Comin' Thro' the Rye (Mathers)/Seed Time/Chapter 17
CHAPTER XVII.
Who art so lovely fair, and smell'st so sweet,
That the sense aches at thee."
Thursday evening has arrived, and eight o'clock is striking We are all assembled in the big dining-room, and our petticoats are so voluminous and our bodies so pranked forth, that, instead of fifty souls, we look as though we numbered two hundred at the very least. If a Frenchman were let loose among us, he would clasp his hands in speechless admiration at the amount of raw material before him, the fine eyes, the abundant hair, fair skins, and perfect teeth; but he would also deplore, from the bottom of his soul, our chaussures, coiffures, and choice of colours—he would lament the total absence of style, tournure, chic, whatever it may be called, that in England is so conspicuous by its absence, and, while he hankered after our red and white charms, would console himself with the recollection of his sallow spouse's matchless taste and subtle costume, perfect in every detail.
We each have a little card, or at least everybody has but me upon which are inscribed the partners selected for the dances, although it is an understood thing that if a man should miraculously appear and request the honour, the former engagement is to be considered null and void.
After all, we have not had a lottery on Paul Vasher's account, and he will be free to go where he lists, although I privately entertain very grave doubts whether he will trot out one-half the damsels who confidently expect to be asked.
The door opens, and our little music-master appears, followed by his son, bearing a fiddle, out of which he will presently harrow up our souls with shrieks that might wake the dead.
Miss Tyburn comes in. She wears maize silk and black lace; very imposing she looks as she bends, in answer to the crackling bows every one makes all round the room. And now enters the Rev. Thomas Shrubb (rector of an adjacent parish) with his wife, who wears a blue gown and a green and gold cap. Their son follows, a dyspeptic, parboiled youth of eighteen, who looks like a beast led to the slaughter, and while he gazes fatuously about him, seems dimly to understand that he has fallen among thieves. We are not proud, we school-girls; anything in the shape of a man is comely in our eyes, but we scorn to reckon this fat youth as a man or anything approaching to one.
At a sign from Miss Tyburn the fiddle strikes up, the little music-master thumps at the piano, and a quadrille is formed. Mr. Shrubb leads out Miss Tyburn with tottering steps (at his time of life he ought to know better), his wife sinks into an easy chair; the fat boy advances a step, apparently meditating a plunge into the sea of white muslin before him, gasps, blinks, ruminates, thinks better of it, and finally sits down, puffing apoplectically. "Gentlemen girls fetch out their lady partners, and lead them to their places.
"If there is anything I hate," says Laura Fielding, as she sweeps her pale pink skirts over my feet, "it is having a girl's arm round my waist!"
The room is one struggling mass of tarlatan, muslin, and barège; every now and then a hitch occurs, and half a dozen young women get firmly wedged together by their hoops, and are disentangled with great difficulty. In the ladies' chain, too, there is some confusion, but one can't expect everything. The old vicar sets, bows, and shuffles with the rest most valiantly; like the Shaker of Artemus Ward memory. The dance over, every one who can, sits down and drinks negus; which might be better, but then, on the other hand, might be worse. The fiddler is just executing a preparatory scrape, that seems to take his hearers into the very bowels of the earth, when the door opens, and enter Mr. Frere and Mr. Vasher. As the latter stands talking to Miss Tyburn, I see him glance about him with a keen amusement; then, as the music strikes up, he leaves her and comes straight to the corner where I lie perdu.
"This is our dance," he says, placing my hand under his arm, disregarding my murmurs of dissent with masculine sang froid.
I feel my shortcomings very grievously, as he leads me forth. How I wish my gown were not so rusty, and that my boots did not curl up at the toes quite so much, seeming to require chains, as did those of our ancestors long ago. He puts his strong arm about my waist, and away we go; but, alas! if a lamp-post and a bottle elected to dance a jig together, they would bear about the same proportion to each other, that Mr. Vasher does to me.
"Stop!" I cry, when we have taken one round and a half, "it is no good."
So he stops, laughing, and takes me to a seat.
"Long and short," he says, "and decidedly much too long!"
"I told you how it would be," I say, ruefully; "you see, I am only a little above your elbow! If one could only roll one's self out!"
"Supposing you grew up like that?" he says, glancing almost imperceptibly at a maypole of a girl who is standing near, and who measures five feet ten in her stockings.
"One can always avenge one's injuries when one is that size; and, after all, must it not be nice to be able to snub people?" I say, laughing.
"That is a pretty little girl," he says, looking at Kate Lishaw, who has paused for a moment in her dancing near us.
"She is a duck," I say quickly; "do ask her to dance."
In a moment I have fetched her, and they go off together, he looking with real admiration at her fresh, bright young face. I leave my place, and go to the top of the room; hard by Miss Tyburn is speaking to Mrs. Shrubb, and as her voice is raised in rivalry with the fiddle, I cannot avoid hearing what she says.
