the trembling which possessed her. “oh, i would dare any scorn in the world, and face any hardships if—” but she bit her lip at that point, and looked away; he saw tears hover at her eyes’ brink.
presently he asked her, “what brought you up here to see me?” and she almost betrayed herself.
“do you ask me that?” her heart was like to choke her.
“well,” said he, “yes, i do.” she schooled herself—looked down and smoothed out the creases in her skirt.
“there’s some one—who wants me.”
“i can’t doubt it. well?”
she spoke fast. “he has—wanted me for a long time—since before i was married. perhaps i have given him reason—i didn’t mean to do that—but certainly he used to think that i belonged to him. i was very ignorant in those days, and very stupid—and he took notice of me, and i was pleased—so he did have some reason, i think. well, it all began again last year—imperceptibly; i couldn’t tell you how. and now he thinks that i still belong to him—and when i am with him i feel that i do. but not when i am away from him, or alone. i am sure that he does not love me; i know that i don’t love him. i feel humiliated by such a courtship; really, he insults me by his very look; and so he always did, only i couldn’t see it formerly. but now i do. i desire never to see him again—indeed, i dare not see him; because, if i do, i know what must happen. he is stronger than i, he is very strong. i know, i know very well that he could make me love him if i let him. you have no conception—how could you have? you don’t know what a woman feels when she is—when such a man as that—makes her love him. despair. but i must not—no, no, i would sooner die. i could never lift up my head again. slavery.” she shuddered, and shut her eyes; then turned quickly to senhouse. “oh, dear friend, i came to you because i was nearly lost one night. i had all but promised. i saw your sign in the road—or thought that i did—just in time, just in the nick of time. and when i saw it, though i had my letter to him in my hand, telling him where to find me the next day—do you know, i felt so strong and splendidly free that i posted the letter to him—and came straight here without any check—and found you. ah!” she said, straining her two hands together at the full stretch of her arms, “ah! i did well that time. because that very night when i was fighting for my life you were dreaming of me.” if senhouse had looked at her now he would have seen what was the matter with her. but he was sunk in his thoughts. “this fellow,” he said, broodingly, “this fellow—duplessis, i suppose?”
“yes.”
“i used to know duplessis—at cambridge. and i’ve seen him since. he’s not much good, you know.”
she was looking now at her hands in her lap, twisting her fingers about, suddenly bashful.
“but i think,” senhouse went on, in a level voice, “i think you had better go back and face him.”
she started, she looked at him full of alarm. “oh, don’t tell me to do that—i implore you. let me stay here a little while, until i’m stronger.” he smiled, but shook his head.
“no, no. too unconventional altogether. really i mean what i say. if you are to be free you must fight yourself free. there’s no other way. fight germain, if it is worth your while; but fight duplessis at all events. that is essential. bless you, you have only to tell him the truth, and the thing’s done.”
she was very serious. “i assure you, it is not. he won’t care for the truth; he won’t care what i tell him—no, don’t ask me to do that. it’s not—kind of you.”
senhouse got up. “let’s go and look at my lilies,” he said. “we’ll talk about your troubles again presently.” she jumped to her feet and followed him down the mountain.
he led her by a scrambling path round the face of great gable, and so past kirkfell foot into mosedale, bright as emerald. as they neared the mountains, he showed her by name the pillar, steeple and red pike, windy gap and black sail. high on the southern face of the pillar there was, he said, a plateau which none knew of but he. to reach it was a half-hour’s walk for her; but he encouraged her with voice and hand. there! he could tell her, at last; now she was to look before her. they stood on a shelf which sloped gently to the south. mary caught her breath in wonder, and gave a little shriek of delight. “oh, how exquisite! oh, how gloriously beautiful!” a cloud of pale flowers—violet, rose, white, golden yellow—swayed and danced in the breeze, each open-hearted to the sun on stalks so slender that each bell seemed afloat in air—a bubble of colour; she thought she had never seen so lovely a thing. senhouse, peacefully absorbing her wonder and their beauty, presently began to explain to her what he had done. “i had seen these perfect things in california, growing in just such a place; so when i lit on this plateau i never rested till i got what it was plainly made for. full south, you see; sheltered on the east and north; good drainage, and a peaty bottom. i had a hundred bulbs sent out, and put them in three years ago. no flowers until this year; but they’ve grown well—there are nearly two hundred of them out now. i’ve had to work at it though. i covered them with bracken every autumn, and kept the ground clean—and here they are! with luck, the tourists won’t light on them until there are enough and to spare. they are the worst. i don’t mind the natural history societies a bit; they take two or three, and publish the find—but i can stand that, because nobody reads their publications. the trippers take everything—or do worse. they’ll cut the lot to the ground—flowers and leaves alike; and, you know, you kill a bulb if you take its leaves. it can’t eat, poor thing—can’t breathe. now just look into one of those things—look at that white one.” she was kneeling before the bevy, and cupped the chosen in her two hands. “just look at those rings of colour—flame, purple, black, pale green. can such a scheme as that be matched anywhere? it’s beyond talk, beyond dreams. now tell me, have i done a good thing or not?”
