The borders on either side the walk were set out with bulbs and early flowering plants. As yet the majority of these showed but bud, or upstanding sheaths of leaf. The gilly-stocks only were fully in blossom. The clean, homely fragrance of them hung in the still air; but the moonlight had bleached their honest orange and russet faces, making them, like all else of the scene, but varying degrees of light and dark. Alone in this colourless world, frail though it was and ethereal, had the sweet figure of Agnes Rivers retained its actual hues. The brown of her hair, the warm pallor of her skin, the blue of her profound and now laughing eyes, the soft rose-red of her silken gown, defied the chill of the moonlight. And this, as Laurence moved towards her, deepened alike the charm and the mystery of her appearance. It captivated his imagination. It stimulated his ambition. It challenged the deep places of his love. The hopeless task must indeed be accomplished. The impossible must come to pass. Daring that which no other man had dared, he would earn a reward such as no other man had dreamed. But he must be cautious, and discreet, and very gentle. The diplomatist, for a long while to come, must hold the lover in check if the end was to be gained.
And just then Agnes Rivers's voice broke into a little song, hardly articulate, but clear and instinct with delight, even as the songs of birds, very early in spring, when pairing time has but just begun. Yet enchanting as the tones were, there was in them something remote and beyond the compass of human thought, piercing the young man to the very heart, so that he cried to her—
"Ah! my dear, come down, come near. Leave your singing, it is too sweet. It has too much to do with spirit and too little with flesh. It cuts like a knife. There—there—I am not blaming you, God forbid. Only, you have lived so long on the borderland between those two worlds, of which you once spoke, that you have a little lost touch with ordinary mortals such as I. Come down, come near. Don't you see what I mean? Don't you know what I want?"
And after gentle converse, when that morning the dawn broke and with words of tender farewell, his fairy-lady crossed the yellow drawing-room and passed at the back of the outstanding satin-wood escritoire, as her habit was, it appeared to Laurence that, for the first time, a faint shadow followed her little feet. And this filled him with great and far-reaching hope—as the first dim greyness of land along the horizon fills the sailor after long voyaging upon the open sea. Nevertheless, she vanished as before, leaving him solitary, while of the manner of her going there remained no sign.
XXI
Days multiplied into weeks, March passed into April, April into May, June came with all its roses, the lime-trees flowered once again, and the scent of them was wafted across the broad lawns and in at the open windows, yet Laurence stayed on at Stoke Rivers. He had ceased to apologise for, or seek to justify his action. The fanatical, extravagant element of his character was fully in the ascendant, and it was conveniently contemptuous of criticism. He had become a law unto himself. He stayed because he intended to stay—there was the beginning and end of the matter. Meanwhile, he made discovery of pleasures subtle and subjective, hitherto unimagined. