Part 10

The wine was brought in and poured out. Miss Verney coughed a great deal over her glass, and two small pink spots appeared on her cheeks.

"I am sure," she said, "that when my dear father brought this wine back from Portugal he would have been happy to know that some of it would be drunk to the health of two young people in love. For he was, if I may say so without impropriety, a great lady's man."

Pauline and Guy drank Miss Verney's health in turn, and thanked her for the good omens she had wished for their love.

"My dear Pauline," said Miss Verney, "do you think? I wonder if I dare? You know what I mean? Do you think I could show it to Mr. Hazlewood?"

"Do you mean the miniature?" whispered Pauline.

Miss Verney nodded.

"Oh, do, Miss Verney, do! Guy would so appreciate it," Pauline declared.

The old maid went to her bureau and from a small locked drawer took out a leather case which she handed to Guy.

"The spring is broken. It opens very easily," she said in a gentle voice.

Pauline forgot her shyness of Guy and leaned over his shoulder while he looked at the picture of a young man rosy with that too blooming youth which miniatures always portray.

"We were engaged to be married," said Miss Verney. "But circumstances alter cases; and we were never married."

Pauline looked down at Guy with tears in her eyes and felt miserable to be so happy when poor Miss Verney had been so sad.

"Thank you very much for showing me that," said Guy.

Soon it was time to say good-by to Miss Verney and, having made many promises to come quickly again, they left her and went down the steep High Street, where in many of the windows of the houses there were hyacinths and on the old walls plum-trees in bloom.

"Pauline," said Guy, "let's go for a walk to-morrow morning and see if the gorse is in bloom on Wychford down. There are so many things I want to tell you."

"Do you think Mother will let us?"

"If we can go to tea with Miss Verney," said Guy, "we shall be able to go for a walk. And I never see you alone in the Rectory."

"I'll ask Mother," said Pauline.

"You want to come?"

"Of course. Of course."

"You see," said Guy, "it's one of the places where I nearly told you I loved you. And it wouldn't be fair not to tell you there, as soon as I can."

In the Rectory everybody was anxious to know how Guy liked Pauline's Miss Verney.

"Margaret, you are really unkind to laugh at her," protested Pauline. "Guy understands, if you don't, how frightfully sympathetic she is. She is one of the people who really understands about being in love."

Margaret laughed.

"Don't I?" she said.

"No, indeed, Margaret, sometimes I don't think you do," said Pauline.

"Nor I?" asked Monica.

"You don't at all!" Pauline protested.

"Well, if it means being like Miss Verney, I hope I never shall," said Monica.

"Now, children, children," interrupted Mrs. Grey. "You must not be cross with one another."

"Well, Mother, Margaret and Monica are not to laugh at Miss Verney," Pauline insisted. "And to-morrow Guy and I want as a great exception to go for a walk to Wychford down. May we?"

"Well, as a great exception, yes," said Mrs. Grey; and Guy, with apparently an access of grateful industry, said he must go home and work.

Pauline wondered what Guy would have to tell her to-morrow, and she fell asleep that night hoping she would not be shy to-morrow; for, since Guy was still no more to Pauline than the personification of a vague and happy love just as Miss Verney's miniature was the personification of one that was not happy, she always was a little alarmed when the personification became real.

Wychford down seemed to rest on billowy clouds next morning, so light was Pauline's heart, so light was the earth on which she walked; and when Guy kissed her the larks in their blue world were not far away, so near did she soar upon his kiss to the rays of their glittering plumes.

"Every time I see you," said Guy, "the world seems to offer itself to us more completely. I never kissed you before under the sky like this."

She wished he would not say the actual word, for it made her realize herself in his arms and brought back in a flood all her shyness.

"I think it's dry enough to sit on this stone," said Guy.

So they sat on one of the outcrops of Wychford freestone that all around were thrusting themselves up from the grass like old gray animals.

"Now tell me more about Miss Verney," he went on. "Why was her love-affair unhappy?"

"Oh, she never told me much," said Pauline.

"You and I haven't very long," said Guy. "Love travels by so fast. You and I mustn't have secrets."

"I haven't any secrets," said Pauline. "I had one about Richard, but you know about him. And that was Margaret's secret, really. Why do you say that, Guy?"

"I was thinking of myself," he answered. "I was thinking how little you know about me--really not much more than you know of Miss Verney's miniature."

"Guy, how strange," she said. "Last night I thought that."

Then he began to talk in halting sentences, turned away from her all the time and digging his stick deep down in the turf, while Bob looked in with anxious curiosity for what these excavations would produce.

"Pauline, I so adore you that it clouds everything to realize that before I loved you I should have had love-affairs with other girls. Of course they meant nothing, but now they make me miserable. Shall I tell you about them or shall I.... Can I blot them for ever out of my mind?"

"Oh, don't tell me about them, don't tell me about them," Pauline murmured in a low, hurried voice. She felt that if Guy said another word she would run from him in a wild terror that would never let her rest, that would urge her out over the down's edge in desperate descent.

"I don't want to tell you about them," said Guy. "But they've stood so at the back of my thoughts whenever I have been with you; and yesterday at Miss Verney's, I had a sense of guilt as if I were responsible in some way for her unhappiness. I had to tell you, Pauline."

She sat silent under the song of the larks that in streams of melodious light poured through their wings.

"Why do you say nothing?" he asked.

"Oh, don't let's talk about it any more. Promise me never to talk about it. Oh, Guy, why 'of course'? Why 'of course'?"

"Of course?" he repeated.

"'Of course they meant nothing.' That seems so dreadful to me. Perhaps you won't understand."

"Dear Pauline, isn't that 'of course' the reason they torment me?" he said. "It isn't kind of you to assume anything else."

She forgave him in that instant; and before she knew what she had done had put her hand impulsively on his. To the Pauline who made that gesture he was no more the unapproachable lover, but some one whom she had wounded involuntarily.

"My heart of hearts, my adored Pauline."

With a sigh she faded to him; with a sigh the dog sat down by his master's neglected stick; with a sigh the April wind stole through the thickets of gorse and out over the down. And always more and more dauntlessly the larks flung before them their fountainous notes to pierce those blue spaces that burned between the clouds. No more was said of the past that morning, and with April come they were happy sitting up there, although, as Guy said, such weather could hardly be expected to last. And since this walk was a great exception to the rule of their life, they were back at the Rectory very punctually, so that by propitiating everybody with good behavior they might soon demand another exception.

That night there recurred to Pauline, when she was in her room, a sudden memory of what Guy had said to her about girls with whom he had had love-affairs; and with the stark forms of shadows they made a procession across her walls in the candle-light. She wished now she had let Guy tell her more, so that she could give distinguishing lineaments of humanity to each of these maddening figures. What were they like and why, taken unaware, was she set on fire with rage to know them? For a long while Pauline tossed sleeplessly on that bed to which usually morning came so soon; and even when the candle was put out she seemed to feel these forms of Guy's confession all about her. To-morrow she must see him again; she could no longer bear to think of him alone. These shapes that from his past vaguely jeered at her were to him endowed, each, with what memories? Oh, she could cry out with exasperation even in this silent house where she had lived so long unvexed!

"What is happening to me? What is happening to me?" asked Pauline, as the darkness drew nearer to her. "Why doesn't Margaret come?"

She jumped out of bed and ran trembling to her sister's room.

"Pauline, what is it?" asked Margaret, starting up.

"I'm frightened, Margaret. I'm frightened. My room seemed full of people."

"You goose. What people?"

"Oh, Margaret, I do love you."

She kissed her sister passionately; and Margaret, who was usually so lazy, got out of bed and came back with her to her room, where she read aloud _Alice in Wonderland_, sitting by the bed with her dark hair fallen about her slim shoulders.

In the morning the impression of the night's alarm remained sharply enough with Pauline to make her anxious to see Guy, without waiting for the ordained interval to which they should submit; and all that day, when he did not come, for the first time she felt definitely the clamorous and persistent desire for his company, the absence of which the old perfection of her home "was no longer able to counteract. For the first time in her life the Rectory had a sort of emptiness; and there was not a room on this tediously beautiful day, nor any nook in the garden, which could calm her with the familiar assurance of home. When the time for music came round, that night, it seemed to Pauline not at all worth while to play quartets in celebration of a day that had been so barren of events.

"Don't you want to play?" they asked her in surprise.

"Why should we play?" she countered. "But I'll listen to you, if you like."

Of course she was persuaded into taking her part, and never had she been so often out of tune and never had her strings snapped so continuously. Always until to-night the performance of music had brought to her the peaceful irresponsibilities of being herself in a pattern; now this sense of design was irritating her with an arduous repression, until at last she put down her violin and refused to play any more. Pauline felt that the others knew the cause of her ill-temper, but none of them said anything about Guy, and, with her for audience in one of the Caroline chairs, they played trios instead.

Next day when Guy did come it was wet; and Pauline wished Margaret would leave them together, so that they could talk; but Margaret stayed all the afternoon in the nursery, and Pauline made up her mind that somehow she must go for another walk with Guy.

She found her mother alone in the drawing-room before dinner.

"Mother, don't you think Guy and I might go for a walk to-morrow?"

"Oh, Pauline, you went for a walk together only the day before yesterday. And you really must remember you're not engaged. The Wychford people will gossip so, and that will make your father angry."

"Well, why can't we be engaged openly?"

"No, not yet. Now, please don't ask me. Pauline, I beg you will say no more about it."

"Then I can go to-morrow," said Pauline. "Oh, Mother, you are so sweet to me."

Mrs. Grey looked rather perplexed and as if she were vainly trying to determine what she had said to make Pauline suppose that leave for walks had been given. However, she evidently supposed it had; and when next Guy came to the Rectory Pauline whispered to him they could go for a walk if they did not have to go through Wychford. She could not understand herself when she found it so difficult to tell Guy this delightful news, for it was she who had managed it; and yet here she was blushing in the revelation.

The fact that Wychford was out of bounds really made their walk more magical, for Pauline and Guy went past the lily-pond and the lawn in front of the house and slipped through the little wicket in the high gray wall, as it were in the very eye of the nursery window. They dallied for a while in the paddock, peering for fritillary buds; then they crossed the rickety bridge to the water-meadows, a territory not spied upon, silver-rosed with lady-smocks. To-day they would visit the peninsula where under the moon they first had met.

Pauline, as they walked over the meads, no longer had the desire to ask Guy more about his tale of old loves. His presence beside her had rested her fears; and she made up her mind that the disquiet of the other evening had been mere fatigue after the excitement of the day. This secluded world from which they were now approaching the even greater seclusion of their peninsula gave itself all to her and Guy.

"How often have I been here without you!" said Guy. "How often have I wished you were beside me, and now you are beside me."

They were standing in a wreath of snowy blackthorn that almost veiled even the narrow entrance to this demesne they held in fief of April.

"What did you think about me that night we met?" Guy asked.

And for perhaps the hundredth time she whispered how she had liked him very much.

"Why don't you ask me what I thought about you?"

"What did you?" she whispered again.

"I went to sleep thinking of you," he said. "I did not know your name. I loved you then, I think. Pauline, when next September comes we'll pick mushrooms together--shall we? And I shall never gather any mushrooms, because I shall always be gathering your hands. And the September afterwards. Pauline! Shall we be married? Pauline Hazlewood! Say that."

She shook her head.

"Whisper it."

But she could not, and yet in her heart the foolish names were singing together.

"How can I leave you?" Guy demanded.

"Leave me?" she echoed.

"I ought. I ought. You see, if I don't I shall never persuade my father that we must be married next year. I must go to London and show that I'm in earnest."