she turned him a glowing face. “you ought to be very happy.”
he laughed. “i am happy. and so may you be when you please.”
“ah!” she looked ruefully askance. “i don’t know—i’m not sure. but if i am ever to be happy it will be by what you teach me.”
“my child,” said senhouse, and put his hand on her shoulder, “look at these things well—and then ask yourself, is it worth while troubling about a chap like duplessis, while god and the earth are making miracles of this sort every day somewhere?” thoughtful, serious, sobered, she knelt on under his hand.
“love between a man and a woman is just such a miracle—just as lovely and fragile a thing. but there’s no doubt about it, when it comes—and it ought not to be denied, even if it can be. when there’s a doubt, on either side—the thing’s not to be thought of. love’s not appetite—love is nature, and appetite is not nature, but a cursed sophistication produced by all sorts of things, which we may classify for convenience as over-eating. ‘fed horses in the morning!’ well, one of these days the real thing will open to you—and then you’ll have no doubt, and no fears either. you’ll go about glorifying god.” he felt her tremble, and instantly removed his touch from her shoulder. he sat on the edge of the plateau with his feet dangling. “let’s talk of real things,” he continued after a time, “not of feelings and symptoms. this is one of my gardens—but i can show you some more. above this plateau is another—just such another. i filled it with xiphion iris—what we call the english iris, although the fact is that it grows in spain. it’s done well—but is nearly over now. i just came in for the last week of it. and of course i’ve got hepaticas and auriculas and those sort of things all over the place—this mountain’s an old haunt of mine. but my biggest job in cumberland was a glade of larkspurs in a moraine of scawfell pike. i surpassed myself there. last year they were a sight to thank god for—nine feet high some of them, lifting up great four-foot blue torches off a patch of emerald and gold. i lay a whole morning in the sun, looking at them—and then i got up and worked like the devil till it was dark. . . .
“some brutal beanfeasters from manchester fell foul of them soon after—fell upon them tooth and claw, trampled them out of sight—and gave me three weeks’ hard work this spring. but they have recovered wonderfully, and if i have luck this year i sha’n’t fear even a glasgow holiday let loose on them.”
she was caressing the flowers, half kneeling, half lying by them. “go on, please,” she said when senhouse stopped. “tell me of some more gardens of yours.”
he needed no pressing, being full of his subject, and crowded upon her his exploits, with all england for a garden-plot. to her inexperience it seemed like a fairy tale, but to her kindling inclination all such wonders were fuel, and he could tell her of nothing which did not go to enhancing the magic in himself. peonies, he told her of, in a cornish cove opening to the sea—a five years’ task; and a niche on a dartmoor tor where he had coaxed caucasian irises to grow like wholesome weeds. tamarisks, like bushes afire, in a sandy bight near bristol—“i made the cuttings myself from slips i got in the landes”—wistaria in a curtain on the outskirts of an oak wood in the new forest. that had been his first essay—ten years ago. “you never saw such a sight—the trees look as if they were alight—wrapped in mauve flames. and never touched yet—and been there ten years!
“i’ve got the little tuscan tulip—clusiana is its name, a pointed, curving bud it has, striped red and white—growing well on a wooded shore in cornwall; i’ve got hepaticas on a welsh mountain, a pink cloud of them—and pyrennean auriculas dropping like rosy wells from a crag on the pillar rock. ain’t these things worth doing? they are worth all chatsworth to me!”
she caught his enthusiasm; her burning face, her throbbing heart were but flowers of his planting. once more she was splendidly conscious of discovery, of unsuspected distances seen from a height and once more exulted in the strength which such knowledge gave her. no education could have bettered this—an interest in life itself, in work itself. all that day she laboured by his side—digging, weeding, fetching and carrying in that sunny hollow of the hills. she cooked his meals and waited upon him; she grimed her hands, scratched and blistered them, tore her gown, blowsed herself, was tired, but too happy to rest. this, this was life, indeed.
