Nicolete was silent again.
"Think of your little woodland chalet, and your great old trees in thepark,--you couldn't live without them. I have, at most, but one treeworth speaking of to offer you--"
I purposely waived the glamour which my old garden had for my mind, andwhich I wouldn't have exchanged for fifty parks.
"Trees!" retorted Nicolete,--"what are trees?"
"Ah, my dear girl, they are a good deal,--particularly when they aregenealogical, as my one tree is not."
"Aucassin," she said suddenly, almost fiercely, "can you really jest?Tell me this,--do you love me?"
"I love you," I said simply; "and it is just because I love you so muchthat I have talked as I have done. No man situated as I am who lovedyou could have talked otherwise."
"Well, I have heard it all, weighed it all," said Nicolete, presently;"and to me it is but as thistledown against the love within my heart.Will you cast away a woman who loves you for theories? You know youlove me, know I love you. We should have our trials, our ups anddowns, I know; but surely it is by those that true love learns how togrow more true and strong. Oh, I cannot argue! Tell me again, do youlove me?"
And there she broke down and fell sobbing into my arms. I consoled heras best I might, and presently she looked up at me through her tears.
"Tell me again," she said, "that you love me, just as you didyesterday, and promise never to speak of all those cruel things again.Ah! have you thought of the kind of men you would give me up to?"
At that I confess I shuddered, and I gave her the required assurance.
"And you won't be wise and reasonable and ridiculous any more?"
"No," I answered; adding in my mind, "not, at all events, for thepresent."
CHAPTER XI
HOW ONE PLAYS THE HERO AT THIRTY
Had we only been able to see a day into the future, we might havespared ourselves this agonising, for all our doubts and fears weresuddenly dispersed in an entirely unexpected manner. Happily theseinterior problems are not infrequently resolved by quite exteriorforces.
We were sitting the following afternoon in one of those broad baywindows such as one finds still in some old country inns, just thinkingabout starting once more on our way, when suddenly Nicolete, who hadbeen gazing out idly into the road, gave a little cry. I followed herglance. A carriage with arms on its panels had stopped at the inn, andas a smart footman opened the door, a fine grey-headed military-lookingman stepped out and strode hurriedly up the inn steps.
"Aucassin," gasped Nicolete, "it is my father!"
It was too true. The old man's keen eye had caught sight of Nicoleteat the window also, and in another moment we were all three face toface. I must do the Major-General the justice of saying that he madeas little of a "scene" of it as possible.
"Now, my girl," he said, "I have come to put an end to this nonsense.Have you a petticoat with you? Well, go upstairs and get it on. Iwill wait for you here... On you, sir, I shall waste no words. Fromwhat I have heard, you are as moonstruck as my daughter."
"Of course," I stammered, "I cannot expect you to understand thesituation, though I think, if you would allow me, I could in a very fewwords make it somewhat clearer,--make you realise that, after all, ithas been a very innocent and childish escapade, in which there has beenno harm and a great deal of pleasure--"
But the Major-General cut me short.
"I should prefer," he said, "not to discuss the matter. I may say thatI realise that my daughter has been safe in your hands, howeverfoolish,"--for this I thanked him with a bow,--"but I must add thatyour eccentric acquaintance must end here--"
I said him neither yea nor nay; and while we stood in armed andembarrassed silence, Nicolete appeared with white face at the door,clothed in her emergency petticoat. Alas! it was for no such emergencyas this that it had been destined that merry night when she had packedit in her knapsack. With a stern bow her father turned from me to joinher; but she suddenly slipped past him, threw her arms round me, andkissed me one long passionate kiss.
"Aucassin, be true," she cried, "I will never forget you,--no one shallcome between us;" and then bursting into tears, she buried her face inher hands and followed her father from the room.
In another moment she had been driven away, and I sat as one stupefiedin the inn window. But a few short minutes ago she had been sittingmerrily prattling by my side, and now I was once more as lonely as ifwe had never met. Presently I became conscious in my reverie of alittle crumpled piece of paper on the floor. I picked it up. It was alittle note pencilled in her bedroom at the last moment. "Aucassin,"it ran, just like her last passionate words, "be true. I will neverforget you. Stay here till I write to you, and oh, write to me soon!--Your broken-hearted Nicolete."