"But when will you go?" said Pauline in deep dismay.

"Is your voice sad?" he asked. "Pauline, don't you want me to go?"

"Of course I don't," she replied, turning up to his a face so miserable that he held her to him and vowed he would not go.

"My dearest, I only thought it was my duty, but if you will believe in me, then let me stay in Wychford. After all, you are young. I am young. Why, you won't be twenty till May Morning. And I sha'n't be twenty-three till next August. Even if we wait three years to be married, we shall be always together, and it won't seem so long."

So with her arm in his Pauline walked on through the lady-smocks, thinking that never had any one a lover so wonderful as this long-legged lover beside her.

Holy Week was at hand, and in the variety of functions that Monica insisted her father should hold and her family attend Pauline saw little of Guy, although he came very often to church, sitting as stiff and awkward, she thought, as a brass knight on a tomb. However, it pleased her greatly Guy should come to church, since it pleased her family. Yet that was least of all the true reason, and Pauline used to send the angels that came to visit her down through the church to visit Guy; her simple faith glowed with richer illumination when she thought of him in church, and while her mother and Monica tried to pull the Wychford choir through the notation of Solesmes, and while Margaret knelt apart in carved abstraction, Pauline prayed that Guy would all his life wish to keep Holy Week with her like this.

Pauline hurried through a shower to church on Easter Morning, and shook mingled tears and raindrops from herself when she saw that Guy was come to Communion. So then that angel had traveled from her bedside last night to hover over Guy and bid him wake early next morning, because it was Easter Day. With never so holy a calm had she knelt in the jeweled shadows of that chancel or retired from the altar to find her pew imparadised. When the people came out of church the sun was shining, and on the trees and on the tombstones a multitude of birds were singing. Never had Pauline felt the spirit of Eastertide uplift her with such a joy, joy for her lover beside her, joy for Summer close at hand, joy for all the joy that Easter could bring to the soul.

There were Easter eggs at breakfast dyed yellow, blue, and purple. There were new white trumpet daffodils for the Rector to gaze at. There was satisfaction for Monica in having defeated for ever Anglican chants, and for Margaret a letter from Richard, though, to be sure, she did not seem so glad of this as Pauline would have wished. There was all that happy scene and a new quartet for her mother; and for Guy and herself there was a long walk this afternoon to wherever they wanted to go.

At the beginning of the week Monica and Margaret went away on a visit, to which they set out with the usual lamentations now redoubled because they suddenly realized it was universal holiday time. With her two eldest daughters away from the Rectory, Mrs. Grey was no match for Pauline; so she and Guy had a week of freedom, wandering over the country where they willed.

Wychford down saw them, and the water-meadows of the western valley. The road to Fairfield knew their footsteps, and they even went to tea with Mr. and Mrs. Ford, who talked of Richard out in India and bemoaned the inferiority of their garden to the Rector's. They wandered by treeless roads that led to the hills, and to the grassy solitudes that seemed made to be walked over hand in hand. Once they went as far as the forest of Wych, a wild woodland that lay remote from any village and where along the glades myriads of primroses stared at them. Yet, though that day had seemed to Pauline almost more delicately fair than any of their days, it ended dismally with April in black misfeature, and before they reached home they were wet through.

By ill luck her mother met her just as she was hurrying up to her room.

"Pauline," she said, with a good deal of agitation, "I must forbid these walks with Guy every day. Wet to the skin! Oh dear, how careless of him to take you so far! You must be reasonable and unselfish. It's so difficult for me. Father asked where you were this afternoon, and I had to pretend to be deaf. He notices more than you think. Now really Guy must not come for a week, and there must be no more walks."

Guy, however, came the next afternoon, and not only was he reproved by Mrs. Grey for yesterday's disaster, but actually he and Pauline were allowed only a quarter of an hour together in the garden.

