CHAPTER IV
This laxity of emotional tone was further increased by an incident,
when, two days later, she kept an appointment with Nicholas in the
Sallows. The Sallows was an extension of shrubberies and plantations
along the banks of the Froom, accessible from the lawn of Froom-
Everard House only, except by wading through the river at the
waterfall or elsewhere. Near the brink was a thicket of box in which
a trunk lay prostrate; this had been once or twice their trysting-
place, though it was by no means a safe one; and it was here she sat
awaiting him now.
The noise of the stream muffled any sound of footsteps, and it was
before she was aware of his approach that she looked up and saw him
wading across at the top of the waterfall.
Noontide lights and dwarfed shadows always banished the romantic
aspect of her love for Nicholas. Moreover, something new had
occurred to disturb her; and if ever she had regretted giving way to
a tenderness for him--which perhaps she had not done with any
distinctness--she regretted it now. Yet in the bottom of their
hearts those two were excellently paired, the very twin halves of a
perfect whole; and their love was pure. But at this hour surfaces
showed garishly, and obscured the depths. Probably her regret
appeared in her face.
He walked up to her without speaking, the water running from his
boots; and, taking one of her hands in each of his own, looked
narrowly into her eyes.
'Have you thought it over?'
'WHAT?'
'Whether we shall try again; you remember saying you would at the
dance?'
'Oh, I had forgotten that!'
'You are sorry we tried at all!' he said accusingly.
'I am not so sorry for the fact as for the rumours,' she said.
'Ah! rumours?'
'They say we are already married.'
'Who?'
'I cannot tell exactly. I heard some whispering to that effect.
Somebody in the village told one of the servants, I believe. This
man said that he was crossing the churchyard early on that
unfortunate foggy morning, and heard voices in the chancel, and
peeped through the window as well as the dim panes would let him; and
there he saw you and me and Mr. Bealand, and so on; but thinking his
surmises would be dangerous knowledge, he hastened on. And so the
story got afloat. Then your aunt, too--'
'Good Lord!--what has she done?'
The story was, told her, and she said proudly, "O yes, it is true
enough. I have seen the licence. But it is not to be known yet."'
'Seen the licence? How the--'
'Accidentally, I believe, when your coat was hanging somewhere.'
The information, coupled with the infelicitous word 'proudly,' caused
Nicholas to flush with mortification. He knew that it was in his
aunt's nature to make a brag of that sort; but worse than the brag
was the fact that this was the first occasion on which Christine had
deigned to show her consciousness that such a marriage would be a
source of pride to his relatives--the only two he had in the world.
'You are sorry, then, even to be thought my wife, much less to be
it.' He dropped her hand, which fell lifelessly.
'It is not sorry exactly, dear Nic. But I feel uncomfortable and
vexed, that after screwing up my courage, my fidelity, to the point
of going to church, you should have so muddled--managed the matter
that it has ended in neither one thing nor the other. How can I meet
acquaintances, when I don't know what they are thinking of me?'
'Then, dear Christine, let us mend the muddle. I'll go away for a
few days and get another licence, and you can come to me.'
She shrank from this perceptibly. 'I cannot screw myself up to it a
second time,' she said. 'I am sure I cannot! Besides, I promised
Mr. Bealand. And yet how can I continue to see you after such a
rumour? We shall be watched now, for certain.'
'Then don't see me.'
'I fear I must not for the present. Altogether--'
'What?'
'I am very depressed.'
These views were not very inspiriting to Nicholas, as he construed
them. It may indeed have been possible that he construed them
wrongly, and should have insisted upon her making the rumour true.
Unfortunately, too, he had come to her in a hurry through brambles
and briars, water and weed, and the shaggy wildness which hung about
his appearance at this fine and correct time of day lent an
impracticability to the look of him.
'You blame me--you repent your courses--you repent that you ever,
ever owned anything to me!'
'No, Nicholas, I do not repent that,' she returned gently, though
with firmness. 'But I think that you ought not to have got that
licence without asking me first; and I also think that you ought to
have known how it would be if you lived on here in your present
position, and made no effort to better it. I can bear whatever
comes, for social ruin is not personal ruin or even personal
disgrace. But as a sensible, new-risen poet says, whom I have been
reading this morning:-
The world and its ways have a certain worth:
And to press a point while these oppose
Were simple policy. Better wait.
As soon as you had got my promise, Nic, you should have gone away--
yes--and made a name, and come back to claim me. That was my silly
girlish dream about my hero.'
'Perhaps I can do as much yet! And would you have indeed liked
better to live away from me for family reasons, than to run a risk in
seeing me for affection's sake? O what a cold heart it has grown!
If I had been a prince, and you a dairymaid, I'd have stood by you in
the face of the world!'
She shook her head. 'Ah--you don't know what society is--you don't
know.'
'Perhaps not. Who was that strange gentleman of about seven-and-
twenty I saw at Mr. Bellston's christening feast?'
'Oh--that was his nephew James. Now he is a man who has seen an
unusual extent of the world for his age. He is a great traveller,
you know.'
'Indeed.'
'In fact an explorer. He is very entertaining.'
'No doubt.'
Nicholas received no shock of jealousy from her announcement. He
knew her so well that he could see she was not in the least in love
with Bellston. But he asked if Bellston were going to continue his
explorations.
