_Chapter 11_
They decided to find their way through the lanes to Alum Bay, and then,keeping the cross in sight, to return over the downs, with the moon-pathbroad on the water before them. For the moon was rising late. Twilight,however, rose more rapidly than they had anticipated. The lane twistedamong meadows and wild lands and copses--a wilful little lane, quiteincomprehensible. So they lost their distant landmark, the white cross.
Darkness filtered through the daylight. When at last they came to asignpost, it was almost too dark to read it. The fingers seemed towithdraw into the dusk the more they looked.
'We must go to the left,' said Helena.
To the left rose the downs, smooth and grey near at hand, but higherblack with gorse, like a giant lying asleep with a bearskin over hisshoulders.
Several pale chalk-tracks ran side by side through the turf. Climbing,they came to a disused chalk-pit, which they circumvented. Having passeda lonely farmhouse, they mounted the side of the open down, where was asense of space and freedom.
'We can steer by the night,' said Siegmund, as they trod upwardspathlessly. Helena did not mind whither they steered. All places in thatlarge fair night were home and welcome to her. They drew nearer to theshaggy cloak of furze.
'There will be a path through it,' said Siegmund.
But when they arrived there was no path. They were confronted by a tall,impenetrable growth of gorse, taller than Siegmund.
'Stay here,' said he, 'while I look for a way through. I am afraid youwill be tired.'
She stood alone by the walls of gorse. The lights that had flickeredinto being during the dusk grew stronger, so that a little farmhousedown the hill glowed with great importance on the night, while thefar-off in visible sea became like a roadway, large and mysterious, itsspecks of light moving slowly, and its bigger lamps stationed out amidthe darkness. Helena wanted the day-wanness to be quite wiped off thewest. She asked for the full black night, that would obliterateeverything save Siegmund. Siegmund it was that the whole world meant.The darkness, the gorse, the downs, the specks of light, seemed only tobespeak him. She waited for him to come back. She could hardly endurethe condition of intense waiting.
He came, in his grey clothes almost invisible. But she felt him coming.
'No good,' he said, 'no vestige of a path. Not a rabbit-run.'
'Then we will sit down awhile,' said she calmly.
'"Here on this mole-hill,"' he quoted mockingly.
They sat down in a small gap in the gorse, where the turf was very soft,and where the darkness seemed deeper. The night was all fragrance, coolodour of darkness, keen, savoury scent of the downs, touched withhoneysuckle and gorse and bracken scent.
Helena turned to him, leaning her hand on his thigh.
'What day is it, Siegmund?' she asked, in a joyous, wondering tone. Helaughed, understanding, and kissed her.
'But really,' she insisted, 'I would not have believed the labels couldhave fallen off everything like this.'
He laughed again. She still leaned towards him, her weight on her hand,stopping the flow in the artery down his thigh.
'The days used to walk in procession like seven marionettes, each inorder and costume, going endlessly round.' She laughed, amused atthe idea.
'It is very strange,' she continued, 'to have the days and nightssmeared into one piece, as if the clock-hand only went round once in alifetime.'
'That is how it is,' he admitted, touched by her eloquence. 'You havetorn the labels off things, and they all are so different. This morning!It does seem absurd to talk about this morning. Why should I beparcelled up into mornings and evenings and nights? _I_ am not made upof sections of time. Now, nights and days go racing over us likecloud-shadows and sunshine over the sea, and all the time we takeno notice.'
She put her arms round his neck. He was reminded by a sudden pain in hisleg how much her hand had been pressing on him. He held his breath frompain. She was kissing him softly over the eyes. They lay cheek to cheek,looking at the stars. He felt a peculiar tingling sense of joy, akeenness of perception, a fine, delicate tingling as of music.
'You know,' he said, repeating himself, 'it is true. You seem to haveknit all things in a piece for me. Things are not separate; they are allin a symphony. They go moving on and on. You are the motive ineverything.'
Helena lay beside him, half upon him, sad with bliss.
'You must write a symphony of this--of us,' she said, prompted by adisciple's vanity.
'Some time,' he answered. 'Later, when I have time.'
'Later,' she murmured--'later than what?'
'I don't know,' he replied. 'This is so bright we can't see beyond.' Heturned his face to hers and through the darkness smiled into her eyesthat were so close to his. Then he kissed her long and lovingly. He lay,with her head on his shoulder looking through her hair at the stars.
'I wonder how it is you have such a fine natural perfume,' he said,always in the same abstract, inquiring tone of happiness.
'Haven't all women?' she replied, and the peculiar penetrating twang ofa brass reed was again in her voice.