As I read, I saw her lovely young face, radiant with love and sorrow asI had last seen it, and pressing the precious little letter to my lips,I said fervently, "Yes, Nicolete, I will be true."
CHAPTER XII
IN WHICH I REVIEW MY ACTIONS AND RENEW MY RESOLUTIONS
No doubt the youthful reader will have but a poor opinion of me afterthe last two chapters. He will think that in the scene with theMajor-General I acted with lamentably little spirit, and that generallymy friend Alastor would have proved infinitely more worthy of thesituation. It is quite true, I confess it. The whole episode was madefor Alastor. Nicolete and he were born for each other. Alas! it isone of the many drawbacks of experience that it frequently prevents ourbehaving with spirit.
I must be content to appeal to the wiser and therefore sadder reader,of whom I have but a poor opinion if he too fails to understand me.He, I think, will understand why I didn't promptly assault theMajor-General, seize Nicolete by the waist, thrust her into herancestral carriage, haul the coachman from his box, and, seizing thereins, drive away in triumph before astonishment had time to changeinto pursuit. Truly it had been but the work of a moment, and there wasonly one consideration which prevented my following thisnow-I-call-that-heroic course. It is a consideration I dare hardlyventure to write, and the confession of which will, I know, necessitatemy changing my age back again to thirty on the instant. Oh, bemerciful, dear romantic reader! I didn't strike the Major-General,because, oh, because I AGREED WITH HIM!
I loved Nicolete, you must have felt that. She was sweet to me as thebunch of white flowers that, in their frail Venetian vase, stand sodaintily on my old bureau as I write, doing their best to sweeten mythoughts. Dear was she to me as the birds that out in the old gardenyonder sing and sing their best to lift up my leaden heart. She wasdear as the Spring itself, she was only less dear than Autumn.
Yes, black confession! after the first passion of her loss, theimmediate ache of her young beauty had passed, and I was able toanalyse what I really felt, I not only agreed with him, I thanked Godfor the Major-General! He had saved me from playing the terrible partof executioner. He had just come in time to behead the Lady Jane Greyof our dreams.
I should have no qualms about tightening the rope round the neck ofsome human monster, or sticking a neat dagger or bullet into adangerous, treacherous foe, but to kill a dream is a sickeningbusiness. It goes on moaning in such a heart-breaking fashion, and younever know when it is dead. All on a sudden some night it will comewailing in the wind outside your window, and you must blacken yourheart and harden your face with another strangling grip of its slimappealing throat, another blow upon its angel eyes. Even then it willrecover, and you will go on being a murderer, making for yourself dayby day a murderer's face, without the satisfaction of having reallymurdered.
But what of Nicolete? do you exclaim. Have you no thought for her,bleeding her heart away in solitude? Can you so soon forget thoseappealing eyes? Yes, I have thought for her. Would God that I couldbear for her those growing pains of the heart! and I shall never forgetthose farewell eyes. But then, you see, I had firmly realised this,that she would sooner recover from our separation than from ourmarriage; that her love for me, pretty
and poignant and dramatic whileit lasted, was a book-born, book-fed dream, which must die soon orlate,--the sooner the better for the peace of the dreams that in thecourse of nature would soon spring up to take its place.
But while I realised all this, and, with a veritable aching of theheart at the loss of her, felt a curious satisfaction at the turn ofevents, still my own psychology became all the more a puzzle to me, andI asked myself, with some impatience, what I would be at, and what itwas I really wanted.
Here had I but a few moments ago been holding in my hands the verydream I had set out to find, and here was I secretly rejoicing to berobbed of it! If Nicolete did not fulfil the conditions of thatmystical Golden Girl, in professed search for whom I had set out thatspring morning, well, the good genius of my pilgrimage felt it time toresign. Better give it up at once, and go back to my books and mybachelorhood, if I were so difficult to please. No wonder my kindprovidence felt provoked. It had provided me with the sweetestpink-and-porcelain dream of a girl, and might reasonably have concludedthat his labours on my behalf were at an end.
