Chapter 17

The words _'Whether you will or will not have me'_ rose to John's lips, but all power to speak them seemed to desert him; he had grown suddenly as weak as snow, and in an instant the occasion had passed.

On another occasion they were walking in the park.

'I never would have believed, John, that you would care to go out for a walk with me.'

'And why, Kitty?'

Kitty laughed--her short, sudden laugh was strange and sweet, and John's heart was beating.

'Well,' she said, without the faintest hesitation or shyness, 'we always thought you hated girls. I know I used to tease you when you came home for the first time, when you used to think of nothing but the Latin authors.'

'What do you mean?'

Kitty laughed again.

'You promise not to tell?'

'I promise.'

This was their first confidence.

'You told your mother when I came, when you were sitting by the fire reading, that the flutter of my skirts disturbed you.'

'No, Kitty; I'm sure you never disturbed me, or at least for a long time. I wish my mother would not repeat conversations; it is most unfair.'

'Mind, you promised not to repeat what I have told you. If you do, you will get me into an awful scrape.'

'I promise.'

The conversation came to a pause. Kitty looked up; and, overtaken by a sudden nervousness, John said--

'We had better make haste; the storm is coming on; we shall get wet through.'

And he made no further attempt to screw his courage up to the point of proposing, but asked himself if his powerlessness was a sign from God that he was abandoning his true vocation for a false one? He knew that he would not propose. If he did he would break his engagement when it came to the point of marriage. He was as unfitted for marriage as he was for the priesthood. He had deceived himself about the priesthood, as he was now deceiving himself about marriage. No, not deceiving himself, for at the bottom of his heart he could hear the truth. Then, why did he continue this,--it was no better than a comedy, an unworthy comedy, from which he did not seem to be able to disentangle himself; he could not say why. He could not understand himself; his brain was on fire, and he knelt down to pray, but when he prayed the thought of bringing a soul home to the fold tempted him like a star, and he asked himself if Kitty had not, in some of their conversations, shown leanings toward Catholicism. If this were so would it be right to desert her in a critical moment?

IX.

He had not proposed when Mr. Hare wrote for his daughter, and Kitty returned to Henfield. John at first thought that this absence was the solution of his difficulty; but he could not forget her, and it became one of his pleasures to start early in the morning, and having spent a long day with her, to return home across the downs.

'What a beautiful walk you will have, Mr. Norton! But are you not tired? Seven miles in the morning and seven in the evening!'

'But I have had the whole day to rest in.'

'What a lovely evening! Let's all walk a little way with him,' said Kitty.

'I should like to,' said the elder Miss Austin, 'but we promised father to be home for dinner. The one sure way of getting into his black books is to keep his dinner waiting, and he wouldn't dine without us.'

'Well, good-bye, dear,' said Kitty, 'I shall walk as far as the burgh.'

The Miss Austins turned into the trees that encircled Leywood, Kitty and John faced the hill, and ascending, they soon stood, tiny specks upon the evening hours.

Speaking of the Devil's Dyke, Kitty said--

'What! you mean to say you never heard the legend? You, a Sussex man!'

'I have lived very little in Sussex, and I used to hate the place; I am only just beginning to like it. But tell me the legend.'

'Very well; let's try and find a place where we can sit down. The grass is full of that horrid prickly gorse.'

'Here's a nice soft place; there is no gorse here. Now tell me the legend.'

'You do astonish me,' said Kitty, seating herself on the spot that had been chosen for her. 'You never heard of the legend of St. Cuthman!'

'Won't you cross the poor gipsy's palm with a bit of silver, my pretty gentleman, and she'll tell you your fortune and that of your pretty lady.'

Kitty uttered a startled cry and turning they found themselves facing a strong black-eyed girl.

'What do you think, Kitty, would you like to have your fortune told?'

Kitty laughed. 'It would be rather fun,' she said.

And she listened to the usual story of a handsome young gentleman who would woo her, win her, and give her happiness and wealth.

John threw the girl a shilling. She withdrew. They watched her passing through the furze.

