The Garden Without Walls

by Coningsby Dawson

On rising one morning, I found that the subdued grays and browns had vanished—that London was glistening with snow. My spirits rose to an unaccustomed pitch of buoyancy; I tossed aside my writing and went out into the streets. Coming to the Spuffler’s old house I halted; the memory of the Christmas I had spent there leapt into my mind with every detail sharpened. Things which I had not thought of for years came back luminously—scraps of conversation, gestures, childish excitements. This wintry morning was reminiscent of a snow-lit, sun-dazzled morning of long ago. I recalled how Ruthita had bounced into my room to let me see her presents; how she had balanced herself on the edge of my bed in her long white night-gown, with her legs curled under her and her small feet showing; how she had laughed at my care of her when I wrapped the counterpane about her shoulders to prevent her from catching cold. Every memory was somehow connected with Ruthita. And here I stood, a man of thirty, looking up at the windows from which we had once gazed out together—and I had not seen her to speak to for five years.

I could not get her out of mind. I did not want to. I kept tracing resemblances to her in the girls whom I passed in the streets. Some of them were carrying their skates, with flying hair and flushed faces. Others, whom I met after lunch in the theatre districts, were going to matinées with school-boy brothers. I wanted to be back again in the old intimacy, walking beside her. Since that was impossible, I set myself deliberately to remember.

In the afternoon I strolled into the Green Park. Constitution Hill was scattered with spectators all agape to see the quality drive by. Every now and then a soldier or statesman would be recognized; the word would pass from mouth to mouth with a flutter of excitement. The trees enameled in white, the grass in its sparkling blanket, the sky banked with soft clouds, the flushed faces—everything added its hint of animated and companionable kindness.

Of a sudden in the throng of flashing carriages, my attention was caught by an intense white face approaching, half-hidden in a mass of night-black hair—the face was smaller than ever, and even more pathetically patient. By her side sat the man whom I now almost hated, looking handsome and important; the years had dealt well with him, and had heightened his air of dignity and aristocratic assurance. He was speaking to her lazily while she paid him listless attention, never meeting his glance. It was plain to see that, whatever he had or had not been to other women, his passion for her was unabated. She looked a snow-drop set beside an exotic orchid; the demure simplicity of her beauty was accentuated by the contrast. Her wandering gaze fell in my direction; for an instant my gaze absorbed her. She started forward from the cushions; her features became nipped with eagerness. Those wonderful eyes of hers, which had always had power to move me, seemed to speak of years of longing. A smile parted her lips; her listlessness was gone. She leant out of the carriage, as though she would call to me.

Lord Halloway’s hand had gone to his hat, as he turned with a gracious expression, searching the crowd to discover the cause of his wife’s excitement. His eyes met mine. His face hardened. Seizing Ruthita’s arm, he dragged her down beside him. The carriage swept by and was lost in the stream of passing traffic. All was over in less time than it has taken to narrate.

That night at Chelsea I could not sleep for thinking. Across the ceiling I watched the lights of the police-boats flash in passing. I listened to the river grumbling between its granite walls. Late taxis purred by; I took to counting them. Big Ben lifted up his solemn voice, speaking to the stars of change and time. I thought, imagined, remembered. What had happened to us all that we were so gravely altered? What had happened to her? What had he done to quench her? Then came the old, forgotten question: had I had anything to do with it?

Next day I set myself to conquer my restlessness, but my accustomed interests had lost their fascination. Neither that day, nor in those that followed, could I recover my grip on my habitual methods of life. What were the temptations, disappointments of a dead past compared with those that were now in the acting? My scholarship, my love of books, my undertakings at Woadley had only been in the nature of narcotics; I had drugged myself into partial forgetfulness. Now the old affections, like old wounds, ached and irked me. One glimpse of Ruthita’s white intensity had stabbed me into keenest remembrance.

I had to see her again; the hunger to hear her speak was on me—to listen to the sound of her voice.

Several times I saw her driving in the Park, sometimes alone, sometimes with Halloway. She never looked at me, but I was certain she was aware of me by the way her cheek grew pale. Only a few years ago I had been half her life, free to hold her, to come and go with her, to disregard her; now she passed me unnoticed. I haunted all places where I might expect to find her; whether I met or missed her my pain was the same. At the back of my mind was the constant dread that her husband would hurry her away to where I could not follow.

It was a blustering afternoon in early March, on a day of laughing and crying—one of those raw spring days, before spring really commences, capricious as a young girl nearing womanhood, without reason gay and without reason serious. In the sunshine one could believe that it was almost summer, but winter lurked in the shadows. A flush of young green spread through the tree-tops; in open spaces crocuses shivered near together. The streets were boisterous with gusty puffs of wind which sent dust and papers circling. In stiff ranks, like soldiers, the houses stood, erect, straining their heads into the sky, as if trying to appear taller. Clouds hurried and fumed along overhead travel-routes, and rent gashes in their sides as if with knives, letting through the sudden turquoise. Presently slow drops began to patter. Umbrellas shot up. Bus-drivers unstrapped their capes. In the Circus flower-girls picked up their baskets and ran for shelter.