CHAPTER II
ON BIGNOR HILL
They were riding along the top of the South Downs between Singleton andArundel, and when they came to where the old Roman road from Chichesterclimbs over Bignor Hill, Stella Derrick raised her hand and halted. Shewas then nineteen and accounted lovely by others besides Henry Thresk,who on this morning rode at her side. She was delicately yet healthfullyfashioned, with blue eyes under broad brows, raven hair and a face paleand crystal-clear. But her lips were red and the colour came easily intoher cheeks.
She pointed downwards to the track slanting across the turf from the browof the hill.
"That's Stane Street. I promised to show it you."
"Yes," answered Thresk, taking his eyes slowly from her face. It was amorning rich with sunlight, noisy with blackbirds, and she seemed to hima necessary part of it. She was alive with it and gave rather than tookof its gold. For not even that finely chiselled nose of hers could impartto her anything of the look of a statue.
"Yes. They went straight, didn't they, those old centurions?" he said.
He moved his horse and stood in the middle of the track looking across avalley of forest and meadow to Halnaker Down, six miles away in thesouthwest. Straight in the line of his eyes over a shoulder of the downrose a tall fine spire--the spire of Chichester Cathedral, and farther onhe could see the water in Bosham Creek like a silver mirror, and theChannel rippling silver beyond. He turned round. Beneath him lay the bluedark weald of Sussex, and through it he imagined the hidden line of theroad driving straight as a ruler to London.
"No going about!" he said. "If a hill was in the way the road climbedover it; if a marsh it was built through it."
They rode on slowly along the great whaleback of grass, winding in andout amongst brambles and patches of yellow-flaming gorse. The day wasstill even at this height; and when, far away, a field of long grassunder a stray wind bent from edge to edge with the swift motion ofrunning water, it took them both by surprise. And they met no one. Theyseemed to ride in the morning of a new clean world. They rose higher onto Duncton Down, and then the girl spoke.
"So this is your last day here."
He gazed about him out towards the sea, eastwards down the slope to thedark trees of Arundel, backwards over the weald to the high ridge ofBlackdown.
"I shall look back upon it."
"Yes," she said. "It's a day to look back upon."
She ran over in her mind the days of this last month since he had come tothe inn at Great Beeding and friends of her family had written to herparents of his coming. "It's the most perfect of all your days here. I amglad. I want you to carry back with you good memories of our Sussex."
"I shall do that," said he, "but for another reason."
Stella pushed on a foot or two ahead of him.
"Well," she said, "no doubt the Temple will be stuffy."
"Nor was I thinking of the Temple."
"No?"
"No."
She rode on a little way whilst he followed. A great bee buzzed pasttheir heads and settled in the cup of a wild rose. In a copse beside thema thrush shot into the air a quiverful of clear melody.
Stella spoke again, not looking at her companion, and in a low voice andbravely with a sweet confusion of her blood.
"I am very glad to hear you say that, for I was afraid that I had let yousee more than I should have cared for you to see--unless you had beenanxious to see it too."
She waited for an answer, still keeping her distance just a foot or twoahead, and the answer did not come. A vague terror began to possess herthat things which could never possibly be were actually happening toher. She spoke again with a tremor in her voice and all the confidencegone out of it. Almost it appealed that she should not be put to shamebefore herself.
"It would have been a little humiliating to remember, if that hadbeen true."
Then upon the ground she saw the shadow of Thresk's horse creep up untilthe two rode side by side. She looked at him quickly with a doubtfulwavering smile and looked down again. What did all the trouble in hisface portend? Her heart thumped and she heard him say:
"Stella, I have something very difficult to say to you."
He laid a hand gently upon her arm, but she wrenched herself free. Shamewas upon her--shame unendurable. She tingled with it from head to foot.She turned to him suddenly a face grown crimson and eyes which brimmedwith tears.
"Oh," she cried aloud, "that I should have been such a fool!" and sheswayed forward in her saddle. But before he could reach out an arm tohold her she was upright again, and with a cut of her whip she was offat a gallop.
"Stella," he cried, but she only used her whip the more. She gallopedmadly and blindly over the grass, not knowing whither, not caring,loathing herself. Thresk galloped after her, but her horse, maddened byher whip and the thud of the hoofs behind, held its advantage. He settleddown to the pursuit with a jumble of thoughts in his brain.
"If to-day were only ten years on ... As it is it would be madness ...madness and squalor and the end of everything ... Between us wehaven't a couple of pennies to rub together ... How she rides! ... Shewas never meant for Brixton ... No, nor I ... Why didn't I hold mytongue? ... Oh what a fool, what a fool! Thank Heaven the horses comeout of a livery stable ... They can't go on for ever and--oh, my God!there are rabbit-holes on the Downs." And his voice rose to a shout:"Stella! Stella!"