"I'll go into Oxford for a week," said Guy, with inspiration. "And then we sha'n't be tempted to see each other this week, and if we don't see each other this week, perhaps next week we shall be able to go out again. Besides, I want to make arrangements about bringing the canoe down. My friend Fane has wired to me to go and stay with him. He's up for the Easter vac, working. Shall I go?"

Pauline wanted to say no, but she was, even after all these walks, still too shy to bid him stay.

"Perhaps you'd better go," she agreed. "But, Guy, come back for my birthday."

"As if I should stay away for that! Pauline, will you write to me? At least in letters you won't be shy to say you love me."

"Oh no, Guy, no. My writing is so horrid."

"But you must write. Pauline, if you want to know why I'm really going away, it's simply to have a letter from you."

"You must write to me first then," she whispered.

In truth Pauline felt terrified to think how she would ever begin a letter to Guy. He would cease to love her any more after she had written to him. He would hate her stupid letters.

"I shall be glad to see Michael again," said Guy. "But I suppose I must not say anything about you. No, I won't talk about you. Oxford will be wonderfully quiet without undergraduates, and I shall have letters from you."

Mrs. Grey came out into the garden.

"Now, Guy, I think you ought to go. Because really the Rector is getting worried about you and Pauline."

"I'm going into Oxford, Mrs. Grey."

"Well, that is a charming idea--charming, yes."

"But I'll be back for Pauline's birthday."

"Charming--charming," Mrs. Grey still declared. "The Rector will have forgotten all about it by then."

So Guy left Pauline for a week, and perhaps for more than a week. Margaret and Monica came home next day, and really, she thought, it was upsetting all the old ways of her life when she found herself not very much interested in what they had been doing. Miss Verney with her ecstatic praise of Guy was better company; but next morning her first love-letter arrived, and she could not resist peeping into it at breakfast.

99 ST. GILES, OXFORD, _April 18th_.

MY ADORED PAULINE,--It's really all I can do to stay in Oxford. Even Fane seems dull, and though his rooms are jolly, I long for you.

Have I told you what you are to me? Have I once been able to tell you....

Ah, there were pages crammed full and full of words that she must read alone. She could not read them here with her mother and sisters looking at her over the table. She must read them high in her white fastness at the top of the house. There all the morning she sat, and when she had read of his love once, she read of it again and then again, and once again. How foolish her answering letter would be; how disappointed Guy would be; but since she had promised, she must write to him; and, sitting at her desk that was full of childish things, she curled herself over the note-paper.

MAY

A pleasant company of thoughts traveled with Guy and his bicycle on the road to Oxford. In this easy progress the material hindrances to marriage were not seeming very important, and as he thought of his love for Pauline it spread before him, untroublous like the road down which he was spinning before a light breeze. With so much to compensate for their brief parting it was impossible to feel depressed; and as Guy drew near the city he felt he was an undergraduate again; and when he greeted Michael Fane in St. Giles he could positively hear his own Oxford drawl again. It was really delightful to be sitting here in view of his old college; and when after lunch he and Michael started for Wytham woods, more and more Guy was in an Oxford dream and carrying off the fantastic notion of the Parnassian academy with all the debonair confidence of his second year. Yet Guy knew that the scheme was absurd, and when Michael argued against it in his solemn way he found himself taking the other side from a mere undergraduate pleasure in argument. Indeed, Michael declared he had become a freshman since he went down, which made Guy stop dead, ankle-deep in kingcups, and laugh aloud for his youth, with hidden thoughts of Pauline to make him rejoice that he was young. He laughed again at Michael's seriousness and flung his scheme to the broad clouds, for on this generous day he and Pauline were enough, and neither anybody else's opinion nor anybody else's help was worth a second thought. The heartening warmth, however, did not last; and when towards evening the sun faded in a blanch of watery clouds with a cold wind for aftermath, Guy felt Michael might have been more sympathetic. Rather silently they walked back from Godstow, with Pauline between them; so that, after all, Guy thought, Michael was still an undergraduate, whereas he had embarked upon life.