CHAPTER IX
[THE BEECH TREE]
When the travellers returned it was after nine o'clock. So soon as they set foot indoors they were informed that dinner was ready to be served; an announcement which, as they had been travelling all day, and had only had a scanty lunch on the train, Mrs Plummer was inclined to hail with rapture. Miss Arnott, however--as she was only too frequently wont to be--was of a different mind.
"I don't want any dinner," she announced.
"Not want any dinner!" Mrs Plummer stared. The limits of human forbearance must be reached some time, and the idea that that erratic young woman could not want dinner was beyond nature. "But you must want dinner--you're starving; I'm sure you are."
"Indeed? I don't see how you can be sure. I assure you, on my part, that I am not even hungry. However, as you probably mean that yours is a case of starvation, far be it from me to stand in the way of your being properly fed. Come! let us go in to dinner at once."
The imperious young woman marched her unresisting companion straight off into the dining-room, without even affording her an opportunity to remove the stains of travel. Not that Mrs Plummer was unwilling to be led, having arrived at that stage in which the satisfaction of the appetite was the primary consideration.
Miss Arnott herself made but an unsubstantial meal; watching the conscientious manner in which the elder lady did justice to the excellent fare with ill-concealed and growing impatience. At last--when they had only reached the entrées--her feeling found vent.
"Really, Mrs Plummer, you must excuse me. I'm not in the least bit hungry, and am in that state of mind in which even the sight of food upsets me--I must have some fresh air."
"Fresh air! But, my dear child, surely you must recently have had enough fresh air."
"Not of the kind I want. You stay there and continue to recruit exhausted nature; don't let my vagaries make any difference to you. I'm going out--to breathe."
"After travelling for three whole days where can you be going to at this time of night? It's ten o'clock."
"I'm going--" From the way in which she looked at her Mrs Plummer deemed it quite possible that her charge was going to request her to mind her own business. But, suddenly, Miss Arnott stopped; seemed to change her mind, and said with a smile wrinkling her lips, "Oh, I'm going out into the woods."
Before the other could speak again she was gone.
Left alone, Mrs Plummer put down her knife and fork, and stared at the door through which the lady had vanished. Had there been someone to say it to she might have said something to the point. The only persons present were the butler and his attendant minions. To them she could hardly address herself on such a subject. It was not even desirable that any action of hers should acquaint them with the fact that there was something which she was burning to say. She controlled her feelings, composed her countenance, took up her knife and fork and resumed her meal.
And Miss Arnott went out into the woods.
She was in a curious mood, or she would never have gone out on such a frolic. Directly she found herself out in the cool night air, stretching out her arms and opening her chest, she drank in great draughts of it; not one or two, but half a dozen. When she reached the shadow of the trees she paused. So far the sky had been obscured by clouds. The woods stretched out in front of her in seemingly impenetrable darkness. It was impossible to pick out a footpath in that blackness. But all at once the clouds passed from before the moon. Shafts of light began to penetrate the forest fastness, and to illuminate its mysteries. The footpath was revealed, not over clearly, yet with sufficient distinctness to make its existence obvious. Unhesitatingly she began to follow it. It was not easy walking. The moon kept coming and going. When it was at its brightest its rays were not sufficiently vivid to make perfectly plain the intricacies of the path. When it vanished she found herself in a darkness which might almost have been felt. Progression was practically impossible. In spite of her putting out her hands to feel the way she was continually coming into contact with trees, and shrubs, and all sorts of unseen obstacles. Not only so, there was the risk of her losing the path--all sense of direction being nonexistent.
"If I don't take care I shall be lost utterly, and shall have to spend the night, alone with the birds and beasts, in this sweet wilderness. Sensible people would take advantage of the first chance which offers to turn back. But I sha'n't; I shall go on and on."
Presently the opportunity to do so came again. The moon returned; this time to stay. It seemed brighter now. As her eyes became accustomed to its peculiar glamour she moved more surely towards the goal she had in view. The light, the scene, the hour, were all three fitted to her mood; which certainly would have defied her own analysis. It seemed to her, by degrees, that she was bewitched--under the influence of some strange spell. This was a fairy forest through which she was passing, at the witching hour. Invisible shapes walked by her. Immaterial forms peopled the air. It was as though she was one of a great company; moving with an aerial bodyguard through a forest of faerie.
What it all meant she did not know; or why she was there; or whither, exactly, she was going. Until, on a sudden, the knowledge came.
Unexpectedly, before she supposed she had gone so far, she came to the end of the path. There, right ahead, was the mossy glade, the fee-simple of which had been presented to her in such queer fashion the last time she came that way. Coming from the shadow of the forest path it stood out in the full radiance of the moon; every object showing out as clearly as at high noon. The new-made fence, with its novelty already fading; the turf on which she loved to lie; the unevenness on the slope which had seemed to have been made for the express purpose of providing cushions for her head and back. These things she saw, as distinctly as if the sun were high in the heavens; and something else she saw as well, which made her heart stand still.