'Not if he settles in life. Otherwise he will, I suppose.'
'Perhaps I could be a great explorer, too, if I tried.'
'You could, I am sure.'
They sat apart, and not together; each looking afar off at vague
objects, and not in each other's eyes. Thus the sad autumn afternoon
waned, while the waterfall hissed sarcastically of the inevitableness
of the unpleasant. Very different this from the time when they had
first met there.
The nook was most picturesque; but it looked horridly common and
stupid now. Their sentiment had set a colour hardly less visible
than a material one on surrounding objects, as sentiment must where
life is but thought. Nicholas was as devoted as ever to the fair
Christine; but unhappily he too had moods and humours, and the
division between them was not closed.
She had no sooner got indoors and sat down to her work-table than her
father entered the drawing-room.
She handed him his newspaper; he took it without a word, went and
stood on the hearthrug, and flung the paper on the floor.
'Christine, what's the meaning of this terrible story? I was just on
my way to look at the register.'
She looked at him without speech.
'You have married--Nicholas Long?'
'No, father.'
'No? Can you say no in the face of such facts as I have been put in
possession of?'
'Yes.'
'But--the note you wrote to the rector--and the going to church?'
She briefly explained that their attempt had failed.
'Ah! Then this is what that dancing meant, was it? By -, it makes
me -. How long has this been going on, may I ask?'
'This what?'
'What, indeed! Why, making him your beau. Now listen to me. All's
well that ends well; from this day, madam, this moment, he is to be
nothing more to you. You are not to see him. Cut him adrift
instantly! I only wish his volk were on my farm--out they should go,
or I would know the reason why. However, you are to write him a
letter to this effect at once.'
'How can I cut him adrift?'
'Why not? You must, my good maid!'
'Well, though I have not actually married him, I have solemnly sworn
to be his wife when he comes home from abroad to claim me. It would
be gross perjury not to fulfil my promise. Besides, no woman can go
to church with a man to deliberately solemnize matrimony, and refuse
him afterwards, if he does nothing wrong meanwhile.'
The uttered sound of her strong conviction seemed to kindle in
Christine a livelier perception of all its bearings than she had
known while it had lain unformulated in her mind. For when she had
done speaking she fell down on her knees before her father, covered
her face, and said, 'Please, please forgive me, papa! How could I do
it without letting you know! I don't know, I don't know!'
When she looked up she found that, in the turmoil of his mind, her
father was moving about the room. 'You are within an ace of ruining
yourself, ruining me, ruining us all!' he said. 'You are nearly as
bad as your brother, begad!'
'Perhaps I am--yes--perhaps I am!'
'That I should father such a harum-scarum brood!'
'It is very bad; but Nicholas--'
'He's a scoundrel!'
'He is NOT a scoundrel!' cried she, turning quickly. 'He's as good
and worthy as you or I, or anybody bearing our name, or any nobleman
in the kingdom, if you come to that! Only--only'--she could not
continue the argument on those lines. 'Now, father, listen!' she
sobbed; 'if you taunt me I'll go off and join him at his farm this
very day, and marry him to-morrow, that's what I'll do!'
'I don't taant ye!'
'I wish to avoid unseemliness as much as you.'
She went away. When she came back a quarter of an hour later,
thinking to find the room empty, he was standing there as before,
never having apparently moved. His manner had quite changed. He
seemed to take a resigned and entirely different view of
circumstances.
'Christine, here's a paragraph in the paper hinting at a secret
wedding, and I'm blazed if it don't point to you. Well, since this
was to happen, I'll bear it, and not complain. All volk have
crosses, and this is one of mine. Now, this is what I've got to say-
-I feel that you must carry out this attempt at marrying Nicholas
Long. Faith, you must! The rumour will become a scandal if you
don't--that's my view. I have tried to look at the brightest side of
the case. Nicholas Long is a young man superior to most of his
class, and fairly presentable. And he's not poor--at least his uncle
is not. I believe the old muddler could buy me up any day. However,
a farmer's wife you must be, as far as I can see. As you've made
your bed, so ye must lie. Parents propose, and ungrateful children
dispose. You shall marry him, and immediately.'
Christine hardly knew what to make of this. 'He is quite willing to
wait, and so am I. We can wait for two or three years, and then he
will be as worthy as--'
'You must marry him. And the sooner the better, if 'tis to be done
at all . . . And yet I did wish you could have been Jim Bellston's
wife. I did wish it! But no.'
'I, too, wished it and do still, in one sense,' she returned gently.
His moderation had won her out of her defiant mood, and she was
willing to reason with him.
'You do?' he said surprised.
'I see that in a worldly sense my conduct with Mr. Long may be
considered a mistake.'
'H'm--I am glad to hear that--after my death you may see it more
clearly still; and you won't have long to wait, to my reckoning.'
She fell into bitter repentance, and kissed him in her anguish.
'Don't say that!' she cried. 'Tell me what to do?'
'If you'll leave me for an hour or two I'll think. Drive to the
market and back--the carriage is at the door--and I'll try to collect
my senses. Dinner can be put back till you return.'
In a few minutes she was dressed, and the carriage bore her up the
hill which divided the village and manor from the market-town.
