Part 25

My lord took his first walk in the kitchen of Thorn leaning upon John Gore’s shoulder, the son’s arm about the father’s body. Any one who had seen the pair would have judged them to have been the best of friends, for the son steadied the father’s steps with the grave, patient air of one whose care was almost a devotion. And the father, who had the look of a man who had aged very rapidly, what with the white in his hair and the deep lines upon his face, seemed to lean upon the son with a sense of confidence and trust. He was wearing a new suit of plain black cloth, with a white scarf about his throat. Some of his little gestures and tricks of expression came to him as in the old days, save that they were less emphatic and less characteristic of the aggressive self.

At the third turn Stephen Gore looked at the window that was lit by the March sunlight, and a sudden wistfulness swept into his eyes, as though he were touched by pathetic memories. He paused, leaning his weight upon his son, for he was feeble and easily out of breath after those weeks upon his back.

“I should like to go into the open air, John, and sit in the sun.”

John Gore looked at him doubtfully.

“You are safer here,” he said.

My lord gave a shake of the head.

“Are you cautious for my sake, my son? John—John, you do not understand me yet.”

There seemed a new atmosphere of sympathy enveloping them, for John Gore answered his father very gently.

“It shall be as you wish.”

“Then put your arm under my shoulders, John—so. What a strong fellow you are! I can just toddle like a dot of two.”

They went out into the court-yard, Stephen Gore’s right leg dragging stiffly. He would walk with a limp for the rest of his life, since the limb that had been broken had been shortened by three inches in the mending. The son carried Simon Pinniger’s three-legged stool in his left hand. They crossed the court-yard very slowly, and passed through a doorway into the wilderness of the garden. The green of the spring was thrusting through a thousand buds; there was the thrill of growth in the air, and the birds were singing.

Close on the sunny side of a ragged box-tree that was half netted in brambles a clump of Lent-lilies stood in bloom, swinging their golden heads over the weeds and grass. There seemed the beauty of symbolism about these flowers. The sunlight appeared to centre upon them, and to burnish their golden heads with the warmth of the March day.

My lord’s glance settled on the flowers. He paused before them with a sudden curious smile.

“Set the stool here, John.”

And he sat down there, with the clump of daffodils at his feet.

John Gore left him there awhile, and strolled on along the rank walks where primroses glimmered from lush green glooms, and gilliflowers were beginning to scent the air from the crumbling tops of the old brick walls. The softness and the glamour of spring seemed everywhere. There was no wind, hardly a cloud—nothing but the warm shimmer of the sunlight.

Father and son had come closer to each other those last days, not through any sentimental outburst of the emotions, but because the father had become once more a man, and a man whom it was even possible to respect. “Mea culpa,” he had said, and the dignity of a simple acceptance of guilt had given him a new impressiveness. It had been difficult, at first, for John Gore to accept his father’s humility as a thing born of the heart and the spirit. There was ever the sneer of possible “play-acting” penitence, the tawdry sentimental epilogue spoken with a hypocritical leer and a thought of the nearest brothel. John Gore had distrusted his father, and had watched keenly for the old self to betray itself. Yet he had still continued to behold a quiet, patient, and sorrowful old man who seemed grateful for small services, and who looked at him with watchful and troubled eyes. John Gore distrusted any religious display in such a man as my lord. And yet he came to understand by degrees all that was passing in his father’s heart.

He returned presently to where the elder man was seated, and found him in an attitude of saddened thought. Stephen Gore looked up as his son joined him, and then turned his head away so that his eyes were on the tower of Thorn. The place itself must of necessity force the full meaning of the past upon him. The stones spoke; the very silence of the place had a message of its own. For my lord still believed Anne Purcell’s child to be dead, and that thought had survived to haunt him above all others.

“John.”

“Yes.”

“I have something to say to you as between man and man.”

The son stood back, and leaned against the trunk of an apple-tree.

“You have given me the chance, John, to judge myself, and to discover the truth with my own eyes. Let us have no parson’s talk—no snivelling. As a man of the world I fought for myself, and pushed others out of the path. I blundered immortally over my selfishness, John, and they ought to hang me for a fool.”