But, really, there is no need to lecture me upon the charms and virtuesof Nicolete, for I loved them from the first moment of our strangeintroduction, and I dream of them still. There was indeed only onequality of womanhood in which she was lacking, and in which, after muchserious self-examination, I discovered the reason of my instinctiveself-sacrifice of her,--SHE HAD NEVER SUFFERED. As my heart had warnedme at the beginning, "she was hoping too much from life to spend one'sdays with." She lacked the subtle half-tones of experience. She lackedall that a pretty wrinkle or two might have given. There was noshadowy melancholy in her sky-clear eyes. She was gay indeed, and hada certain childish humour; but she had none of that humour which comesof the resigned perception that the world is out of joint, and that youwere never born to set it right. These characteristics I had yet tofind in woman. There was still, therefore, an object to my quest.Indeed my experience had provided me with a formula. I was in searchof a woman who, in addition to every other feminine charm and virtue,was a woman who had suffered.
With this prayer I turned once more to the genius of my pilgrimage."Grant me," I asked, "but this--A WOMAN WHO HAS SUFFERED!" and,apparently as a consequence, he became once more quite genial. Heseemed to mean that a prayer so easy to grant would put any god into agood temper; and possibly he smiled with a deeper meaning too.
BOOK III
CHAPTER I
IN WHICH I RETURN TO MY RIGHT AGE AND ENCOUNTER A COMMON OBJECT OF THECOUNTRY
And so when the days of my mourning for Nicolete were ended (and inthis sentence I pass over letters to and fro,--letters wild fromNicolete, letters wise from Aucassin, letters explanatory andapologetic from the Obstacle--how the Major-General had suddenly comehome quite unexpectedly and compelled her to explain Nicolete'sabsence, etc., etc. Dear Obstacle! I should rather have enjoyed apilgrimage with her too)--I found myself one afternoon again upon theroad. The day had been very warm and dusty, and had turned sleepytowards tea-time.
I had now pretty clearly in my mind what I wanted. This time it was,all other things equal, to be "a woman who had suffered," and to thisend, I had, before starting out once more, changed my age back again atthe inn and written "Aetat. 30" after my name in the visitors' book.As a young man I was an evident failure, and so, having made thecountersign, I was speedily transformed to my old self; and I must saythat it was a most comfortable feeling, something like getting backagain into an old coat or an old pair of shoes. I never wanted to beyoung again as long as I lived. Youth was too much like the Sundayclothes of one's boyhood. Moreover, I had a secret conviction that thewoman I was now in search of would prefer one who had had someexperience at being a man, who would bring her not the green plums ofhis love, but the cunningly ripened nectarines, a man to whom love wassomething of an art as well as an inspiration.
It was in this frame of mind that I came upon the following scene.
The lane was a very cloistral one, with a ribbon of gravelly road,bordered on each side with a rich margin of turf and a scramble ofblackberry bushes, green turf banks and dwarf oak-trees making a richand plenteous shade. My attention was caught firstly by a bicyclelying carelessly on the turf, and secondly and lastly by a gracefulwoman's figure, recumbent and evidently sleeping against the turf bank,well tucked in among the afternoon shadows. My coming had not arousedher, and so I stole nearer to her on tiptoe.
She was a pretty woman, of a striking modern type, tall,well-proportioned, strong, I should say, with a good complexion thathad evidently been made just a little better. But her most strikingfeature was an opulent mass of dark red hair, which had fallen in somedisorder and made quite a pillow for her head. Her hat was off, lyingin its veil by her side, and a certain general abandon of herfigure,--which was clothed in a short cloth skirt, cut with thatunmistakable touch which we call style--betokened weariness that couldno longer wait for rest.
Poor child! she was tired out. She must never be left to sleep onthere, for she seemed good to sleep till midnight.
I turned to her bicycle, and, examining it with the air of a man whohad won silver cups in his day, I speedily discovered what had been themischief. The tire of the front wheel had been pierced, and a greatthorn was protruding from the place. Evidently this had been too muchfor poor Rosalind, and it was not unlikely that she had cried herselfto sleep.