"Remarkably lovely; but you will be able to judge for yourself, she is coming to-night with her aunt, Lady Flytton. I was calling there yesterday, and happened to mention Mr. Vasher's name; she said she knew him very well, and seemed to like the idea of seeing him again, so I asked her to come."
"Miss Fleming is coming! I wonder what Paul will say?"
The music ceases in a crescendo of shrieks that night well make Weber, whose waltz it is, stir in his coffin. The room is scarcely clear again when the door opens, and a little withered, bent old woman in a pearl grey satin, half covered with lace, totters in. Behind her comes her niece, Miss Fleming. More than ever like a white and cold lily does she look as she advances by the side of that brown old witch, and pays her devoirs to Miss Tyburn. She wears white garments that sweep in great soft folds to the ground; they are bordered with a Greek pattern of gold, and about her neck, arms, and waste are clasped heavy dead gold coins. She looks all white and gold, from the crown of her head to the tips of her embroidered brodequins. The scanty folds of the Greek bodice fall away exquisitely from the ivory white shoulders and bosom; the arms, bare from shoulder to wrist, taper divinely, and are softly nicked at elbow and wrist like a baby's. We all hold our breath as we look at her; and Paul Vasher, standing hard by, marks every matchless point of face and figure as no feminine eyes ever could, and does not go near her. On the contrary, he says something to Kate, who leads him up to Mary Burns—comely gentle, honest Mary—and she goes off with him, looking hugely flattered. Miss Fleming is seated in a low chair talking to Mrs. Shrubb, fanning herself slowly with a quaint fan of crimson feathers. The fat boy on seeing her has gasped once and never got his breath back. His father is sitting with a hand grasping each knee, surveying her with senile admiration. Why is not Mr. Vasher by her side? Why is she sitting there alone? She looks as though she did not care, and yet I am sure she does: not often can it fall to her lot to be slighted and set aside for school-girls.
He goes up to her by-and-by though, when the evening is wearing away; and surely she is not proud, for she lays her hand upon his arm, and they waltz together, melting into the long gliding step that each possesses in such perfection. For a time I sit still and look at them, at the dark magnificent looks of the man, and the fair luxuriant beauty of the girl, and think that never surely did a more splendid couple stand up together; they seem to be made for each other. Presently I leave my seat and go out into the corridor, which is bright as noonday in the clear, pale beams of the September moon.
The hall door stands widely, invitingly open. Beyond its lintel lies the broad, sleeping, moon-washed earth, and from down below the faint call of a night-bird rises now and again. For a moment I hesitate—over that threshold I am forbidden to go; then, as the tread of many feet comes down the corridor, I snatch up one of the wraps lying about, and step forth into the silver peace and beauty of the night. Just outside the door is a dark corner, formed by the projection of the porch, and into this I slip, lest a teacher or Buff should come to the door and discover my unlawful whereabouts.
The flowers are all fast asleep; they look ghostly and weird in the glistening light. I wonder if they will wake up by-and-by, as Hans Andersen's did, and whisper flower secrets and love talk as they trip their dainty measures? Somehow I never can believe that these flowers are but coloured shapes: they seem to me to be so much more worthy of souls and nerves than the ugly, stupid folks that walk about the world. There is not a breath of air abroad; the land is as still and unruffled as the dark blue vault overhead, in which the stars glitter countless and brilliant as though a royal hand had strown them. We think queer thoughts sometimes, when we stand perfectly alone and in utter silence, face to face with the great mystery of nature: the common, prosaic, everyday life falls from us, habit fades away, and custom is not; the thousand ways and words and thoughts that lay as a screen between us and her great truths, vanish like thin air; the mortal coil does not press so heavily upon us at these times as at others, and some dim perception of the universal law that governs God's earth breathes itself imperceptibly into our souls.
I think I must have been out here a long while, for I am growing cold. Time to go in. I am just emerging, when, down the corridor, click clack! click clack! come the tap of high-heeled shoes, and I hastily draw back into my corner as the new-comer steps over the threshold and stands, face and form and robe, bathed in a flood of pure silvery light. It is Miss Fleming, and she stands quite motionless, looking up steadfastly at the sky overhead. All the soft beauty of her face is gone; in its place there reigns a cold, still determination that contrasts almost violently with the youth of her lineaments. As she slowly lifts her arm and right hand to heaven, her lips move, and she looks like some relentless goddess, who has been turned to stone in the act of calling down confusion and curses upon her enemy. More footsteps—a man's this time—come down the passage and approach the door, pause for a moment, then come on again.
"Had you not better have a shawl, Miss Fleming?" inquires Mr. Vasher's voice. "You will take cold."
At his polite, chill words she neither speaks nor stirs, neither turns nor looks; she stands motionless, with her eyes fixed upon the ground, looking with her straight brow and antique raiment like a Greek slave standing before her master. He looks at her with a keen, hard scrutiny from head to foot, and turns to go. He is within the house, when she calls to him—
"Paul!"
"Do you want me?" he says, pausing; but she does not answer, and he comes back slowly and stands a little apart from her. "Is there anything more to be said between us?" he asks. "Is it not all finished—done with?"