He still looked toward the tower, and John Gore guessed whither his thoughts tended.

“That was the damnedest thing the self in me ever rushed on, my son. And yet I tried to alter it at the last—perhaps for my own sake, perhaps for the mother’s. She was dying then—I have told you that; perhaps that was why I repented. The heart of a man is a strange, elusive, treacherous thing, even to its owner, John. Sometimes we can hardly decide why we do the things we do.”

He sat in silence awhile, with his head bowed down.

“You must have hated me, my son; if you had spat upon me, I should hardly have questioned it. Words are not life: I cannot give you back that which I destroyed. And there is where bitterness grips the heart in a man when he sees what manner of ruin he has made. What are regrets, despair, protestations? Air—mere air in the brain! When once a man has fallen into the slough, John, his struggles seem only to carry him deeper. He may even drag others below the surface or splash foul mud onto innocent faces. But the awe and the bitterness are in the knowledge, John, of our own utter, miserable impotence. Things cannot be wiped out. They last and endure against us till the crack of doom.”

He stared at the grass and knitted his hands together.

“I had thought of giving myself up, my son, and telling the whole truth. But that—that cannot help the dead. And somehow I have come to shudder at the thought of throwing shame into the grave of the one woman who really loved me. And, John, I shall suffer more by living than by dying. Fools do not always realize that in this world. They tie a man to a rope, and think that they are even with him for his sins. They would often get the greater vengeance on him if they only let him live.”

He paused, staring straight before him, his shoulders bent.

“Weeks ago, John, I remember, as in a dream, that I lived in a mad horror of death. That has passed, I know not quite how. But I leave the judgment in your hands, my son. Do with me what you please.”

He seemed to grow very weary of a sudden, for his strength was but the strength of a sick man, and the grim truths of life seemed heavy on him. His son went to him, and, putting an arm about his father’s body, helped him to his feet, and led him back to the bed in the kitchen.

“I am not your judge, father,” he said, very gently; “there is another one who should judge, and from whom forgiveness may have come.”

He was thinking of Barbara, but my lord thought that he spoke of God.

The meadows about Furze Farm were full of the bleating of lambs those days, and the youngsters skipped and butted one another, galloping to and fro on their ridiculous legs, while the stupid old dames baaed, each to its own child. There had been one sick lamb that Christopher Jennifer had brought home in his arms, and the little beast had been laid upon hay in a basket beside the fire. There were also two cade-lambs in a pen in the orchard, and Barbara, who had many hours to herself now that John Gore rode almost daily to Thorn, had asked Mrs. Winnie to let her have the tending of the two motherless ones, also the feeding of the early chicks and the gathering of the eggs. The whole life at the farm was fresh and quaint to her, and brisk life it was those spring days—a cackling, bleating, lowing life, with the thrushes singing in the beech-trees and the blackbirds in the hedgerows. The bloom on the apple and pear trees in the orchard would soon be pink and white, and there were daffodils nodding their heads at Furze Farm as well as in the wilderness of Thorn.

The evening after Stephen Gore’s confession at Thorn, John Gore took his love away over the uplands where the furze was all a glitter of gold, with the green slopes of the hills and the brown ploughlands making a foreground to the distant sea. They desired to be alone that evening, to feel the spirit of spring in them, and to watch the sun go down and the twilight creep into the valleys. Their happiness was the greater because others were not forgotten in the romance of their two selves. Moreover, the glamour of the morrow had the delight of a plot in it. Mrs. Winnie alone was suffered to taste the spice in the secret, though the duty fell to her of sending out for clean rushes, taking down the rosemary and bay from the beams in the pantry, and gathering flowers to spread upon the coverlet of the bed.

She smiled to herself very pleasantly when John Gore and the “little lady” rode out early next morning as though for nothing more solemn than a morning’s canter. She knew that the gentleman had smoked a pipe in the parson’s parlor more than a month ago, and Mrs. Winnie was quite wise as to what was in the wind. There was to be no stir made, and Chris Jennifer’s wife rather approved of being the solitary holder of such a secret. Her attitude was quite motherly. She spent the morning sweeping Barbara’s room, and strewing rushes and flowers about it, and putting posies of bay and rosemary upon the pillows.