I bent over her to look--yes, there were traces of tears. Poor thing!Then I had a kindly human impulse. I would mend the tire, havingattended ambulance classes, do it very quietly so that she wouldn'thear, like the fairy cobblers who used to mend people's boots whilethey slept, and then wait in ambush to watch the effect upon her whenshe awoke.
What do you think of the idea?
But one important detail I have omitted from my description of thesleeper. Her left hand lay gloveless, and of the four rings on herthird finger one was a wedding-ring.
"Such red hair,--and a wedding-ring!" I exclaimed inwardly. "How thiswoman must have suffered!"
CHAPTER II
IN WHICH I HEAL A BICYCLE AND COME TO THE WHEEL OF PLEASURE
Moving the bicycle a little away, so that my operations upon it mightnot arouse her, I had soon made all right again, and when I laid itonce more where she had left it, she was still sleeping as sound asever. She had only to sleep long enough, a sly thought suggested, tonecessitate her ending her day's journey at the same inn as myself,some five miles on the road. One virtue at least the reader will allowto this history,--we are seldom far away from an inn in its pages.When I thought of that I sat stiller than ever, hardly daring to turnover the pages of Apuleius, which I had taken from my knapsack tobeguile the time, and, I confess, to give my eyes some other occupationthan the dangerous one of gazing upon her face, dangerous in more waysthan one, but particularly dangerous at the moment, because, aseverybody knows, a steady gaze on a sleeping face is apt to awake thesleeper. And she wasn't to be disturbed!
"No! she mustn't waken before seven at the latest," I said to myself,holding my breath and starting in terror at every noise. Once a greatnoisy bee was within an ace of waking her, but I caught him withinspired dexterity, and he buzzed around her head no more.
But despite the providential loneliness of the road, there were one ortwo terrors that could not be disposed of so summarily. The worst ofall was a heavy miller's cart which one could hardly crush to silencein one's handkerchief; but it went so slowly, and both man and horseswere so sleepy, that they passed unheard and unnoticing.
A sprightly tramp promised greater difficulty, and nothing but someferocious pantomime and a shilling persuaded him to forego a choicefantasia of cockney humour.
A poor tired Italian organ-grinder, tramping with an equally tiredmonkey along the dusty roads, had to be bought off in a similarmanner,--though he only cost sixpence. He gave me a Southern smile andshrug of comprehension, as one acquainted with affairs of theheart,--which was a relief after the cockney tramp's impuden
texpression of, no doubt, a precisely similar sentiment.
And then at last, just as my watch pointed to 6.50 (how well I rememberthe exact moment!) Rosalind awoke suddenly, as women and children do,sitting straight up on the instant, and putting up her hands to hertousled hair, with a half-startled "Where am I?" When her hair wasonce more "respectable," she gave her skirts a shake, bent sideways topull up her stockings and tighten her garters, looked at her watch, andthen with an exclamation at the lateness of the hour, went over, withan air of desperate determination, to her bicycle.
"Now for this horrid puncture!" were the first words I was to hear fallfrom her lips.
She sought for the wound in the india-rubber with growing bewilderment.
"Goodness!" was her next exclamation, "why, there's nothing wrong withit. Can I have been dreaming?"
"I hope your dreams have been pleasanter than that," I ventured at thismoment to stammer, rising, a startling apparition, from my ambushbehind a mound of brambles; and before she had time to take in thesituation I added that I hoped she'd excuse my little pleasantry, andtold her how I had noticed her and the wounded bicycle, et cetera, etcetera, as the reader can well imagine, without giving me the troubleof writing it all out.
She was sweetness itself on the instant.
"Excuse you!" she said, "I should think so. Who wouldn't? You can'ttell the load you've taken off my mind. I'm sure I must have groanedin my sleep--for I confess I cried myself to sleep over it."
"I thought so," I said with gravity, and eyes that didn't dare to smileoutright till they had permission, which, however, was not longwithheld them.