Comin' Thro' the Rye (Mathers)/Harvest/Chapter 1
HARVEST.
CHAPTER I.
Helena.—A foolish heart that I leave here behind.
The 10th of December has come, and the hour of Paul's departure—a black and bitter day—and I am bidding him farewell; not in the old school-room, or by a warm fireside, but out here in the cold, raw winter's day, with the wind blowing wildly, dismally in our faces, with the dead leaves whirling about our feet like a host of restless spirits, with a dull, hard, cold sky above, and a desolate sweep of barren landscape stretching out before us. We are standing by the old stile where we first met, and our faces are not gay and warm as they were then, but pale and cold, his with the sorriness of a man who hates to part with the thing he loves best on earth, I with the restless misery that only a woman's heart knows who sees her treasure go forth into the world, and knows not if it will come safely back to her. It is such a little while that he purposes to be gone—only ten days—a mere nothing—why, therefore, do I feel such a dragging, heavy foreboding at my heart? why do I hold his hand in both mine, and look at him as though I were taking my last fill of gazing on him for years? Why do I kiss him again and again, with a passion that I never knew until to-day—as I could kiss him no more tenderly if he lay dying in my arms? Ah! Why, indeed! I have had a dream, but that is nothing; I have an instinct, but that is nothing—something above and beyond these seems to tell me that our parting to-day is for evil: there is sorrow in the air, there is dread in the rustling leaves, a keening of mortal anguish in the sobbing wind, a dark shadow passing like a doom betwixt my lover and me.
"My sweetheart," he says, "how pale you are! I should not have let you come out in this cold———"
"Only you promised," I say, buttoning his coat closer about his throat with trembling fingers. "You will come back, Paul: you are sure you will come back?"
"Come back to my pearl, my darling? Aye, that I will! You are not yourself," he says, looking into my face; "you are ill, suffering; I cannot leave you like this, dear, I shall take you back to the house."
"No, no," I say, faintly; "but you are quite sure that you must go?"
"Quite sure, little one; if it had been possible to get out of it, you may be sure I should have done so. But it is such a little while, you will scarcely have realized that I am gone before I shall be back, and then, Nell———"
"We shall be very happy if you come back," I say, dreamily. "Take care of yourself, Paul; do not forget that any harm to you passes straight through me, and that every hour you are away I shall be wearying for you. Do not let any one put me out of your head; do not forget me."
"Forget thee!" he cries, kissing my pale lips again and again; "who could forget thee? not Paul. Write to me twice or thrice, darling, it will pass the time more quickly to you, and I will write too, but I never was a good scribe, pet, so you must not expect much. Of course I shall scrawl you a line from Marseilles."
"Ten days!" I say to myself, as he smoothes the hair back from my forehead with his brown hand. "Only ten days!" what could happen in that time? Yesterday I seemed to have no fear; to-day I see into shadow-land. What has happened to me between the days that has shaken me horribly? Only a dream; a silly, mocking, intangible dream, that Paul would laugh to scorn—shall I tell him of it before he goes? shall I warn him?
"Don't flirt with George while I am away," he says, jealously. "you will have lots of opportunities, you know."
"Poor George!" I say, sadly; "I don't think there is much fear."
"Darling!" he says, "I shall give up this train, and take you back to the Manor House."
"No, you will not, Paul; for where would be the good? If you missed that you would have to catch the next. I should only have to say good-bye to you at home instead of here, and you promised me that I should say it here, dear, and nowhere else."
"I did promise," he says; "but I can't let you go like this."
"Yes, you will go," I say, gently; "you will kiss me once, Paul, and then you will go."
And so he takes me in his arms and kisses me many times "Good-bye, little sweetheart, good-bye," he says, and at last goes away.
Half-way across the field he turns and looks at me. All unconsciously I hold out my arms to him, and he comes back.
"Do not forget," I whisper, "that here, where I kissed you first, I kissed you last. . . ."
There is one more swift embrace, a passionate clinging of hands, and he is gone; and I stand staring after him, with aching, burning eyeballs, and a heart heavy as lead. Why do I feel so certainly, desperately sure that he is going away from me to-day—for evil, not good? I watch him over the brow of the hill, turning often as he goes. Then go along the meadow with halting, lagging steps, and presently meet George with his dogs at his heels.
"Is that you, Nell?" he asks, and mechanically I put my hand in his, and look dully into his face.
"You are ill," he exclaims; "you must let me take you home at once?"
"I am going. He is gone," I say, looking up into my companion's face with a chilly smile, "and I think my heart is broken."