'What nonsense they talk; you don't believe that there's anything in what they say,' said Kitty, raising her eyes.

John's eyes were fixed upon her. He tried to answer her question, which he had only half heard. But he could not form an intelligible sentence. There was a giddiness in his brain which he had never felt before; he trembled, and the victim of an impulse which forced him toward her, he threw his arms about her and kissed her violently.

'Oh, don't,' cried the girl, 'let me go--oh, John, how could you,' and disengaging herself from his arms she looked at him. The expression of deep sorrow and regret on his face surprised her more even than his kiss. She said, 'What is the matter, John? Why did you--' She did not finish the sentence.

'Do not ask me, I do not know. I cannot explain--a sudden impulse for which I am hardly accountable. You are so beautiful,' he said, taking her hand gently, 'that the temptation to kiss you--I don't know... I suppose it is natural desire to kiss what is beautiful. But you'll forget this, you will never mention it. I humbly beg your pardon.'

John sat looking into space, and, seeing how troubled he was, Kitty excused the kiss.

'I'm sure I forgive you, John. There was no great harm. I believe young men often kiss girls. The Austin girls do, I know, they have told me so. I shouldn't have cried out so if you hadn't taken me by surprise. I forgive you, John, I know you didn't mean it, you meant nothing.'

His face frightened her.

'You must never do so again. It is not right; but we have known each other always--I don't think it was a sin. I don't think that father or Mrs. Norton would think it---'

'But they must never know. You promise me, Kitty. ... I am grateful to you for what you have said in my excuse. I daresay the Austin girls do kiss young men, but because they do so it does not follow that it is right. No girl should kiss a man unless she intends to marry him.'

'But,' said Kitty, laughing, 'if he kisses her by force what is she to do?'

For she failed to perceive that to snatch a kiss was as important as John seemed to think. But he told her that she must not laugh, that she must try to forgive him.

'It is unpardonable,' he said, 'for I cannot marry you. We are not of the same religion....'

'But you don't want to marry me, John--to marry just because you kissed me! People kiss every year under the mistletoe but they don't marry each other.'

'It is as you like, Kitty.'

But forced on by his conscience, he said:

'We might obtain a dispensation.... You know nothing of our Church; if you did, you might become a convert. I wish you would consider the question. It is so simple; we surrender our own wretched understanding, and are content to accept the Church as wiser than we. Once man throws off restraint there is no happiness, there is only misery. One step leads to another; if he would be logical he must go on, and before long, for the descent is very rapid indeed, he finds himself in an abyss of darkness and doubt, a terrible abyss indeed, where nothing exists, and life has lost all meaning. The Reformation was the thin end of the wedge, it was the first denial of authority, and you see what it has led to--modern scepticism and modern pessimism.'

'I don't know what that means, but I heard Mrs. Norton say you were a pessimist.'

'I was; but I saw in time where it was leading me, and I crushed it out. I used to be a Republican too, but I saw what liberty meant, and what were its results, and I gave it up.'

'So you gave up all your ideas for Catholicism....'

John hesitated, he seemed a little startled, but he answered, 'I would give up anything for my Church....'

'And did it cost you much to give up your ideas?'

'Yes; I have suffered. But now I am happy, and my happiness would be complete if God would grant you grace to believe....'

'But I do believe. I believe in our Lord Jesus who died to save us. Is not that enough?'

There was no wind on the down. And still as a reflection in a glass the grey barren land rolled through the twilight. Beyond it the circling sea and the girl's figure distinct on a golden hour. John watched a moment, and then hastened homeward. He was overpowered by fear of the future; he trembled with anticipation, and prayed that accident might lead him out of the difficulty into which a chance moment had betrayed him.

X.

When she rose from the ground she saw a tall, gaunt figure passing away like a shadow.

