_Chapter 6_
Siegmund woke with wonder in the morning. 'It is like the magic tales,'he thought, as he realized where he was; 'and I am transported to a newlife, to realize my dream! Fairy-tales are true, after all.'
He had slept very deeply, so that he felt strangely new. He issued withdelight from the dark of sleep into the sunshine. Reaching out his hand,he felt for his watch. It was seven o'clock. The dew of a sleep-drenchednight glittered before his eyes. Then he laughed and forgot the night.
The creeper was tapping at the window, as a little wind blew up thesunshine. Siegmund put out his hands for the unfolding happiness of themorning. Helena was in the next room, which she kept inviolate. Sparrowsin the creeper were shaking shadows of leaves among the sunshine;milk-white shallop of cloud stemmed bravely across the bright sky; thesea would be blossoming with a dewy shimmer of sunshine.
Siegmund rose to look, and it was so. Also the houses, like white, andred, and black cattle, were wandering down the bay, with a mist ofsunshine between him and them. He leaned with his hands on thewindow-ledge looking out of the casement. The breeze ruffled his hair,blew down the neck of his sleeping-jacket upon his chest. He laughed,hastily threw on his clothes, and went out.
There was no sign of Helena. He strode along, singing to himself, andspinning his towel rhythmically. A small path led him across a field anddown a zigzag in front of the cliffs. Some nooks, sheltered from thewind, were warm with sunshine, scented of honeysuckle and of thyme. Hetook a sprig of woodbine that was coloured of cream and butter. Thegrass wetted his brown shoes and his flannel trousers. Again, a freshbreeze put the scent of the sea in his uncovered hair. The cliff was atangle of flowers above and below, with poppies at the lip being blownout like red flame, and scabious leaning inquisitively to look down, andpink and white rest-harrow everywhere, very pretty.
Siegmund stood at a bend where heath blossomed in shaggy lilac, wherethe sunshine but no wind came. He saw the blue bay curl away to thefar-off headland. A few birds, white and small, circled, dipped by thethin foam-edge of the water; a few ships dimmed the sea with silenttravelling; a few small people, dark or naked-white, moved below theswinging birds.
He chose his bathing-place where the incoming tide had half covered astretch of fair, bright sand that was studded with rocks resemblingsquare altars, hollowed on top. He threw his clothes on a high rock. Itdelighted him to feel the fresh, soft fingers of the wind touching himand wandering timidly over his nakedness. He ran laughing over the sandto the sea, where he waded in, thrusting his legs noisily through theheavy green water.
It was cold, and he shrank. For a moment he found himself thigh-deep,watching the horizontal stealing of a ship through the intolerableglitter, afraid to plunge. Laughing, he went under the cleargreen water.
He was a poor swimmer. Sometimes a choppy wave swamped him, and he rosegasping, wringing the water from his eyes and nostrils, while he heavedand sank with the rocking of the waves that clasped his breast. Then hestooped again to resume his game with the sea. It is splendid to play,even at middle age, and the sea is a fine partner.
With his eyes at the shining level of the water, he liked to peeracross, taking a seal's view of the cliffs as they confronted themorning. He liked to see the ships standing up on a bright floor; heliked to see the birds come down.
But in his playing he drifted towards the spur of rock, where, as heswam, he caught his thigh on a sharp, submerged point. He frowned at thepain, at the sudden cruelty of the sea; then he thought no more of it,but ruffled his way back to the clear water, busily continuing his play.
When he ran out on to the fair sand his heart, and brain, and body werein a turmoil. He panted, filling his breast with the air that wassparkled and tasted of the sea. As he shuddered a little, the wilfulpalpitations of his flesh pleased him, as if birds had fluttered againsthim. He offered his body to the morning, glowing with the sea's passion.The wind nestled in to him, the sunshine came on his shoulders like warmbreath. He delighted in himself.
The rock before him was white and wet, like himself; it had a pool ofclear water, with shells and one rose anemone.
'She would make so much of this little pool,' he thought. And as hesmiled, he saw, very faintly, his own shadow in the water. It made himconscious of himself, seeming to look at him. He glanced at himself, athis handsome, white maturity. As he looked he felt the insidiouscreeping of blood down his thigh, which was marked with a long redslash. Siegmund watched the blood travel over the bright skin. It wounditself redly round the rise of his knee.