The pair were back at Furze Farm by dinner-time, looking mild and innocent, even hungry, as though nothing serious had befallen. They walked into the kitchen just as Mr. Jennifer was settling himself to carve the meat. John Gore glanced at Mrs. Winnie, who had run forward to kiss and embrace her “little lady.” That occurred behind Mr. Jennifer’s back, and son William had too brisk an appetite to trouble about the emotions of his elders.

“Shall I give you a dump o’ fat, sir?”

And so they sat down to dinner.

They were half through with it when Mrs. Winnie accepted a nod from John Gore and pushed back her chair, and picking up a wedding-favor from under a mug on the dresser, she went to her man and held it under his nose.

Mr. Jennifer stared at the gilded sprigs and the ribbons very gravely.

“I dunno as I be a widower yet,” he said, as his slow brain took in the nature of the thing, “nor be you a widow, Winnie.”

“Oh, you thick-head, Chris!”

Mr. Jennifer looked at her, and then, with a sudden gleam of the eyes, at John Gore and the lady.

“Be that so, my dear?”

“Surely,” said Mrs. Winnie, in a whisper.

Then Mr. Jennifer laid a hand to his mug, rose slowly and solemnly, and stared hard at the bride and bridegroom.

“Ut be a pleasure—”

He paused and reconsidered the beginning.

“Ut be a pleasure—”

John Gore and Barbara looked up at him smilingly, and their eyes seemed to drive the whole art of oratory out of Mr. Jennifer’s head. He took refuge in his mug, brandished it toward them, and set it down empty, with emphasis. Then he looked at his wife with an affectionate grin.

“I be powerful pleased, my dear. Seven years ago—”

“Eight,” interposed the wife, with a shocked glance at son William.

“Eight be ut, then—I dared ut like a man, and I’d dare ut again, please God.”

“Lor’, Christopher!”

“William, keep t’ gravy off thy breeches. Mr. Gore, sir, you’ll be for pardoning me, but t’ lady’s face be a good bargain. T’ Bible says something of vines and fig leaves and olive branches—I dunno as I quite knows what; but I wish ye all of ut, sir, you—and the lady.”

So Barbara lay in her lover’s arms that night, and they heard the birds break out with their songs at dawn.

XLIX

The sun was up, the birds making the air quiver, the life of the world awake with the faint fragrance of a spring morning. Barbara, lying upon her lover’s arm, looked with shadowy eyes at the casement that caught the light of the glowing east. And with the first coming of consciousness she had remembered the refugee at Thorn and the part that they had set themselves to play that day. The “self” in them was to be thrust aside on that first morning of their life together.

Barbara, combing her hair at the little glass by the window, could hear her man walking to and fro in the garden; for he had risen first, and taken the bar down from the house door before the Jennifers were stirring. And though he whistled the tune of a love-song, she seemed to feel a spirit of melancholy and foreboding stealing up through the spring morning. Nor was her own consciousness without a sense of shadowiness and vague unrest. Bridal dawns are not always the happiest dawns, yet it was not the love in Barbara that had suffered pain. The destiny that she was to fulfil that day brought back a fog of recollections that chilled the air a little and weakened the sunlight. This was the aftermath, the second reaping and gathering of memories.

The joy of the night had been sweet, intimate, and wrapped in the darkness, and perhaps her heart was not ready for the daylight—and realities. It was a sensitive and sacred hour with her, and almost she could have desired to spend that day alone. There was so much to realize, so much to feel, so much to foreshadow. She was no longer herself; the sacrament had its mysteries; her maidenliness felt a little shy of the world at first.

She heard John Gore walking below her window, and a sudden rush of tenderness seized on her. For the moment she felt lonely, even afraid; for he to whom she had given everything alone could give everything in return. The sense of surrender was quick in her. She would be utterly alone in the world, save for this one man. Love was life. And the wistfulness made her yearn over him as though one day the world might take him from her.

“John!”

He turned and looked up at the window.

“Halloo, little wife!”

