Starvecrow Farm Page 11

  CHAPTER IX

  PUNISHMENT

  Anthony Clyne came to a stand before her, and lifted his hat.

  "I understand," he said, without letting his eyes meet hers--he wasstiffness itself, but perhaps he too had his emotions--"that youpreferred to see me here rather than indoors?"

  "Yes," Henrietta answered. And the girl thanked heaven that though thebeating of her heart had nearly choked her a moment before, her tonewas as hard and uncompromising as his. He could not guess, he nevershould guess, what strain she put on nerve and will that she might notquail before him; nor how often, with her quivering face hidden in thepillow, she had told herself, before rising, that it was for onceonly, once only, and that then she need never see again the man shehad wronged.

  "I do not know," he continued slowly, "whether you have anything tosay?"

  "Nothing," she answered. They were standing on the Ambleside road, ashort furlong from the inn. Leafless trees climbed the hill-side abovethem; and a rough slope, unfenced and strewn with boulders and dyingbracken, ran down from their feet to the lake.

  "Then," he rejoined, with a scarcely perceptible hardening of themouth, "I had best say as briefly as possible what I am come to say."

  "If you please," she said. Hitherto she had faced him regally. Now sheaverted her eyes ever so slightly, and placed herself so that shelooked across the water that gleamed pale under the morning mist.

  Yet, even with her eyes turned from him, he did not find it easy tosay what he must say. And for a few seconds he was silent. At last "Ido not wish to upbraid you," he began in a voice somewhat lower intone. "You have done a very foolish and a very wicked, wicked thing,and one which cannot be undone in the eyes of the world. That is forall to see. You have left your home and your friends and your familyunder circumstances----"

  She turned her full face to him suddenly.

  "Have they," she said, "empowered you to speak to me?"

  "Yes."

  "They do not wish to see me themselves?"

  "No."

  "Nor perhaps--wish me to return to them?"

  "No."

  She nodded as she looked away again; in sheer defiance, he supposed.He did not guess that she did it to mask the irrepressible shiverwhich the news caused her.

  He thought her, on the contrary, utterly unrepentant, and it hardenedhim to speak more austerely, to give his feelings freer vent.

  "Had you done this thing with a gentleman," he said, "there had been,however heartless and foolish the act, some hope that the matter mightbe set straight. And some excuse for yourself; since a man of ourclass might have dazzled you by the possession of qualities which theperson you chose could not have. But an elopement with a needyadventurer, without breeding, parts, or honesty--a criminal, andwedded already----"

  "If he were not wedded already," she said, "I had been with him now!"

  His face grew a shade more severe, but otherwise he did not heed thetaunt.

  "Such an--an act," he said, "unfits you in your brother's eyes toreturn to his home." He paused an instant. "Or to the family you havedisgraced. I am bound--I have no option, to tell you this."

  "You say it as from them?"

  "I do. I have said indeed less than they bade me say. And not more, Ibelieve on my honour, than the occasion requires. A younggentlewoman," he continued bitterly, "brought up in the country withevery care, sheltered from every temptation, with friends, with home,with every comfort and luxury, and about to be married to a gentlemanin her own rank in life, meets secretly, clandestinely, shamefully aman, the lowest of the low, on a par in refinement with her ownservants, but less worthy! She deceives with him her friends, herfamily, her relatives! If"--with some emotion--"I have overstated oneof these things, God forgive me!"

  "Pray go on!" she said, with her face averted. And thinking that shewas utterly hardened, utterly without heart, thinking that her outwardcalm spelled callousness, and that she felt nothing, he did continue.

  "Can she," he said, "who has been so deceitful herself, complain ifthe man deceives her? She has chosen a worthless creature before herfamily and her friends? Is she not richly served if he treats herafter his own nature and her example? If, after stooping to thelawless level of such a poor thing, she finds herself involved in hispenalties, and her name a scandal and a shame to her family!"

  "Is that all?" she asked. But not a quiver of the voice, not a tremourof the shoulders, betrayed what she was feeling, what she suffered,how fiercely the brand was burning into her soul.

  "That is all they bade me say," he replied in a calmer and more gentletone. "And that they would make arrangements--such arrangements as maybe possible for your future. But they would not take you back."

  "And now--what on your own account?" she asked, almost flippantly."Something, I suppose?"

