XVIII

"The pain is always here--just over the heart. You know what I mean?

Suddenly, when I am thinking of other things, the sound of her voice and the sight of her face comes upon me, and then a dead, weary ache.

I know I cannot have her, perhaps if I did I shouldn't be wholly glad; but glad or sorry, good fortune or ill, I cannot forget her. My life will not be complete. You have felt all this."

"Never mind how I felt, you know I don't like talking about it. I am sorry for you. We all have our troubles, I've had nothing else; I often think that if I were to die to-morrow it would be a happy release."

"If I had never seen her, or if I had married Maggie; if your father had not put obstacles in the way; if he had not raised the wretched money question, which you know as well as I do was dragged in quite unnecessarily, I should not be suffering now. For, once married, I should think of no one but my wife. I am sure I should make a good husband. I know I could make a woman happy; she'll never find a husband better than she'd have found in me, I don't believe if they were to be made that you could make a better husband than I should be --I feel it."

"I have always said that my father brings all his troubles on himself.

He never went in for the country people; he never would have people at the Manor House. You can't shut up young girls as if they were in a convent, and if they don't get the right people they'll have the wrong people. My father thinks of nothing but his money, and he can't understand that he might go for an equivalent. How could he have expected it to have turned in your case but as it did? Lord Mount Rorke was not going to come over to Southwick to haggle over pounds, shillings, and pence with him--not likely. My sisters might have married very well if he had gone the right way to work, and he would have been saved a deal of worry and bother. I always say that my father brings all his troubles on himself."

"So far as I was concerned he certainly acted very stupidly. Ah, if I had married Maggie last summer, how different my life would be now."

"But you couldn't have really loved her; if you had you would never--"

"Yes, I did love her."

"I heard from my father to-day. Maggie is better. This is, of course, a very delicate question, but we have been friends so long--would you like me to see if--if this matter could be arranged? I don't like, as you know, to meddle in other people's affairs, I have quite enough to do to look after my own; but if you would like--You, of course, do not think of marrying Lizzie Baker?"

"Of course not."

"Then you would like me to speak to my father? Are you willing? Would you like to marry Maggie?"

"Yes, of course I should."

"I don't say so because she is my sister, but I think it is the best thing you could do."

They had traversed the paddock, and were close to the stables. Picking a few carrots out of a heap, they opened the door of Blue Mantle's box. The horse came towards them, his large eyes glancing, his beautiful crest arched. His coat shone like satin, his legs were as fine as steel, and with exquisite relish he drew the carrots from their hands.

The perspective of the hills was prolonged upon fading tints, and in the pale blueness the mares feeding in the paddocks grew strangely solitary and distinct; the trees about the coast towns were blended in shadow, and out of the first stars fell a quiet peace.

Their dinner awaited them--a little dinner, simple and humble. After dinner, when the lamp was brought in, w.i.l.l.y nursed the missus with affection and sincerity. Cissy sat on Frank's knee, and he told her stories and stroked her hair. This household retired at eleven. At ten every morning w.i.l.l.y was busy with his letters, his cheques, his accounts, and in the afternoon the young men walked about the fields talking of possible successes of the forthcoming breeding season, and so the days went. But the secret forces were busy about Frank's life.

There were mines and counter-mines. Every fort of prejudice, every citadel of reason rested now upon foundations that quaked, and would fall at the first shock. Doom was about him. As the silence rustles in the deadly hush of the storm that brings winter upon the forest, he waited unconscious as a leaf in the imminence of the autumn moment; and in such a stillness, awaiting a change of soul, he received a letter from Lizzie. It dropped from his hand, and such desire to go as comes on swallow and cuckoo came on him; he struggled for a moment, and was sucked down in his pa.s.sion.

The little village--a summary of English life and custom, a symbol of the Saxon, the church steeple pointing through the elm trees, the villas with their various embellishment in the line of gla.s.s porticos and privet hedges, the General, Mrs. Horlick, Messrs Brookes and Berkins--how complete it seemed, how individual and how synthetical-- his eyes filled with tears of unpremeditated grief. The leaves were falling, the hills were shrouded in wreaths of floating mist. Some trees had been cut down and scaffolding had been reared about the Manor House, some of the walls had already fallen revealing the wall paper, the pattern of which he could almost distinguish. He was going to the woman he loved, but he was leaving his youth behind, and those whom he had known as children, as girls, as women; he remembered all the gossip, all the quarrels, all the to-do about nothing; and now, looking on the beautiful garden where he had played and pa.s.sioned in all varying moments of grief and glee, he re-lived the past; and leaning out of the carriage window he gazed fondly, and cried out: "Alas, those were Spring Days."

THE END