She leaned forward with her comb caught in a tress of her hair, knowing not what to say to him now that she had called him.

“What a heavy dew there has been!”

“Yes; the grass is gray in the meadows.”

“Is Mrs. Winnie up yet?”

“No; we are the larks this morning.”

She was silent a moment, looking away toward the distant hills. Her voice had a tremor when she spoke again.

“John!”

“Yes!”

“Come to me; I want you.”

And he went up, to find her weeping.

Man, being a creature of tougher fibre, cannot always comprehend a woman’s moods. They may seem inexplicable to him, because her sensitiveness can be as fine as gossamer, and hardly visible against the coarser background of reality. Even as a man cannot always gauge the strange, shrinking prides of a shy child, so he may blunder against the delicate and sacred things of a woman’s soul, unless love, spiritual love, gives him that intuition that sees beyond the carnal clay.

“Why, Barbe—weeping!”

He looked at her, not a little troubled, searching his own heart guiltily, yet having no consciousness of having wounded her in any way. The tears of a woman whom he loves have always a personal issue for a man. They may pique him if he is vain, challenge him if he be honest.

“Oh, it is nothing, John!”

He did the only thing a man could do, and that was to take her face between his two hands and kiss her.

“Little wife, no secrets from me. Let us begin life so; we shall never regret it.”

She closed her eyes, and, putting her hands upon his shoulders, hung her head a little.

“It was foolish of me, dear. I have been so happy, and sometimes when one has been very happy—”

“The tears come, little wife.”

“I have never been very happy till now, John. And just now it came into my heart so suddenly—”

She faltered, and he stood looking down at her as he held her in his arms.

“Barbara—wife, you felt lonely.”

She darted up a look at him as though surprised that he should know.

“How do I know, child? Because I had something of the same feeling myself. What a pair of fond fools, eh! No, it is something deeper and more sacred than that.”

“Yes, John, I know. But do you think—”

“I think a great many things, Barbe.”

“Yes; but that I shall make you happy, that I can fill your life for you?”

He took her unloosed hair, and put it back from off her forehead. Perhaps he was learning the familiar truth that no being can be more fiercely conscientious and self-critical than a good woman newly married. Fevers of doubt and of introspection rise in her. The surrender is so final, so utter, and the future seems so precious.

“Barbe, we have been married not quite a day. Yes—yes—I know. It is the sweet, brave heart in you that is blind to its own worth. Little wife, look in my eyes and see if you see any shadows there.”

She looked and smiled.

“No, John.”

“Then never look for them, dear heart. One’s imagination may create curses. Always speak out; never think in. If I ever hurt you—yet God forbid—tell me so; that can be mended.”

She felt for his hands and held them.

“I will try always not to think of myself, John.”

“Then you will be a very foolish woman, dear, and I shall have to do the thinking for you.”

“And you will take me to Thorn to-day?”

He looked at her gravely.

“You wish that?”

“I wish it.”

It was still early when John Gore brought the horses to the gate after breakfast and lifted Barbara into her saddle. She wore a plain black riding-habit that morning, a black beaver with a black plume curled round the brim, and a collar of white lace about her throat. The life at Furze Farm had tinted her skin with a brown, pearly haze. She was never a girl for much color, but her lips were red and generous, and her figure more rich in womanliness than of yore.

The shy, introspective mood of the early morning had passed. Hill and valley bathed in sunlight, the freshness of the woods, the movement, the sympathy between heart and heart, brought back that happier courage that is the true boast of health. For it is the brave, clear-eyed woman who holds the love of a man in this world. Melancholy and helplessness may please the lover; they do not often hold the husband. Man needs a mate who can spread her wings with him, whose eyes look trustfully, who has no trick of selfish tears. And John Gore, riding beside his wife that morning, felt glad and strong and sure because of her, for generosity counts with a man almost before all other virtues. Let a woman be pure and generous, and she will never lack the reverence of men.

When they came to the valley of thorns that morning John Gore drew rein in the beech thicket that he knew so well. He desired to bring Barbara into Thorn without my lord suspecting it.

“I will go down first,” he said; “when I am ready I will come into the court and wave my cloak. Then, little wife, you will follow.”