  "Yes," he said, answering her slowly, and with a steady look ofcondemnation. For in all honesty the girl's attitude shocked andastonished him. "I have something to say on my own account. Something.But it is difficult to say it."

  She turned to him and raised her eyebrows.

  "Really!" she said. "You seem to speak so easily."

  He did not remark how white, even against the pale shimmer of thelake, was the face that mocked him; and her heartlessness seemeddreadful to him.

  "I wish," he said, "to say only one thing on my own account."

  "There is only one thing you must not say," she retorted, turning onhim without warning and speaking with concentrated passion. "I havebeen, it may be, as foolish as you say. I am only nineteen. I may havebeen, I don't know about that, very wicked--as wicked as you say. Andwhat I have done in my folly and in my--you call it wickedness--may bea disgrace to my family. But I have done nothing, nothing, sir,"--sheraised her head proudly--"to disgrace myself personally. Do youbelieve that?"

  And then he did notice how white she was.

  "If you tell me that, I do believe it," he said gravely.

  "You must believe it," she rejoined with sudden vehemence. "Or youwrong me more cruelly than I have wronged you!"

  "I do believe it," he said, conquered for the time by a new emotion.

  "Then now I will hear you," she answered, her tone sinking again. "Iwill hear what you wish to say. Not that it will bend me. I haveinjured you. I own it, and am sorry for it on your account. On my ownI am unhappy, but I had been more unhappy had I married you. You havebeen frank, let me be frank," she continued, her eyes alight, her tonealmost imperious. "You sought not a wife, but a mother for your child!A woman, a little better bred than a nurse, to whom you could entrustthe one being, the only being, you love, with less chance of itscontamination," she laughed icily, "by the lower orders! If you hadany other motive in choosing me it was that I was your second cousin,of your own respectable family, and you did not derogate. But youforgot that I was young and a woman, as you were a man. You said noword of love to me, you begged for no favour; when you entered a room,you sought my eye no more than another's, you had no more softness forme than for another! If you courted me at all it was before others,and if you talked to me at all it was from the height of wisedullness, and about things I did not understand and things I hated!Until," she continued viciously, "at last I hated you! What could bemore natural? What did you expect?"

  A little colour had stolen into his face under the lash of herreproaches. He tried to seem indifferent, but he could not. His tonewas forced and constrained when he answered.

  "You have strange ideas," he said.

  "And you have but two!" she riposted. "Politics and your boy! Icared," with concentrated bitterness, "for neither!"

  That stung him to anger and retort.

  "I can imagine it," he said. "Your likings appear to be on a differentplane."

  "They are at least not confined to fifty families!" she rejoined. "Ido not think myself divine," she continued with feverish irony, "andall below me clay! I do not think because I and all about me are dulland stupid th
at all the world is dull and stupid, talking eternallyabout"--and she deliberately mocked his tone--"'the licence of thepress!' and 'the imminence of anarchy!' To talk," with supreme scorn,"of the licence of the press and the imminence of anarchy to a girl ofnineteen! It was at least to make the way very smooth for another!"

  He looked at her in silence, frowning. Her frankness was an outrage onhis dignity--and he, of all men, loved his dignity. But it surprisedhim at least as much as it shocked him. He remembered the girlsometimes silly, sometimes demure, to whom he had cast thehandkerchief; and he had not been more astonished if a sheep had stoodup and barked at him. He was here, prepared to meet a frightened,weeping, shamefaced child, imploring pardon, imploring mediation; andhe found this! He was here to upbraid, and she scolded him. She markedwith unerring eye the joints in his armour, and with her venomouswoman's tongue she planted darts that he knew would rankle--ranklelong after she was gone and he was alone. And a faint glimpse of thetruth broke on him. Was it possible that he had misread the girl; whomhe had deemed characterless, when she was not shy? Was it possiblethat he had under-valued her and slighted her? Was it possible that,while he had been judging her and talking down to her, she had beenjudging him and laughing in her sleeve?

  The thought was not pleasant to a proud nature. And there was anotherthing he had to weigh. If she were so different in fact from theconception he had formed of her, the course which had occurred to himas the best, and which he was going to propose for her, might not bethe best.

  But he put that from him. A name for firmness at times compels a manto obstinacy. It was so now. He set his jaw more stiffly, and--

  "Will you hear me now?" he asked.

