_Chapter 31_
In the same month of July, not yet a year after Siegmund's death, Helenasat on the top of the tramcar with Cecil Byrne. She was dressed in bluelinen, for the day had been hot. Byrne was holding up to her ayellow-backed copy of _Einsame Menschen_, and she was humming the air ofthe Russian folk-song printed on the front page, frowning, nodding withher head, and beating time with her hand to get the rhythm of the song.She turned suddenly to him, and shook her head, laughing.
'I can't get it--it's no use. I think it's the swinging of the carprevents me getting the time,' she said.
'These little outside things always come a victory over you,' helaughed.
'Do they?' she replied, smiling, bending her head against the wind. Itwas six o'clock in the evening. The sky was quite overcast, after a dim,warm day. The tramcar was leaping along southwards. Out of the cornersof his eyes Byrne watched the crisp morsels of hair shaken on her neckby the wind.
'Do you know,' she said, 'it feels rather like rain.'
'Then,' said he calmly, but turning away to watch the people below onthe pavement, 'you certainly ought not to be out.'
'I ought not,' she said, 'for I'm totally unprovided.'
Neither, however, had the slightest intention of turning back.
Presently they descended from the car, and took a road leading uphilloff the highway. Trees hung over one side, whilst on the other sidestood a few villas with lawns upraised. Upon one of these lawns twogreat sheep-dogs rushed and stood at the brink of the, grassy declivity,at some height above the road, barking and urging boisterously. Helenaand Byrne stood still to watch them. One dog was grey, as is usual, theother pale fawn. They raved extravagantly at the two pedestrians. Helenalaughed at them.
'They are--' she began, in her slow manner.
'Villa sheep-dogs baying us wolves,' he continued.
'No,' she said, 'they remind me of Fafner and Fasolt.'
'Fasolt? They _are_ like that. I wonder if they really dislike us.'
'It appears so,' she laughed.
'Dogs generally chum up to me,' he said.
Helena began suddenly to laugh. He looked at her inquiringly.
'I remember,' she said, still laughing, 'at Knockholt--you--a half-grownlamb--a dog--in procession.' She marked the position of the three withher finger.
'What an ass I must have looked!' he said.
'Sort of silent Pied Piper,' she laughed.
'Dogs do follow me like that, though,' he said.
'They did Siegmund,' she said.
'Ah!' he exclaimed.
'I remember they had for a long time a little brown dog that followedhim home.'
'Ah!' he exclaimed.
'I remember, too,' she said, 'a little black-and-white kitten thatfollowed me. Mater _would not_ have it in--she would not. And I rememberfinding it, a few days after, dead in the road. I don't think I everquite forgave my mater that.'
'More sorrow over one kitten brought to destruction than over all thesufferings of men,' he said.
She glanced at him and laughed. He was smiling ironically.
'For the latter, you see,' she replied, 'I am not responsible.'
As they neared the top of the hill a few spots of rain fell.
'You know,' said Helena, 'if it begins it will continue all night. Lookat that!'
She pointed to the great dark reservoir of cloud ahead.
'Had we better go back?' he asked.
'Well, we will go on and find a thick tree; then we can shelter till wesee how it turns out. We are not far from the cars here.'
They walked on and on. The raindrops fell more thickly, then thinnedaway.
'It is exactly a year today,' she said, as they-walked on the roundshoulder of the down with an oak-wood on the left hand. 'Exactly!'
'What anniversary is it, then?' he inquired.
'Exactly a year today, Siegmund and I walked here--by the day, Thursday.We went through the larch-wood. Have you ever been through thelarch-wood?'
'No.'
'We will go, then,' she said.
'History repeats itself,' he remarked.
'How?' she asked calmly.
He was pulling at the heads of the cocksfoot grass as he walked.
'I see no repetition,' she added.
'No,' he exclaimed bitingly; 'you are right!'
They went on in silence. As they drew near a farm they saw the menunloading a last wagon of hay on to a very brown stack. He sniffed theair. Though he was angry, he spoke.