'What a horrible man... he attacked me, ill-treated me... what for?' Her thoughts turned aside. 'He should be put in prison.... If father knew it, or John knew it, he would be put in prison, and for a very long time.... Why did he attack me? ... Perhaps to rob me; yes, to rob me, of course, to rob me.' To rob her, and of what?... of her watch; where was it? It was gone. The watch was gone.... But, had she lost it? Should she go back and see if she could find it? Oh! impossible! see the place again--impossible! search among the gorse--impossible!

Then, as her thoughts broke away, she thought of how she had escaped being murdered. How thankful she ought to be! But somehow she was not thankful. She was conscious of a horror of returning, of returning to where she would see men and women's faces. 'I cannot go home,' thought the girl, and acting in direct contradiction to her thoughts, she walked forward. Her parasol--where was it? It was broken. She brushed herself, she picked bits of furze from her dress. She held each away from her and let it drop in a silly, vacant way, all the while running the phrases over in her mind: 'He threw me down and ill-treated me; my frock is ruined, what a state it is in! I had a narrow escape of being murdered. I will tell them that... that will explain ... I had a narrow escape of being murdered.' But presently she grew conscious that these thoughts were fictitious thoughts, and that there was a thought, a real thought, lying in the background of her mind, which she dared not face; and failing to do so, she walked on hurriedly, she almost ran as if to force out of sight the thought that for a moment threatened to define itself. Suddenly she stopped; there were some children playing by the farm gate. They did not know that she was by, and she listened to their childish prattle.

XI.

The front door was open; she heard her father calling. But she felt she could not see him, she must hide from his sight, and dashing upstairs she double-locked her door.

The sky was still flushed, there was light upon the sea, but the room was dim and quiet. Her room! she had lived in many years, had seen it under all aspects; then why did she look with strained eyes? Why did she shrink? Nothing has been changed.

There is her little narrow bed, and her little book-case full of novels and prayer-books; there is her work-basket by the fireplace, by the fireplace closed in with curtains that she herself embroidered; above her pillow there is a crucifix; there are photographs of the Miss Austins, and pictures of pretty children, cut from the Christmas numbers, on the walls. She started at the sight of these familiar objects, and trembled in the room which she had thought of as a haven of refuge. Why? She didn't know; something that is at once remembrance and suspicion filled her mind, and she asked if this was her room?

She sighed, and approaching her bedside, raised her hands to her neck. It was the instinctive movement of undressing. But she did not unbutton her collar. Resuming her walk, she picked up a blossom that had fallen from the fuchsia. She walked to and fro. Then she threw herself on her bed and closed her eyes.... She slept, and then the moonlight showed her face convulsed. She is the victim of a dream. Something follows her--she knows not what. She dare not look round. She falls over great leaves. She falls into the clefts of ruined tombs, and her hands, as she attempts to rise, are laid on sleeping snakes; they turn to attack her; they glide away and disappear in moss and inscriptions.

Before her the trees extend in complex colonnades, silent ruins are grown through with giant roots, and about the mysterious entrances of the crypts there lingers yet the odour of ancient sacrifices. The stem of a rare column rises amid the branches, the fragment of an arch hangs over and is supported by a dismantled tree trunk. And through the torrid twilight of the approaching storm the cry of the hyena is heard. The claws of the hyena are heard upon the crumbling tombs and the suffocating girl strives with her last strength to free herself from the thrall of the great lianas. But there comes a hirsute smell; she turns with terrified eyes to plead, but meets only dull, liquorish eyes, and the breath of the obscene animal is hot on her face.

She sprang from her bed. Was there any one in her room? No, only the moonlight. 'But the forest, the wild animal--was it then only a dream?' the girl thought. 'It was only a dream, a horrible dream, but after all, only a dream.' Then a voice within her said, 'But all was not a dream--there was something that was worse than the dream.'

She walked to and fro, and when she lay down her eyelids strove against sleep. But sleep came again, and her dream was of a brown and yellow serpent. She saw it from afar rearing its tawny hide, scenting its prey.