  "If there is anything more to be said," she replied. She spoke wearilyover her shoulder.

  "I think there is," he rejoined stubbornly, "one thing. It will notkeep you long. It refers to your future. There is a course which Ithink may be taken and may be advantageous to you."

  "If," she cried impetuously, "it is to take me back to those----"

  "On the contrary," he replied. He was not unwilling to wound one whohad shown herself so unexpectedly capable of offence. "That is quitepast," he continued. "There is no longer any question of that. Andeven the course I suggest is not without its disadvantages. It maynot, at first sight, be more acceptable to you than returning to yourhome. But I trust you have learnt a lesson, and will now be guided."After saying which he coughed and hesitated, and at length, aftertwice pulling up his cravat, "I think," he said--"the matter issomewhat delicate--that I had better write what I have in my mind."

  Under the dead weight of depression which had succeeded to passion,curiosity stirred faintly in her. But--

  "As you please," she said.

  "The more," he continued stiffly, "as in the immediate presentthere is nothing to be done. And therefore there is no haste. Untilthis"--he made a wry face, the thing was so hateful to him--"thisinquiry is at an end, and you are free to leave, nothing butpreliminaries can be dealt with; those settled, however, I think thereshould be no delay. But you shall hear from me within the week."

  "Very well." And after a slight pause, "That is all?"

  "That is all, I think."

  Yet he did not go. And she continued to stand with her shoulder turnedtowards him. He was a man of strong prejudices, and the habit ofcommand had rendered him in some degree callous. But he was neitherunkind by nature, nor, in spite of the story Walterson had told ofhim, inhuman in practice. To leave a young girl thus, to leave herwithout a word of leave-taking or regret, seemed even to him, now itcame to the point, barbarous. The road stretched lonely on either sideof them, the woods were brown and sad and almost leafless, the lakebelow them mirrored the unchanging grey above, or lost itself indreary mist. And he remembered her in surroundings so different! Heremembered how she had been reared, by whom encircled, amid whatplenitude! And though he did not guess that the slender figurestanding thus mute and forlorn would haunt him by night and by day forweeks to come, and harry and torment him with dumb reproaches--hestill had not the heart to go without one gentler word.

  And so "No, there is one thing," he said, his voice shaking veryslightly, "I would like to add--I would like you to know. It is thatafter next week I shall be at Rysby in Cartmel--Rysby Hall--for abouta month. It is not more than two miles from the foot of the lake, andif you are still here and need advice----"

  "Thank you."

  "----or help, I would like you to know that I am there."

  "That I may apply to you?" she said without turning her head.

  He could not tell whether at last there were tears in her voice, orwhether she were merely drawing him on to flout him.

  "I meant that," he said coldly.

  "Thank you."

  Certainly there was a queer sound in her voice.

  He paused awkwardly.

  "There is nothing more, I think?" he said.

  "Nothing, thank you."

  "Very well," he returned. "Then you will hear from me upon the matterI mentioned--in a day or two. Good-bye."

  He went then--awkwardly, slowly. He felt himself, in spite of hisarguments, in spite of his anger, in spite of the wrong which she haddone him, and the disgrace which she brought on his name,--he felthimself something of a cur. She was little more than a child, littlemore than a child; and he had not understood her! Even now he had nonotion how often that plea would ring in his ears, and harass him andkeep him wakeful. And Henrietta? She had told herself before theinterview that with it the worst would be over. But as she heard hisfirm tread pass slowly away, down the road, and grow fainter andfainter, the pride that had supported her under his eyes sank low. Asense of her loneliness, so cruel that it wrung her heart, so cruelthat she could have run after him and begged him to punish her, topunish her as he pleased, if he would not leave her deserted, grippedher throat and brought salt tears to her eyes. The excitement wasover, the flatness remained; the failure, and the grey skies andleaden water and dying bracken. And she was alone; alone for always.She had defied him, she had defied them all, she had told him thatwhatever happened she would not go back, she would not be taken back.But she knew now that she had lied. And she crossed the road, her stepunsteady, and stumbled blindly up the woodland path above the road,until she came to a place where she knew that she was hidden. Thereshe flung herself down on her face and cried passionately, stiflingher sobs in the green damp moss. She had done wrong. She had donecruel wrong to him. But she was only nineteen, and she was beingpunished! She was being punished!