towards dusk, after dinner, she was so tired that she could hardly keep her eyes open; and senhouse who had been watching her with shrewd amusement, bade her to bed. the tent was at her disposal, while she remained. slowly she obeyed him, unwillingly but without question. the day was fading to a lovely close; night, as it were, was drawing violet curtains over the dome of the sky. the great hills were intensely dark, and the valley between them and below lay shrouded in a light veil of mist. it was so quiet that they could hear the lingmell beck crisping over the pebbles or swishing between the great boulders; and once a fish leapt in a pool, and the splash he made was like a smack on the cheek.
mary obeyed slowly. she stood behind him where he sat watching all the still wonder of the dusk, hoping he would speak, afraid herself to break the spell of her own thoughts. she was excited, she felt the exquisite luxury of ease after toil; if she had dared she would have indulged her quivering senses. she could deceive herself no more; she had no need in the world which senhouse could not satisfy, and no chance of happiness unless he did. but she respected him more than she loved him; it never entered her head for a moment that it would be possible for her to draw such a man on. still she stayed, as if unable to leave him; his mere neighbourhood was balm to her fever.
so they remained for some unmeasured time, while the silence became crushing and the dark blotted out hill and hollow. she could not hear her heart beating, and the pulses in her temples. in a manner she was rapt in an ecstasy: she thought no more; she was possessed; her happiness was at the point of bliss.
senhouse sat on, motionless, he, too, absorbed in contemplation—like a priest before his altar-miracles. he may not have known that she was so close to him; or he may have known it very well. if he did, he showed no sign of it. his thoughts, whatever they were, held him, as he sat, his chin between his clasped knees, rigid as a dead viking, crouched so in his tomb of stones. his black, glazed eyes were fixed sombrely towards the shrouded valley—across it, to the mountains beyond. so at last, when her pleasure became a pain so piercing that, had it endured much longer, she must have cried aloud, she shivered as she clasped her hands together over her breast—and then lightly let one fall to touch his shoulder.
she must needs speak to him now. “do you wish me to go?”
he answered shortly. “it will be better. yes, you had better go.”
“very well—i will. but to-morrow? am i to go home to-morrow? i shall do exactly what you tell me. you know that.”
he did not move, nor answer her immediately. she hung upon his silence.
then he said, “i’m a man, you know—and you’re a woman. there’s no getting away from that.”
“and you wish me——?”
“i’m a compromise—by my own act. this is halfway house. you may rest here, you see—and go on—or go back.”
she could school her voice, but not her hand which touched his shoulder. she had to move it away before she spoke. “and if i decide—to go on?”
“you must not—until you know what it means. some day—possibly—when you see—not feel—your way, it may be— look here,” he said abruptly, “we won’t talk about all this. i told you—in cold blood—what i thought you ought to do. go back and see duplessis. don’t ask me to reconsider that—in hot blood. i’m not myself at this time of night. i saw straight enough when you put it to me. i value your friendship—i’m proud of it. more i must not say. it is something to have made a woman like you trust me. that’s too good a thing to lose, do you see? and i’ll tell you this, too—that you may trust me. if you do as i tell you, it will work out all right.”
“yes, yes—i believe that. but you told me this morning to follow—my heart.”
“i did, my dear, and i meant it. but not what your heart calls out at midnight.”
she stood where she was a little longer; presently she sighed.
“i will do as you bid me—because you bid me;” and he laughed.
“reason most womanish.”
“don’t laugh at me just now,” she said.
he folded his arms tightly, and stooped his head towards them. “i daren’t do anything else,” he told her; “and i will not.”
in the dark she stretched out her hands to him; but soon she gave over, and gloried in the strength he had.
“good-night,” she said; and he answered her without moving, “good-night.”
she stole away to his tent; but he sat on where he was, far into the night.
in the morning light they met as if nothing had happened; and after breakfast he took her by wastwater to seascale—to the train for the south. he was the old informal, chatty companion, full of queer knowledge and outspoken reflections. he told her his plans, so far as he could foresee them. he should be going to cornwall in november.
then he put her in the train, and touched her hand lightly, as his way was. he looked into her face, and smiled half ruefully. “don’t forget halfway house,” he told her. she could only sob, “oh, no! oh, never, never!” he turned away—waited for the train to move—then waved his hand. as the train carried her under the arch, and bent on its course, she had her last glimpse. he stood, white and slim, against the grey buildings. she waved her hand, and was carried onwards to the south.