'They got that hay rather damp,' he said. 'Can't you smell it--like hottobacco and sandal-wood?'
'What, is that the stack?' she asked.
'Yes, it's always like that when it's picked damp.'
The conversation was restarted, but did not flourish. When they turnedon to a narrow path by the side of the field he went ahead. Leaning overthe hedge, he pulled three sprigs of honeysuckle, yellow as butter, fullof scent; then he waited for her. She was hanging her head, looking inthe hedge-bottom. He presented her with the flowers without speaking.She bent forward, inhaled the rich fragrance, and looked up at him overthe blossoms with her beautiful, beseeching blue eyes. He smiledgently to her.
'Isn't it nice?' he said. 'Aren't they fine bits?'
She took them without answering, and put one piece carefully in herdress. It was quite against her rule to wear a flower. He took his placeby her side.
'I always like the gold-green of cut fields,' he said. 'They seem togive off sunshine even when the sky's greyer than a tabby cat.'
She laughed, instinctively putting out her hand towards the glowingfield on her right.
They entered the larch-wood. There the chill wind was changed intosound. Like a restless insect he hovered about her, like a butterflywhose antennae flicker and twitch sensitively as they gatherintelligence, touching the aura, as it were, of the female. He wasexceedingly delicate in his handling of her.
The path was cut windingly through the lofty, dark, and closely serriedtrees, which vibrated like chords under the soft bow of the wind. Nowand again he would look down passages between the trees--narrow pillaredcorridors, dusky as if webbed across with mist. All round was atwilight, thickly populous with slender, silent trunks. Helena stoodstill, gazing up at the tree-tops where the bow of the wind was drawn,causing slight, perceptible quivering. Byrne walked on without her. At abend in the path he stood, with his hand on the roundness of alarch-trunk, looking back at her, a blue fleck in the brownness ofcongregated trees. She moved very slowly down the path.
'I might as well not exist, for all she is aware of me,' he said tohimself bitterly. Nevertheless, when she drew near he said brightly:
'Have you noticed how the thousands of dry twigs between the trunks makea brown mist, a brume?'
She looked at him suddenly as if interrupted.
'H'm? Yes, I see what you mean.'
She smiled at him, because of his bright boyish tone and manner.
'That's the larch fog,' he laughed.
'Yes,' she said, 'you see it in pictures. I had not noticed it before.'
He shook the tree on which his hand was laid.
'It laughs through its teeth,' he said, smiling, playing with everythinghe touched.
As they went along she caught swiftly at her hat; then she stooped,picking up a hat-pin of twined silver. She laughed to herself as ifpleased by a coincidence.
'Last year,' she said, 'the larch-fingers stole both my pins--the sameones.'
He looked at her, wondering how much he was filling the place of a ghostwith warmth. He thought of Siegmund, and seemed to see him swinging downthe steep bank out of the wood exactly as he himself was doing at themoment, with Helena stepping carefully behind. He always felt a deepsympathy and kinship with Siegmund; sometimes he thought hehated Helena.
They had emerged at the head of a shallow valley--one of those widehollows in the North Downs that are like a great length of tapestry heldloosely by four people. It was raining. Byrne looked at the dark bluedo
ts rapidly appearing on the sleeves of Helena's dress. They walked ona little way. The rain increased. Helena looked about for shelter.
'Here,' said Byrne--'here is our tent--a black tartar's--ready pitched.'
He stooped under the low boughs of a very large yew tree that stood justback from the path. She crept after him. It was really a very goodshelter. Byrne sat on the ledge of a root, Helena beside him. He lookedunder the flap of the black branches down the valley. The grey rain wasfalling steadily; the dark hollow under the tree was immersed in themonotonous sound of it. In the open, where the bright young corn shoneintense with wet green, was a fold of sheep. Exposed in a large pen onthe hillside, they were moving restlessly; now and again came the'tong-ting-tong' of a sheep-bell. First the grey creatures huddled inthe high corner, then one of them descended and took shelter by thegrowing corn lowest down. The rest followed, bleating and pushing eachother in their anxiety to reach the place of desire, which was no whitbetter than where they stood before.