But she never looked over her shoulder. She fled the more desperately,shamed through and through! Along the high ridge, between the bushes andthe beech-trees, their shadows flitted over the turf, to a jingle of bitsand the thunder of hoofs. Duncton Beacon rose far behind them; they hadcrossed the road and Charlton forest was slipping past like dark waterbefore the mad race came to an end. Stella became aware that escape wasimpossible. Her horse was spent, she herself reeling. She let her reinsdrop loose and the gallop changed to a trot, the trot to a walk. Shenoticed with gratitude that Thresk was giving her time. He too had fallento a walk behind her, and quite slowly he came to her side. She turnedto him at once.
"This is good country for a gallop, isn't it?"
"Rabbit-holes though," said he. "You were lucky."
He answered absently. There was something which had got to be said now.He could not let this girl to whom he owed--well, the only holiday thathe had ever taken, go home shamed by a mistake, which after all she hadnot made. He was very near indeed to saying yet more. The inclination wasstrong in him, but not so strong as the methods of his life. Marriagenow--that meant to his view the closing of all the avenues ofadvancement, and a life for both below both their needs.
"Stella, just listen to me. I want you to know that had things beendifferent I should have rejoiced beyond words."
"Oh, don't!" she cried.
"I must," he answered and she was silent. "I want you to know," herepeated, stammering and stumbling, afraid lest each word meant to healshould only pierce the deeper. "Before I came here there was no one.Since I came here there has been--you. Oh, my dear, I would have beenvery glad. But I am obscure--without means. There are years in front ofme before I shall be anything else. I couldn't ask you to share them--orI should have done so before now."
In her mind ran the thought: what queer unimportant things men thinkabout! The early years! Wouldn't their difficulties, their sorrows be thereal savour of life and make it worth remembrance, worth treasuring? Butmen had the right of speech. Not again would she forget that. She bowedher head and he blundered on.
"For you there'll be a better destiny. There's that great house in thePark with its burnt walls. I should like to see that rebuilt and you inyour right place, its mistress." And his words ceased as Stella abruptlyturned to him. She was breathing quickly and she looked at him with awonder in her trouble.
"And it hurts you to say this!" she said. "Yes, it actually hurts you."
"What else could I say?"
Her face softened as she looked and heard. It was not that he was cold ofblood or did not care. There was mor
e than discomfort in his voice, therewas a very real distress. And in his eyes his heart ached for her to see.Something of her pride was restored to her. She fell at once to his tune,but she was conscious that both of them talked treacheries.
"Yes, you are right. It wouldn't have been possible. You have your nameand your fortune to make. I too--I shall marry, I suppose, some one"--andshe suddenly smiled rather bitterly--"who will give me a Rolls-Roycemotor-car." And so they rode on very reasonably.
Noon had passed. A hush had fallen upon that high world of grass andsunlight. The birds were still. They talked of this and that, thelatest crisis in Europe and the growth of Socialism, all very wiselyand with great indifference like well-bred people at a dinner-party.Not thus had Stella thought to ride home when the message had come thatmorning that the horses would be at her door before ten. She had riddenout clothed on with dreams of gold. She rode back with her dreams intatters and a sort of incredulity that to her too, as to other girls,all this pain had come.
They came to a bridle-path which led downwards through a thicket of treesto the weald and so descended upon Great Beeding. They rode through thelittle town, past the inn where Thresk was staying and the iron gates ofa Park where, amidst elm-trees, the blackened ruins of a great housegaped to the sky.
"Some day you will live there again," said Thresk, and Stella's lipstwitched with a smile of humour.
"I shall be very glad after to-day to leave the house I am living in,"she said quietly, and the words struck him dumb. He had subtlety enoughto understand her. The rooms would mock her with memories of vain dreams.Yet he kept silence. It was too late in any case to take back what he hadsaid; and even if she would listen to him marriage wouldn't be fair. Hewould be hampered, and that, just at this time in his life, would meanfailure--failure for her no less than for him. They must beprudent--prudent and methodical, and so the great prizes would be theirs.
A mile beyond, a mile of yellow lanes between high hedges, they came tothe village of Little Beeding, one big house and a few thatched cottagesclustered amongst roses and great trees on the bank of a small river.Thither old Mr. Derrick and his wife and his daughter had gone after thefire at Hinksey Park had completed the ruin which disastrous speculationshad begun; and at the gate of one of the cottages the riders stopped anddismounted.
"I shall not see you again after to-day," said Stella. "Will you come infor a moment?"
Thresk gave the horses to a passing labourer to hold and opened the gate.
"I shall be disturbing your people at their luncheon," he said.
"I don't want you to go in to them," said the girl. "I will say goodbyeto them for you."
Thresk followed her up the garden-path, wondering what it was that shehad still to say to him. She led him into a small room at the back of thehouse, looking out upon the lawn. Then she stood in front of him.
"Will you kiss me once, please," she said simply, and she stood with herarms hanging at her side, whilst he kissed her on the lips.
"Thank you," she said. "Now will you go?"
He left her standing in the little room and led the horses back to theinn. That afternoon he took the train to London.