'I don't know,' he said, quite untouched. 'But you are scented likenuts, new kernels of hazel-nuts, and a touch of opium....' He remainedabstractedly breathing her with his open mouth, quite absorbed in her.
'You are so strange,' she murmured tenderly, hardly able to control hervoice to speak.
'I believe,' he said slowly, 'I can see the stars moving through yourhair. No, keep still, _you_ can't see them.' Helena lay obediently verystill. 'I thought I could watch them travelling, crawling like goldflies on the ceiling,' he continued in a slow sing-song. 'But now youmake your hair tremble, and the stars rush about.' Then, as a newthought struck him: 'Have you noticed that you can't recognize theconstellations lying back like this. I can't see one. Where is thenorth, even?'
She laughed at the idea of his questioning her concerning these things.She refused to learn the names of the stars or of the constellations, asof the wayside plants. 'Why should I want to label them?' she would say.'I prefer to look at them, not to hide them under a name.' So shelaughed when he asked her to find Vega or Arcturus.
'How full the sky is!' Siegmund dreamed on--'like a crowded street. Downhere it is vastly lonely in comparison. We've found a place far quieterand more private than the stars, Helena. Isn't it fine to be up here,with the sky for nearest neighbour?'
'I did well to ask you to come?' she inquired wistfully. He turned toher.
'As wise as God for the minute,' he replied softly. 'I think a fewfurtive angels brought us here--smuggled us in.'
'And you are glad?' she asked. He laughed.
'_Carpe diem_,' he said. 'We have plucked a beauty, my dear. With thisrose in my coat I dare go to hell or anywhere.'
'Why hell, Siegmund?' she asked in displeasure.
'I suppose it is the _postero_. In everything else I'm a failure,Helena. But,' he laughed, 'this day of ours is a rose not many menhave plucked.'
She kissed him passionately, beginning to cry in a quick, noiselessfashion.
'What does it matter, Helena?' he murmured. 'What does it matter? We arehere yet.'
The quiet tone of Siegmund moved her with a vivid passion of grief. Shefelt she should lose him. Clasping him very closely, she burst intouncontrollable sobbing. He did not understand, but he did not interrupther. He merely held her very close, while he looked through her shakinghair at the motionless stars. He bent his head to hers, he sought herface with his lips, heavy with pity. She grew a little quieter. He felthis cheek all wet with her tears, and, between his cheek and hers, theravelled roughness of her wet hair that chafed and made his face burn.
'What is it, Helena?' he asked at last. 'Why should you cry?'
She pressed her face in his breast, and said in a muffled,unrecognizable voice:
'You won't leave me, will you, Siegmund?'
'How could I? How should I?' he murmured soothingly. She lifted her facesuddenly and pressed on him a fi
erce kiss.
'How could I leave you?' he repeated, and she heard his voice waking,the grip coming into his arms, and she was glad.
An intense silence came over everything. Helena almost expected to hearthe stars moving, everything below was so still. She had no idea whatSiegmund was thinking. He lay with his arms strong around her. Then sheheard the beating of his heart, like the muffled sound of salutes, shethought. It gave her the same thrill of dread and excitement, mingledwith a sense of triumph. Siegmund had changed again, his mood was gone,so that he was no longer wandering in a night of thoughts, but hadbecome different, incomprehensible to her. She had no idea what shethought or felt. All she knew was that he was strong, and was knockingurgently with his heart on her breast, like a man who wanted somethingand who dreaded to be sent away. How he came to be so concentratedlyurgent she could not understand. It seemed an unreasonable anincomprehensible obsession to her. Yet she was glad, and she smiled inher heart, feeling triumphant and restored. Yet again, dimly, shewondered where was the Siegmund of ten minutes ago, and her heart liftedslightly with yearning, to sink with a dismay. This Siegmund was soincomprehensible. Then again, when he raised his head and found hermouth, his lips filled her with a hot flush like wine, a sweet, flamingflush of her whole body, most exquisite, as if she were nothing but asoft rosy flame of fire against him for a moment or two. That, shedecided, was supreme, transcendental.
The lights of the little farmhouse below had vanished, the yellow specksof ships were gone. Only the pier-light, far away, shone in the blacksea like the broken piece of a star. Overhead was a silver-greyness ofstars; below was the velvet blackness of the night and the sea. Helenafound herself glimmering with fragments of poetry, as she saw the sea,when she looked very closely, glimmered dustily with a reflectionof stars.
_Tiefe Stille herrscht im Wasser Ohne Regung ruht das Meer ..._
She was fond of what scraps of German verse she knew. With French verseshe had no sympathy; but Goethe and Heine and Uhland seemed to speakher language.