"To you, perhaps," she says; "but not to me—not while my life lasts!"
"You will forget," he says, looking down with a dark and bitter frown; "you are young yet."
"Have you forgotten?" she asks below her breath. "Do you find it so easy?"
"God knows!" he says, lifting his head and staring up at the sky, that is so "thick inlaid with patines of bright gold." "Women don't feel things as men do."
"Do they not?" she cries, with a fierce jangle in her sweet voice. "Have you forgotten that it is the one who sins, not the one who is sinned against, that suffers the most keenly? Do you think that if it had been through your fault or folly I lost my happiness I should have mourned half as heavily as I do now, knowing that it is my own doing?"
"Why did you do it?" he says, looking down on her with an infinite yearning in his eyes, an infinite agony in his voice. "We could have been so happy . . ."
"You were too hard upon me," she says, with a shuddering moan. "Any other man would have forgiven me—if he had loved me."
"And did not I love you?" he asks, quietly.
"You cast me off," she says, lifting her lovely face to his; "I did not you."
"I never loved, never wanted any woman but you," he says, slowly. "I chose you out of the whole world for my wife. I would have worn you as my fairest honour, my priceless pearl; and how did you reward me?"
"I was never unfaithful to you," she says, drearily. "If ever I did anything wrong it was before I knew you."
"And there it was that you deceived me," he says, with a heavy sigh. You had seemed so pure, and honest, and true."
"And so I was to you," she says swiftly—"always true to you!"
"Heavens!" he says, throwing back his head with a quick, sudden gesture, "when I think of it all! It was much such a night as this three months ago—only three months, that you and I stood together in that garden—and I asked you to be my wife, and you put your arms about my neck; and, as we stood together your lover came towards us and looked, first on one, then on another, and went away. You never said, 'That is my betrothed husband, whom I have kissed and betrayed, as I will kiss and betray you if I have the chance.' When he rode that steeplechase next morning so madly, so recklessly, that all saw the goal he strove to reach was death, and a quarter of an hour later was carried back to his mother's carriage dead, did you feel no remorse—no sorrow? You gave no sign. You were shocked; but he might have been a common acquaintance, no more; only later, in looking over the poor lad's papers (for I was a friend of his mother's), I came upon a packet of your letters, and, you being my promised wife, I thought no shame of reading one." He pauses, and she droops her head in the moonlight and shivers. Is she cold or shamed? "You know the story," he says, wearily, "and how we parted. I loved you then; I love you now, but differently, and it is all over."
"You love me," she says, in her low, passionate voice, "and I—my God! do I not love you? And yet we are to live apart!—Must it be so, beloved—must it be so?"
"It must be," he says, very gently. "We can never be anything to each other—never any more!" She lifts her head, and the agony in her face shows clear and strong in the moonlight, as they stand looking at each other, she so surpassingly fair, he so lofty of statue and dark of face; it seems sad, unnatural, that they should suffer so. As she turns away he puts out his hand and draws her back. "Silvia," he says hoarsely, and in the September evening he shivers slightly, "I would have gone to the world's end rather than have met you here to-night. What evil fate has brought us together again so soon—so terribly soon? Since we parted I have been trying with all my strength of body and soul to forget you, and it seemed as though I were beginning to succeed; and now you have appeared before me, to dash my hard-won peace from my hand, and give me all the raging pain and misery over again. If I were differently made—if I could forget everything and love you in the old fashion, I would do it; but I cannot . . . . I love you still, but with the worst half of my heart, not the better. Something has gone from you in my eyes that will never come back. Though I married you I should have no respect for you; in my eyes you would be no more than a beautiful toy. The old worship is dead, and it will never come back. And though you think you love me now, a woman who betrays one man will betray another; and it would not please me to see my wife's eyes roving among my friends in search of admiration."
"I would have been faithful to you," she says, very low.
"No, you would not," he says, with a heavy sigh, "it is not in you to be true to any man. You only care for me because I am out of your reach. If I were your husband you would not rest till you had played me false."
"And I have loved you so well, so well!" she says, with a sob, lifting the pale, lovely face that has so changed during the past minutes to his.
"God help us both!" he cries passionately, pale as she through his bronzed darkness. He takes the soft face between his two brown hands and gazes into it eagerly, devouringly, as a man may look his last on his heart's delight, lying in the envious coffin that will by-and-by hide her from his sight for ever. "Kiss me once, love, before we part, and then pray God that on earth we may never meet again."
She lays her arms, white as any lilies, about his stooped neck; she lifts the beautiful lips, out of which all colour has fled, and kisses him—once. And he snatches her in his embrace, and kisses her, not once but many times, on lip and brow and shoulder, with a strength that seems to crush her. Then he sets her down abruptly, and strides away into the night, and the girl stands breathless, panting, with a deadly pallor upon her face, a wild agony in her eyes. "My love!" . . . she says, "my love." . . . She puts her hand suddenly to her heart, as though a knife had struck her newly; then she turns and steps over the threshold.