'That is I, that creeping red, and this whiteness I pride myself on isI, and my black hair, and my blue eyes are I. It is a weird thing to bea person. What makes me myself, among all these?'
Feeling chill, he wiped himself quickly.
'I am at my best, at my strongest,' he said proudly to himself. 'Sheought to be rejoiced at me, but she is not; she rejects me as if I werea baboon under my clothing.'
He glanced at his whole handsome maturity, the firm plating of hisbreasts, the full thighs, creatures proud in themselves. Only he wasmarred by the long raw scratch, which he regretted deeply.
'If I was giving her myself, I wouldn't want that blemish on me,' hethought.
He wiped the blood from the wound. It was nothing.
'She thinks ten thousand times more of that little pool, with a bit ofpink anemone and some yellow weed, than of me. But, by Jove! I'd rathersee her shoulders and breast than all heaven and earth put togethercould show.... Why doesn't she like me?' he thought as he dressed. Itwas his physical self thinking.
After dabbling his feet in a warm pool, he returned home. Helena was inthe dining-room arranging a bowl of purple pansies. She looked up at himrather heavily as he stood radiant on the threshold. He put her at herease. It was a gay, handsome boy she had to meet, not a man, strange andinsistent. She smiled on him with tender dignity.
'You have bathed?' she said, smiling, and looking at his damp, ruffledblack hair. She shrank from his eyes, but he was quite unconscious.
'You have not bathed!' he said; then bent to kiss her. She smelt thebrine in his hair.
'No; I bathe later,' she replied. 'But what--'
Hesitating, she touched the towel, then looked up at him anxiously.
'It _is_ blood?' she said.
'I grazed my thigh--nothing at all,' he replied.
'Are you sure?'
He laughed.
'The towel looks bad enough,' she said.
'It's an alarmist,' he laughed.
She looked in concern at him, then turned aside.
'Breakfast is quite ready,' she said.
'And I for breakfast--but shall I do?'
She glanced at him. He was without a collar, so his throat was bareabove the neck-band of his flannel shirt. Altogether she disapproved ofhis slovenly appearance. He was usually so smart in his dress.
'I would not trouble,' she said almost sarcastically.
Whistling, he threw the towel on a chair.
'How did you sleep?' she asked gravely, as she watched him beginning toeat.
'Like the dead--solid,' he replied'. 'And you?'
'Oh, pretty well, thanks,' she said, rather piqued that he had slept sodeeply, whilst she had tossed, and had called his name in a torture ofsleeplessness.
'I haven't slept like that for years,' he said enthusiastically. Helenasmiled gently on him. The charm of his handsome, healthy zest came overher. She liked his naked throat and his shirt-breast, which suggestedthe breast of the man beneath it. She was extraordinarily happy, withhim so bright. The dark-faced pansies, in a little crowd, seemed gailywinking a golden eye at her.
After breakfast, while Siegmund dressed, she went down to the sea. Shedwelled, as she passed, on all tiny, pretty things--on the barbaricyellow ragwort, and pink convolvuli; on all the twinkling of flowers,and dew, and snail-tracks drying in the sun. Her walk was one longlingering. More than the spaces, she loved the nooks, and fancy morethan imagination.
> She wanted to see just as she pleased, without any of humanity'sprevious vision for spectacles. So she knew hardly any flower's name,nor perceived any of the relationships, nor cared a jot about anadaptation or a modification. It pleased her that the lowest brownyflorets of the clover hung down; she cared no more. She clothedeverything in fancy.
'That yellow flower hadn't time to be brushed and combed by the fairiesbefore dawn came. It is tousled ...' so she thought to herself. The pinkconvolvuli were fairy horns or telephones from the day fairies to thenight fairies. The rippling sunlight on the sea was the Rhine maidensspreading their bright hair to the sun. That was her favourite form ofthinking. The value of all things was in the fancy they evoked. She didnot care for people; they were vulgar, ugly, and stupid, as a rule.