_Die Luft ist kuehl, und es dunkelt, Und ruhig fliesst der Rhein._
She liked Heine best of all:
_Wie Traeume der Kindheit seh' ich es flimmern Auf deinem wogenden Wellengebiet, Und alte Erinnerung erzaehlt mir auf's Neue Von all dem lieben herrlichen Spielzeug, Von all den blinkenden Weihnachtsgaben...._
As she lay in Siegmund's arms again, and he was very still, dreaming sheknew not what, fragments such as these flickered and were gone, like thegleam of a falling star over water. The night moved on imperceptiblyacross the sky. Unlike the day, it made no sound and gave no sign, butpassed unseen, unfelt, over them. Till the moon was ready to step forth.Then the eastern sky blenched, and there was a small gathering of cloudsround the opening gates:
_Aus alten Maerchen winket es Hervor mit weisser Hand, Da singt es und da klingt es Von einem Zauberland._
Helena sang this to herself as the moon lifted herself slowly among theclouds. She found herself repeating them aloud in in a forgetfulsingsong, as children do.
'What is it?' said Siegmund. They were both of them sunk in their ownstillness, therefore it was a moment or two before she repeated hersingsong, in a little louder tone. He did not listen to her, havingforgotten that he had asked her a question.
'Turn your head,' she told him, when she had finished the verse, 'andlook at the moon.'
He pressed back his head, so that there was a gleaming pallor on hischin and his forehead and deep black shadow over his eyes and hisnostrils. This thrilled Helena with a sense of mystery and magic.
'"_Die grossen Blumen schmachten_,"' she said to herself, curiouslyawake and joyous. 'The big flowers open with black petals and silveryones, Siegmund. You are the big flowers, Siegmund; yours is thebridegroom face, Siegmund, like a black and glistening flesh-petalledflower, Siegmund, and it blooms in the _Zauberland_, Siegmund--this isthe magic land.'
Between the phrases of this whispered ecstasy she kissed him swiftly onthe throat, in the shadow, and on his faintly gleaming cheeks. He laystill, his heart beating heavily; he was almost afraid of the strangeecstasy she concentrated on him. Meanwhile she whispered over him sharp,breathless phrases in German and English, touching him with her mouthand her cheeks and her forehead.
'"_Und Liebesweisen toenen_"-not tonight, Siegmund. They are allstill-gorse and the stars and the sea and the trees, are all kissing,Siegmund. The sea has its mouth on the earth, and the gorse and thetrees press together, and they all look up at the moon, they put uptheir faces in a kiss, my darling. But they haven't you-and it allcentres in you, my dear, all the wonder-love is in you, more than inthem all Siegmund--Siegmund!'
He felt the tears falling on him as he lay with heart beating in slowheavy drops under the ecstasy of her love. Then she sank down and layprone on him, spent, clinging to him, lifted up and down by thebeautiful strong motion of his breathing. Rocked thus on his strength,she swooned lightly into unconsciousness.
When she came to herself she sighed deeply. She woke to the exquisiteheaving of his life beneath her.
'I have been beyond life. I have been a little way into death!' she saidto her soul, with wide-eyed delight. She lay dazed, wondering upon it.That she should come back into a marvellous, peaceful happinessastonished her.
Suddenly she became aware that she must be slowly weighing down the lifeof Siegmund. There was a long space between the lift of one breath andthe next. Her heart melted with sorrowful pity. Resting herself on herhands, she kissed him--a long, anguished kiss, as if she would fuse hersoul into his for ever. Then she rose, sighing, sighing again deeply.She put up her hands to her head and looked at the moon. 'No more,' saidher heart, almost as if it sighed too-'no more!'
She looked down at Siegmund. He was drawing in great heavy breaths. Helay still on his back, gazing up at her, and she stood motionless at hisside, looking down at him. He felt stunned, half-conscious. Yet as helay helplessly looking up at her some other consciousness inside himmurmured; 'Hawwa--Eve--Mother!' She stood compassionate over him.Without touching him she seemed to be yearning over him like a mother.Her compassion, her benignity, seemed so different from his littleHelena. This woman, tall and pale, drooping with the strength of hercompassion, seemed stable, immortal, not a fragile human being, but apersonification of the great motherhood of women.
'I am her child, too,' he dreamed, as a child murmurs unconscious insleep. He had never felt her eyes so much as now, in the darkness, whenhe looked only into deep shadow. She had never before so entered andgathered his plaintive masculine soul to the bosom of her nurture.
'Come,' she said gently, when she knew he was restored. 'Shall we go?'
He rose, with difficulty gathering his strength.