Nearly three! Where were these young people? Had he been asleep, and they come in? Sure enough, in the hall Alan's hat and Sheila's cloak—the dark-red one he had admired when she went forth—were lying on a chair. But of the other two—nothing! He crept up-stairs. Their doors were open. They certainly took their time—these young lovers. And the same sore feeling which had attacked Felix when Nedda first told him of her love came on him badly in that small of the night when his vitality was lowest. All the hours she had spent clambering about him, or quietly resting on his knee with her head tucked in just where his arm and shoulder met, listening while he read or told her stories, and now and again turning those clear eyes of hers wide open to his face, to see if he meant it; the wilful little tugs of her hand when they two went exploring the customs of birds, or bees, or flowers; all her 'Daddy, I love yous!' and her rushes to the front door, and long hugs when he came back from a travel; all those later crookings of her little finger in his, and the times he had sat when she did not know it, watching her, and thinking: 'That little creature, with all that's before her, is my very own daughter to take care of, and share joy and sorrow with....' Each one of all these seemed to come now and tweak at him, as the songs of blackbirds tweak the heart of one who lies, unable to get out into the Spring. His lamp had burned itself quite out; the moon was fallen below the clump of pines, and away to the north-east something stirred in the stain and texture of the sky. Felix opened the window. What peace out there! The chill, scentless peace of night, waiting for dawn's renewal of warmth and youth. Through that bay window facing north he could see on one side the town, still wan with the light of its lamps, on the other the country, whose dark bloom was graying fast. Suddenly a tiny bird twittered, and Felix saw his two truants coming slowly from the gate across the grass, his arm round her shoulders, hers round his waist. With their backs turned to him, they passed the corner of the house, across where the garden sloped away. There they stood above the wide country, their bodies outlined against a sky fast growing light, evidently waiting for the sun to rise. Silent they stood, while the birds, one by one, twittered out their first calls. And suddenly Felix saw the boy fling his hand up into the air. The Sun! Far away on the gray horizon was a flare of red!
CHAPTER XVIII
The anxieties of the Lady Mallorings of this life concerning the moral welfare of their humbler neighbors are inclined to march in front of events. The behavior in Tryst's cottage was more correct than it would have been in nine out of ten middle or upper class demesnes under similar conditions. Between the big laborer and 'that woman,' who, since the epileptic fit, had again come into residence, there had passed nothing whatever that might not have been witnessed by Biddy and her two nurslings. For love is an emotion singularly dumb and undemonstrative in those who live the life of the fields; passion a feeling severely beneath the thumb of a propriety born of the age-long absence of excitants, opportunities, and the aesthetic sense; and those two waited, almost as a matter of course, for the marriage which was forbidden them in this parish. The most they did was to sit and look at one another.
On the day of which Felix had seen the dawn at Hampstead, Sir Gerald's agent tapped on the door of Tryst's cottage, and was answered by Biddy, just in from school for the midday meal.
“Your father home, my dear?”
“No, sir; Auntie's in.”
“Ask your auntie to come and speak to me.”
The mother-child vanished up the narrow stairs, and the agent sighed. A strong-built, leathery-skinned man in a brown suit and leggings, with a bristly little moustache and yellow whites to his eyes, he did not, as he had said to his wife that morning, 'like the job a little bit.' And while he stood there waiting, Susie and Billy emerged from the kitchen and came to stare at him. The agent returned that stare till a voice behind him said: “Yes, sir?”
'That woman' was certainly no great shakes to look at: a fresh, decent, faithful sort of body! And he said gruffly: “Mornin', miss. Sorry to say my orders are to make a clearance here. I suppose Tryst didn't think we should act on it, but I'm afraid I've got to put his things out, you know. Now, where are you all going; that's the point?”