'That's like us all,' said Byrne whimsically. 'We're all penned out on awet evening, but we think, if only we could get where someone else is,it would be deliciously cosy.'
Helena laughed swiftly, as she always did when he became whimsical andfretful. He sat with his head bent down, smiling with his lips, but hiseyes melancholy. She put her hand out to him. He took it withoutapparently observing it, folding his own hand over it, and unconsciouslyincreasing the pressure.
'You are cold,' he said.
'Only my hands, and they usually are,' she replied gently.
'And mine are generally warm.'
'I know that,' she said. 'It's almost the only warmth I get now--yourhands. They really are wonderfully warm and close-touching.'
'As good as a baked potato,' he said.
She pressed his hand, scolding him for his mockery.
'So many calories per week--isn't that how we manage it?' he asked. 'Oncredit?'
She put her other hand on his, as if beseeching him to forgo his irony,which hurt her. They sat silent for some time. The sheep broke theircluster, and began to straggle back to the upper side of the pen.
'Tong-tong, tong,' went the forlorn bell. The rain waxed louder.
Byrne was thinking of the previous week. He had gone to Helena's home toread German with her as usual. She wanted to understand Wagner in hisown language.
In each of the arm-chairs, reposing across the arms, was a violin-case.He had sat down on the edge of one seat in front of the sacred fiddle.Helena had come quickly and removed the violin.
'I shan't knock it--it is all right,' he had said, protesting.
This was Siegmund's violin, which Helena had managed to purchase, andByrne was always ready to yield its precedence.
'It was all right,' he repeated.
'But you were not,' she had replied gently.
Since that time his heart had beat quick with excitement. Now he sat ina little storm of agitation, of which nothing was betrayed by hisgloomy, pondering expression, but some of which was communicated toHelena by the increasing pressure of his hand, which adjusted itselfdelicately in a stronger and stronger stress over her fingers and palm.By some movement he became aware that her hand was uncomfortable. Herelaxed. She sighed, as if restless and dissatisfied. She wondered whathe was thinking of. He smiled quietly.
'The Babes in the Wood,' he teased.
Helena laughed, with a sound of tears. In the tree overhead some birdbegan to sing, in spite of the rain, a broken evening song.
'That little beggar sees it's a hopeless case, so he reminds us ofheaven. But if he's going to cover us with yew-leaves, he's sethimself a job.'
Helena laughed again, and shivered. He put his arm round her, drawingher nearer his warmth. After this new and daring move neither spokefor a while.
'The rain continues,' he said.
'And will do,' she added, laughing.
'Quite content,' he said.
The bird overhead chirruped loudly again.
'"Strew on us roses, roses,"' quoted Byrne, adding after a while, inwistful mockery: '"And never a sprig of yew"--eh?'
Helena made a small sound of tenderness and comfort for him, andweariness for herself. She let herself sink a little closer against him.
'Shall it not be so--no yew?' he murmured.
He put his left hand, with which he had been breaking larch-twigs, onher chilled wrist. Noticing that his fingers were dirty, he heldthem up.
'I shall make marks on you,' he said.
'They will come off,' she replied.
'Yes, we come clean after everything. Time scrubs all sorts of scars offus.'
'Some scars don't seem to go,' she smiled.
And she held out her other arm, which had been pressed warm against hisside. There, just above the wrist, was the red sun-inflammation fromlast year. Byrne regarded it gravely.
'But it's wearing off--even that,' he said wistfully.
Helena put her arms found him under his coat. She was cold. He felt ahot wave of joy suffuse him. Almost immediately she released him, andtook off her hat.
'That is better,' he said.
'I was afraid of the pins,' said she.
'I've been dodging them for the last hour,' he said, laughing, as sheput her arms under his coat again for warmth.
She laughed, and, making a small, moaning noise, as if of weariness andhelplessness, she sank her head on his chest. He put down his cheekagainst hers.
'I want rest and warmth,' she said, in her dull tones.
'All right!' he murmured.
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