She takes refuge in the rosery. How will she save herself? By plucking roses and building a. wall between her and it. So she collects huge bouquets, armfuls of beautiful flowers, garlands and wreaths. The flower-wall rises, and hoping to combat the fury of the beast with purity, she goes whither snowy blossoms bloom in clustering millions. She gathers them in haste; her arms and hands stream with blood, but she pays no heed, and as the snake surmounts one barricade she builds another. But the reptile leans over the roses. The long, thin neck is upon her; she feels the horrid strength of the coils as they curl and slip about her, drawing her whole life into one knotted and loathsome embrace. Then she knows not how, but while the roses fall in a red and white rain about her she escapes from the stench of the scaly hide, from the strength of the coils.

And, without any transition in place or time, she finds herself listening to the sound of rippling water. There is an iron drinking- cup close to her hand. She seems to recognise the spot. It is Shoreham. There are the streets she knows so well, the masts of the vessels, the downs. But something darkens the sunlight, the tawny body of the snake oscillates, the people cry to her to escape. She flies along the streets, like the wind she seems to pass. She calls for help. Sometimes the crowds are stationary, as if frozen into stone, sometimes they follow the snake and attack it with sticks and knives. One man with colossal shoulders wields a great sabre; it flashes about him like lightning. Will he kill it? He turns, chases a dog, and disappears. The people too have disappeared. She is now flying along a wild plain covered with coarse grass and wild poppies. The snake is near her, and there is no one to whom she can call for help. But the sea is in front of her. She will escape down the rocks--there is still a chance! The descent is sheer, but somehow she retains foothold. Then the snake drops--she feels its weight upon her, and with a shriek she awakes.

The moon hung over the sea, the sea flowed with silver, the world was as chill as an icicle.

'The roses, the snake, the cliff's edge, was it then only a dream?' the girl thought. 'It was only a dream, a terrible dream, but after all only a dream!' Then a voice within her said, 'But all was not a dream--there was something that was worse than the dream.'

She uttered a low cry--she moaned. She drew herself up on her bed, and lay with her face buried in the pillow. Again she fought against sleep, but sleep came again, and in overpowering dream she lay as if dead. And she sees herself dead. All her friends are about her crowning her with flowers, beautiful garlands of white roses. They dress her in a long white robe, white as the snowiest cloud in heaven, and it lies in long, straight plaits about her limbs, like the robes of those who lie in marble in cathedral aisles. It falls over her feet, her hands are crossed over her breast, and all praise in low but ardent words the excessive whiteness of the garment. For none but she sees that there is a black spot upon the robe which they believe to be immaculate. She would warn them of their error, but she cannot; and when they avert their faces to wipe away their tears, the stain might be easily seen, but as they continue their last offices, folds or flowers fall over the stain and hide it from view.

It is great pain to her to find herself unable to tell them of their error; for she well knows that when she is placed in the tomb, and the angels come, that they will not fail to perceive the stain, and seeing it, they will not fail to be shocked and sorrowful--and seeing it they will turn away weeping, saying, 'She is not for us, alas! she is not for us!' And Kitty, who is conscious of this fatal oversight, the results of which she so clearly foresees, is grievously afflicted, and she makes every effort to warn her friends of their error. But there is one amid the mourners who knows that she is endeavouring to tell of the black stain. And this one, whose face she cannot readily distinguish, maliciously, and with diabolical ingenuity, withdraws the attention of the others, so that they do not see it.

And so it befell her to be buried in the stained robe. And she is taken away amid flowers and white cloths to a white tomb, where incense is burning, and where the walls are hung with votive wreaths, and things commemorative of virginal life. But upon all these, upon the flowers and images alike, there is some small stain which none sees but she and the one in shadow, the one whose face she cannot recognise. And although she is nailed fast in her coffin, she sees these stains vividly, and the one whose face she cannot recognise sees them too. And this is certain, for the shadow of the face is stirred by laughter.