Her sense of satisfaction was complete as she leaned on the lowsea-wall, spreading her fingers to warm on the stones, concocting magicout of the simple morning. She watched the indolent chasing of waveletsround the small rocks, the curling of the deep blue water round thewater-shadowed reefs.
'This is very good,' she said to herself. 'This is eternally cool, andclean and fresh. It could never be spoiled by satiety.'
She tried to wash herself with the white and blue morning, to clear awaythe soiling of the last night's passion.
The sea played by itself, intent on its own game. Its aloofness, itsself-sufficiency, are its great charm. The sea does not give and take,like the land and the sky. It has no traffic with the world. It spendsits passion upon itself. Helena was something like the sea,self-sufficient and careless of the rest.
Siegmund came bareheaded, his black hair ruffling to the wind, his eyesshining warmer than the sea-like cornflowers rather, his limbs swingingbackward and forward like the water. Together they leaned on the wall,warming the four white hands upon the grey bleached stone as theywatched the water playing.
When Siegmund had Helena near, he lost the ache, the yearning towardssomething, which he always felt otherwise. She seemed to connect himwith the beauty of things, as if she were the nerve through which hereceived intelligence of the sun, and wind, and sea, and of the moon andthe darkness. Beauty she never felt herself came to him through her. Itis that makes love. He could always sympathize with the wistful littleflowers, and trees lonely in their crowds, and wild, sad seabirds. Inthese things he recognized the great yearning, the ache outwards towardssomething, with which he was ordinarily burdened. But with Helena, inthis large sea-morning, he was whole and perfect as the day.
'Will it be fine all day?' he asked, when a cloud came over.
'I don't know,' she replied in her gentle, inattentive manner, as if shedid not care at all. 'I think it will be a mixed day--cloud andsun--more sun than cloud.'
She looked up gravely to see if he agreed. He turned from frowning atthe cloud to smile at her. He seemed so bright, teeming with life.
'I like a bare blue sky,' he said; 'sunshine that you seem to stir aboutas you walk.'
'It is warm enough here, even for you,' she smiled.
'Ah, here!' he answered, putting his face down to receive the radiationfrom the stone, letting his fingers creep towards Helena's. She laughed,and captured his fingers, pressing them into her hand. For nearly anhour they remained thus in the still sunshine by the sea-wall, tillHelena began to sigh, and to lift her face to the little breeze thatwandered down from the west. She fled as soon from warmth as from cold.Physically, she was always so; she shrank from anything extreme. Butpsychically she was an extremist, and a dangerous one.
They climbed the hill to the fresh-breathing west. On the highest pointof land stood a tall cross, railed in by a red iron fence. They read theinscription.
'That's all right--but a vilely ugly railing!' exclaimed Siegmund.
'Oh, they'd have to fence in Lord Tennyson's white marble,' said Helena,rather indefinitely.
He interpreted her according to his own idea.
'Yes, he did belittle great things, didn't he?' said Siegmund.
'Tennyson!' she exclaimed.
'Not peacocks and princesses, but the bigger things.'
'I shouldn't say so,' she declared.
He sounded indeterminate, but was not really so.
They wandered over the downs westward, among the wind. As they followedthe headland to the Needles, they felt the breeze from the wings of thesea brushing them, and heard restless, poignant voices screaming belowthe cliffs. Now and again a gull, like a piece of spume flung up, roseover the cliff's edge, and sank again. Now and again, as the path dippedin a hollow, they could see the low, suspended intertwining of the birdspassing in and out of the cliff shelter.
These savage birds appealed to all the poetry and yearning in Helena.They fascinated her, they almost voiced her. She crept nearer and nearerthe edge, feeling she must watch the gulls thread out in flakes of whiteabove the weed-black rocks. Siegmund stood away back, anxiously. Hewould not dare to tempt Fate now, having too strong a sense of deathto risk it.
'Come back, dear. Don't go so near,' he pleaded, following as close ashe might. She heard the pain and appeal in his voice. It thrilled her,and she went a little nearer. What was death to her but one of hersymbols, the death of which the sagas talk--something grand, andsweeping, and dark.
Leaning forward, she could see the line of grey sand and the line offoam broken by black rocks, and over all the gulls, stirring round likefroth on a pot, screaming in chorus.