Under the giant beech, whose spreading branches cast such grateful shade, when the sun was hot, over the nook which she had chosen as a couch, stood a man--who was himself by way of being a giant. Never before had his height so struck her. Whether it was the clothes he wore, the position in which he stood, or a trick of the moonlight, she could not tell. She only knew that, as he appeared so instantly before her, he was like some creature out of Brobdingnag, seeming to fill all space with his presence.
The man was Hugh Morice.
He was so absorbed in what he was doing, and she was still some little distance from him, and had come so quietly; that she saw him while he still remained unconscious of her neighbourhood. She had ample time to withdraw. She had only to take a few steps back, and he would never know she had been near him. So the incident would be closed. Her instinct told her that in that way she would be safest. And for a moment or two she all but turned to go.
Her retreat, however, was delayed by one or two considerations. One was that the sight of him affected her so strangely that, for some seconds, she was genuinely incapable of going either backward or forward. Her feet seemed shod with lead, her knees seemed to be giving way beneath her, she was trembling from head to foot. Then she was divided between conflicting desires, the one saying go, the other stay; and while her instinct warned her to do the one, her inclination pointed to the other. In the third place there was her woman's curiosity. While she hesitated this began to gain the upper hand. She wondered what it was he was doing which absorbed him so completely that he never ceased from doing it to look about him.
He was in a dinner suit, and was apparently hatless. He had something in his hand, with which he was doing something to the tree in front of which he stood. What was he doing? She had no right to ask; she had no right to be there at all; still--she wondered. She moved a little farther out into the open space, to enable her to see. As she did so it seemed that he finished what he was doing. Standing up straight he drew back from the tree the better to enable him to examine his handiwork; and--then he turned and saw her.
There was silence. Neither moved. Each continued to look at the other, as if at some strange, mysterious being. Then he spoke.
"Are you a ghost?--I think not. I fancy you're material. But I haunt this place so constantly myself-- defying Jim Baker's charge of lead--that I should not be one whit surprised if your spirit actually did appear to keep me company. Do you believe in telepathy?"
"I don't know what it is."
"Do you believe that A, by dint of taking thought, can induce B to think of him? or--more--can draw, B to his side? I'm not sure that I believe; but it certainly is queer that I should have been thinking of you so strenuously just then, longing for you, and should turn and find you here. I thought you were over the hills and far away, haunting the shores of the Italian lakes."
"On Wednesday we came away from Como."
"On Wednesday? That's still stranger. It was on Wednesday my fever came to a head. I rushed down here, bent, if I could not be with you, on being where you had been. Since my arrival I've longed--with how great a longing--to use all sorts of conjurations which should bring you back to Exham; and, it seems, I conjured wiser than I knew."
"I left Como because I could no longer stay."
"From Exham? or from me? Speak sweetly; see how great my longing is."
"I had to return to say good-bye."
"To both of us? That's good; since our goodbyes will take so long in saying. Come and see what I have done." She went to the tree. There, newly cut in the bark, plain in the moonlight, were letters and figures. "Your initials and mine, joined by the date on which we met--beneath this tree. I brought my hunting knife out with me to do it--you see how sharp a point and edge it has." She saw that he held a great knife in his hand. "As I cut the letters you can believe I thought--I so thought of you with my whole heart and soul that you've come back to me from Como."
"Did I not say I've returned to say good-bye?"
"What sort of good-bye do you imagine I will let you say, now that you've returned? That tree shall be to us a family chronicle. The first important date's inscribed on it; the others shall follow; they'll be so many. But the trunk's of a generous size. We'll find room on it for all. That's the date on which I first loved you. What's the date on which you first loved me?"
"I have not said I ever loved you."
"No; but you do."
"Yes; I do. Now I know that I do. No, you must not touch me."
"No need to draw yourself away; I do not mean to, yet. Some happinesses are all the sweeter for being a little postponed. And when did the knowledge first come to you? We must have the date upon the tree."
"That you never shall. Such tales are not for trees to tell, even if I knew, which I don't. I'm afraid to think; it's all so horrible."
"Love is horrible? I think not."
"But I know. You don't understand--I do."
"My dear, I think it is you who do not understand."
"Nor must you call me your dear; for that I shall never be."
"Not even when you're my wife?"
"I shall never be your wife!"
"Lady, these are strange things of which you speak. I would rather that, just now, you did not talk only in riddles."
"It is the plain truth--I shall never be your wife."
"How's that? Since my love has brought you back from Como, to tell me that you also love? Though, mind you, I do not stand in positive need of being told. Because, now that I see you face to face, and feel you there so close to me, your heart speaks to mine--I can hear it speaking; I can hear, sweetheart, what it says. So that I know you love me, without depending for the knowledge on the utterance of your lips."
"Still, I shall never be your wife."
"But why, sweetheart, but why?"
"Because--I am a wife already."