The mourners go; the evening darkens; the wild sunset floats for a while through the western heavens; the cemetery becomes a deep green, and in the wind that blows out of heaven the cypresses rock like things sad and mute. Then the blue night comes with stars in her tresses, and out of those stars angels float softly; their white feet hanging out of blown folds, their wings pointing to the stars. And from out of the earth, out of the mist--but whence and how it is impossible to say--there come other angels, dark of hue and foul smelling. But the white angels carry swords, and they wave these swords, and the scene is reflected in them as in a mirror; the dark angels cower in a corner of the cemetery, but they do not utterly retire.

The tomb mysteriously opens, and the white angels enter the tomb. And the coffin is opened and the girl trembles lest the angels should discover the stain she knew of. But lo! to her great joy they do not see it, and they bear her away through the blue night, through the stars of heaven. And it is not until one whose face she cannot recognise, and whose presence among the angels of heaven she cannot comprehend, steals away one of the garlands with which she is entwined, that the fatal stain becomes visible. Then relinquishing their burden, the angels break into song, and the song they sing is one of grief; it travels through the spaces of heaven; she listens to its wailing echoes as she falls--as she falls towards the sea where the dark angels are waiting for her; and as she falls she leans with reverted neck and strives to see their faces, and as she nears them she distinguishes one.

'Save me, save me!' she cried; and, bewildered and dazed with the dream, she stared on the room, now chill with summer dawn. Again she murmured, 'It was only a dream, it was only a dream;' again a sort of presentiment of happiness spread like light through her mind, and again the voice within her said, 'But all was not a dream--there was something that was worse than the dream.' And with despair in her heart she sat watching the cold sky turn to blue, the delicate, bright blue of morning, and the garden grow into yellow and purple and red.

She did not weep, nor did she moan. She sat thinking. She dwelt on the remembrance of the hills and the tramp with strange persistency, and yet no more now than before did she attempt to come to conclusions with her thought; it was vague, she would not define it; she brooded over it sullenly and obtusely. Sometimes her thoughts slipped away from it, but with each returning a fresh stage was marked in the progress of her nervous despair.

And so the hours went by. At eight o'clock the maid knocked at the door. Kitty opened it mechanically, and she fell into the woman's arms, weeping, sobbing. The sight of the female face brought relief; it interrupted the jarred and strained sense of the horrible; the secret affinities of sex quickened within her. The woman's presence filled Kitty with the feelings that the harmlessness of a lamb or a soft bird inspires.

XII.

'But what is it, Miss, what is it? Are you ill? Why, Miss, you haven't taken your things off; you haven't been to bed!'

'No; I lay down.... I have had frightful dreams--that is all.'

'But you must be ill, Miss; you look dreadful, Miss. Shall I tell Mr. Hare? Perhaps the doctor had better be sent for.'

'No, no; pray say nothing about me. Tell my father that I did not sleep, that I am going to lie down for a little while, that he is not to expect me for breakfast.'

'I really think, Miss, that it would be as well for you to see the doctor.'

'No, no, no. I am going to lie down, and I am not to be disturbed.'

'Shall I fill the bath, Miss? Shall I leave the hot water here, Miss?'

'Bath ... hot water ...' Kitty repeated the words over as if she were striving to grasp a meaning, but which eluded her.

Soon after the maid returned with a tray. The trivial jingle of the cups and plates was another suffering added to the ever-increasing stress of mind. Her dress was torn, it was muddy, there were bits of furze sticking to it. She picked these off; and as she did so, accurate remembrance and simple recollection of facts returned to her, and the succession was so complete that the effect was equivalent to a re-enduring of the crime, and with a foreknowledge of it, as if to sharpen its horror and increase the sense of the pollution. The vague hills, the vague sea, the sweet glow of evening--she saw it all again. And as if afraid that her brain, now strained like a body on the rack, would suddenly snap, she threw up her arms, and began to take off her dress, as if she would hush thought in abrupt movements. In a moment she was in stays and petticoat. The delicate and almost girlish arms were disfigured by great bruises. Great black and blue stains were spreading through the skin.

Kitty lifted up her arm; she looked at it in surprise; then in horror she rushed to the door where her dressing-gown was hanging, and wrapped herself in it tightly, hid herself in it so that no bit of her flesh could be seen.

XIII.