She watched the beautiful birds, heard the pleading of Siegmund, and shethrilled with pleasure, toying with his keen anguish.
Helena came smiling to Siegmund, saying:
'They look so fine down there.'
He fastened his hands upon her, as a relief from his pain. He was filledwith a keen, strong anguish of dread, like a presentiment. She laughedas he gripped her.
They went searching for a way of descent. At last Siegmund inquired ofthe coastguard the nearest way down the cliff. He was pointed to the'Path of the Hundred Steps'.
'When is a hundred not a hundred?' he said sceptically, as theydescended the dazzling white chalk. There were sixty-eight steps. Helenalaughed at his exactitude.
'It must be a love of round numbers,' he said.
'No doubt,' she laughed. He took the thing so seriously.
'Or of exaggeration,' he added.
There was a shelving beach of warm white sand, bleached soft as velvet.A sounding of gulls filled the dark recesses of the headland; a lowchatter of shingle came from where the easy water was breaking; theconfused, shell-like murmur of the sea between the folded cliffs.Siegmund and Helena lay side by side upon the dry sand, small as tworesting birds, while thousands of gulls whirled in a white-flaked stormabove them, and the great cliffs towered beyond, and high up over thecliffs the multitudinous clouds were travelling, a vast caravan _enroute_. Amidst the journeying of oceans and clouds and the circlingflight of heavy spheres, lost to sight in the sky, Siegmund and Helena,two grains of life in the vast movement, were travelling a momentside by side.
They lay on the beach like a grey and a white sea-bird together. Thelazy ships that were idling down the Solent observed the cliffs and theboulders, but Siegmund and Helena were too little. They lay ignored andinsignificant, watching through half-closed fingers the diverse caravanof Day go past. They lay with their latticed fingers over their eyes,looking out at the sailing of ships across their vision of blue water.
'Now, that one with the greyish sails--' Siegmund was saying.
'Like a housewife of forty going placidly round with the duster--yes?'interrupted Helena.
'That is a schooner. You see her four sails, and--'
He continued to classify the shipping, until he was interrupted by thewicked laughter of Helena.
'That is right, I am sure,' he protested.
'I won't contradict you,' she laughed, in a tone which showed him heknew even less of the classifying of ships than she did.
'So you have lain there amusing yourself at my expense all the time?' hesaid, not kno
wing in the least why she laughed. They turned and lookedat one another, blue eyes smiling and wavering as the beach wavers inthe heat. Then they closed their eyes with sunshine.
Drowsed by the sun, and the white sand, and the foam, their thoughtsslept like butterflies on the flowers of delight. But cold shadowsstartled them up.
'The clouds are coming,' he said regretfully.
'Yes; but the wind is quite strong enough for them,' she answered,
'Look at the shadows--like blots floating away. Don't they devour thesunshine?'
'It is quite warm enough here,' she said, nestling in to him.
'Yes; but the sting is missing. I like to feel the warmth biting in.'
'No, I do not. To be cosy is enough.'
'I like the sunshine on me, real, and manifest, and tangible. I feellike a seed that has been frozen for ages. I want to be bitten by thesunshine.'
She leaned over and kissed him. The sun came bright-footed over thewater, leaving a shining print on Siegmund's face. He lay, withhalf-closed eyes, sprawled loosely on the sand. Looking at his limbs,she imagined he must be heavy, like the bounders. She sat over him, withher fingers stroking his eyebrows, that were broad and rather arched. Helay perfectly still, in a half-dream.
Presently she laid her head on his breast, and remained so, watching thesea, and listening to his heart-beats. The throb was strong and deep. Itseemed to go through the whole island and the whole afternoon, and itfascinated her: so deep, unheard, with its great expulsions of life. Hadthe world a heart? Was there also deep in the world a great God thuddingout waves of life, like a great heart, unconscious? It frightened her.This was the God she knew not, as she knew not this Siegmund. It was sodifferent from the half-shut eyes with black lashes, and the winsome,shapely nose. And the heart of the world, as she heard it, could not bethe same as the curling splash of retreat of the little sleepy waves.She listened for Siegmund's soul, but his heart overbeat all othersound, thudding powerfully.