And it was agreed between them as he said.

My lord was not in the kitchen that morning, and John Gore, seeing that the stool was gone, guessed that his father was in the garden. Going out into the court he waved his cloak as a sign to Barbara, and passing on into the garden he found Stephen Gore sitting in the sunlight with his sword across his knees. He looked younger by years than he had looked for many weeks. His eyes had an alertness new to them, and he rose up to meet his son with the air of an aristocrat and a man.

“Good-morning to you, John; I am making the most of the sunlight.”

The son looked questioningly at the father’s sword. My lord’s manner had something final, something stately in its tranquillity.

“I had a visitor yesterday, my son; I was glad that you were absent.”

“A visitor? Who?”

“One of those gentlemen, John, who walk through the world with a ladle full of hot sulphur. He came to spy and to discover. I entertained him. I assure you that he was mightily exalted.”

John Gore looked grave.

“An informer?”

“Call the creature what you will, my son, he has scented the fox and run him to earth. He seemed astonished at my urbanity, and sat with a hand upon his pistol. ‘Good sir,’ said I, ‘I am tired of the country, and yearn for the city and that noble place where so many good gentlemen are entertained. Do me the honor of waiting on me to-morrow with a few fiery Protestant friends; let us fix the hour at noon. I assure you that I shall not run,’ and I believe the fellow believed me. I shall be taken to-day, John; I am waiting for them quietly here. What does it matter! They cannot frighten me; I am beyond that now.”

He spoke simply yet pungently, a quiet pride giving him something of grandeur and impressiveness. John Gore was listening for the sound of Barbara’s coming. A clatter of hoofs from the court-yard rose on the morning air. My lord heard it and smiled, and then held out a hand to his son.

“Hear them, John! I did not expect the rogues so early. Clear, my lad; I don’t want you caught in the tangle. Get behind some of yonder bushes.”

John Gore looked hard at his father.

“It is not your friends yet,” he said; “wait here; this is my affair.”

The sunlight shone on Barbara’s face as she met her husband in the court-yard. He said but one word—“Come”—and led her by the hand into the garden. A tangle of shrubs hid the place where Stephen Gore waited. And thus John Gore and Barbara came upon my lord quite suddenly, and stood before him almost like a pair of runaways returning for a father’s pardon.

My lord looked at Barbara and went white to the lips. His arms hung limply. He stooped, and seemed to shrink into himself, his eyes remaining fixed on her as though unable to look away. For the moment the old, frightened, fawning expression came back into his eyes. Then he gave a sudden, inarticulate cry, flung out his hands, and stood groping almost like one struck blind.

“John, you have deceived me!”

He would probably have fallen had not the son sprung to him and put an arm about his body.

“John, you have deceived me! My God, are you against me, even at the last!”

“No, no; it is not that.”

He glanced at Barbara, for Stephen Gore seemed in a kind of agony. He trembled greatly, leaned heavily upon his son, almost clinging to him as though stricken with the dread that he had been tricked and condemned even at the last by the one man whose love was the one thing left to him.

Barbara answered her husband’s glance; her lips were quivering. This strong man’s anguish went to her heart.

“John, tell him—”

“It is forgiveness.”

“A blotting out of the past.”

At the sound of her voice Stephen Gore recovered his courage and his self-control. He stood back from his son, putting John Gore’s arm aside, as though he had strength enough to stand alone. He looked at Barbara sadly, yet with thankfulness—the look of a man whose grosser prides were dead.

“You are alive, child; thank God for that! The truth of this was hid from me.”

She would have spoken, but he held up his hands as though to beg her patience.

“You know everything? Does she know the whole truth, John?”

The son nodded and turned his face away. My lord spoke on.

“Child, I did you and yours a great wrong. I cannot justify myself; out of my own mouth I am judged. These are the words of a man who expects to die. Yet be it said, child, without pride of heart, that I would have gladly ended the thing I called my life that I might wipe out all the past.”

There was silence between the three for several seconds. Then Barbara looked at John Gore and he at her.

“We have buried the past,” she said, turning to my lord.

Stephen Gore did not move.