"He will come back says George, soothingly; "it is only for a little while. "Can't you live these few days without him, Nell?"
"He will never come back," I say, standing still. "Do you not hear the fairies and spirits whispering it—'He will never return to you, never, never? That is what they are saying quite plainly; and I———oh, God!" I cry, standing still. "He will never be my Paul any more, never any more. I can see it—the dream!" I shudder from head to foot, and stagger. George holds me for a moment, then I shake the blindness from my eyes, the lassitude from my limbs, and break away from him. "Hark!" I cry, holding up my hand; "surely that was his step—listen!" But no sound comes to us, and though I run to the bend of the neadow and look around, there is no one to be seen, all is blank and bare and chill.
"It is too cold for you here," says George; come away home, Nell!" And he puts my hand under his arm and takes me away.
"It sounded just like his step," I say over and over again; "could he have come back?"
"George," I say, looking up into his worn, kind face," do you think I am mad? I am not—only I feel strange, as though I had had a bad blow. Do you think a person could die in ten days, or that any one who hated him could do him a mischief in that time?"
"Do not think of such things," says the young man; "your nerves are unstrung, dear. You will feel differently to-morrow."
"Do you know," I say in a whisper, "that when he was saying good-bye to me, I seemed to see as clearly as the daylight that we were saying good-bye to each other, not for a little while, but for ever. It was second sight."
"It was fancy," he says, decidedly. "Who could possibly come between you? Who has the power to do it?"
"A woman," I say, dreaming; "her words sounded empty enough to me once—they have a different meaning to-day."
"But how can she do you mischief," asks George, "if you and Vasher thoroughly understand each other?"
"I will tell you my dream first," I say slowly—" about her afterwards."
"I thought I was in a church crowded with people. Among them I saw the faces of mother, and Jack, and Alice, and you, and Dolly, and many others that I knew. Before the altar rails were standing a man and woman; the marriage service was being read, and he was putting a marriage-ring upon the woman's finger. Both the figures seemed familiar to me, but something seemed to hold me back and prevent my seeing distinctly. No one heeded me, although I was standing at the foot of the altar steps. When the service was over, the two turned and descended the steps; and as they stood face to face with me, the cloud lifted, and I saw Silvia Fleming in her marriage robe of white and her marriage ring of gold, and on her beautiful face as she looked at me was that slow, faint, dawning smile that I knew so well. . . . I turned my eyes away from her to look the bridegroom, and there, with a terrible face of shame and horror, stood Paul Vasher. 'Nell!' he cried, and held out his arms to me, and though I knew he was that woman's husband, I strove to get to him as madly as he was striving to get to me, but we could not reach each other. Then church and crowd, and bride and bridegroom, faded away, and in its place I saw the field of rye, and Paul coming quickly across it to meet me, and I seemed to know that the picture of the wedding had been a hideous dream, and that now I was awake, and the familiar trysting-place looks so natural and familiar, that all my misery fell from me like a veil, and the blood leaped in my veins for joy. And he came nearer and nearer with his dark glad face, and we were but a hand's-breadth apart, when between us there came a woman, fair as a rose, with a marriage ring upon her finger, and though we tried to grope round her, we could not find each other, for between us she stood smiling, always smiling—and in calling madly upon him I awoke."
"And that is what has made you so fearful?" he asks. "Nell, Nell! it is not like you to believe in such folly—you always were such a sensible little thing!" His cheerful, robust philosophy heartens me. Does he not know more about everything than I do? But, oh! he does not know the whole story. "I know Vasher was engaged to Miss Fleming once," he goes on, “but it is sheer folly to suppose that, loving you as he does, he can ever come under her influence again. Why, Nell, are you afraid he will flirt with her?"
"No," I say, thoughtfully, "I can't picture him doing that; but I always had a vague, intangible feeling that she would do him a mischief, and that dream confirmed and strengthened the belief. I could not say positively what it is I dread, but it is something bad."
"And are you really so silly, Nell, as to suppose for a moment that he will marry her?" says George, smiling.
"No," I say, slowly; "a woman can't make a man marry her—can she? It is not that; as I told you before, I do not know what it is I fear."
"Comfortably indefinite," he says, cheerfully; “but you have not told me why you think she is so ill-inclined towards Vasher."
"Because he would not fall in love with her again," I say gravely, "and I heard her vow that she would be revenged. Then, at Luttrell, when she thought he cared for me, she told me that I should never be his wife—no woman should be but herself."
"Rather cool that," says George; "but a jealous woman will say anything. And so you have put yourself into this state, Nell, because of a few spiteful words?"
"No, it was the dream. It was so real—so vivid———"
"As mine have often been," says George, "when I dreamt I was falling down a bottomless well, for instance."
"Nonsense! Do you never have bad, ugly, haunting dreams?"
"The realities of life are about enough for me," says the young man, with a quiver in his voice that pierces through my selfish, complaining sorrow, and reminds me that all this while he has been soothing and listening to me when his own heart is heavier even than mine. These ten weeks of absence that have sped so gaily with me have left their mark on his face. Neither heart-broken, nor complaining, nor preoccupied does he look, but something has gone out of it that will never come back in this life, though he bears his lot like a man, and never speaks of the past—never gives a sign that he remembers, save when a chance break in his voice betrays him.
"George," I say, wistfully, "if you only knew how much happier you have made me! When I met you I was so wretched."
"Whenever you are in trouble, dear," he says, "I hope you will always let me be of use to you. Try and think that I am Jack."
"You are better than Jack," I say, heartily, "for he never gave me much sympathy; he would not understand———"
"Sister Nell's hitched up with young Mr. Tempest!" says Larry, thrusting his head out of the school-room window as we pass. "I say, Geoff, what would the other one say if he could see them?"
The hours go by very slowly; and now George is gone by forebodings creep upon me, strong and vigorous as ever. They haunt me all through the night, waking and dreaming; but with the morrow they wax fainter and duller—already I have the inevitably blunted memory that attends things that happened yesterday, not to-day. I hurry downstairs quickly, and scramble through my breakfast, for am I not going to do something most charming and delightful this morning, and can I possibly begin it a moment too soon?
It is barely half-past nine when, with a sigh of delight, I fetch my desk and sit down at the school-room table to write my first love-letter. How Paul laughed at my writing-paper the other day, as well he might, for it is mysterious and wonderful indeed. The colour is a sort of bilious yellow, and the monogram (of Pimpernel manufacture) is eccentric, the H being so very little and the A so very big; while the whirligigs and flourishes that surround it remind one of a loose bundle of snakes. It is not an easy matter to find a pen that is good enough for addressing my sweetheart, and the ink is not what it should be, but at last I begin with many a smile and pause between, and what I say to him I shall not tell you, for that is a secret between Paul and me. The mere touch of the paper sends a swift delight and comfort to my heart: is it not going from me to him, and if he holds it in his hand and sends me an answer, shall I not know then that all my miserable fears are vain and idle as a breath of summer wind? He does not seem so far away from me now; I am speaking to him, and I know that the words written on this paltry bit of paper will cleave to him, straight as an arrow, over moor and field, and town and sea, And as I write it seems to me that now—not days later, but now—he is listening to me and replying. It is not a very long letter, saucy, and loving, with none of my doubts in it. They are silly enough spoken; they would look more ridiculous still on paper.
I lay my letter down inside my desk and go out into the garden, for I am going to put in a tiny nosegay; he will like it, I know. I can fancy how a lover sees a tender meaning in every flower. . . . the girl's face stooping over them, the slender fingers binding them together, the kiss given to every blossom, the lingering care with which she lays them down for the last time upon the written love words—they must be like spiritual tokens of her presence. So they would be to me if Paul sent me any; but men do not often think of those things, least of all he, who is so strong and proud and manly—something to hold on by and look up to. No, I do not think he has enough sentiment in him for that. After all I get but a sorry bunch—a few honey-sweet violets, a spray or two of scarlet geranium, a bit of late flowering mignonette, one or two brightly tinted leaves, and that is all.
Entering the schoolroom I meet Jane, the under housemaid, coming out—a pale, unhealthy, evil-looking young woman whom I have heartily disliked ever since she came to us, two months ago, on Milly's recommendation. I tie my flowers together with a scarlet thread, I lay them in my letter with a foolish, foolish pantomime, and then look about for sealing-wax and seal. The former is here, but the latter I cannot find. Perhaps mother has fetched it. So I seal my letter with a trumpery little beehive affair, instead of my own large one, with "Nell" cut on it in old English letters. I should like to go and post it myself, but the rain is coming down in torrents, and Simpkins (who looks as if he knew what was in my letter quite as well as I do myself) is waiting to put it in the post-bag, for it is going by the morning post, not the evening. So with a sigh I hand it over to him, and wish that I had not been in such a hurry to write it, for what am I to do with myself the rest of this long, dull, empty day?
"Come quick, to-morrow!" I say, looking out of the blurred window-panes at the driving sleet and rain, "and bring me a letter from you know who."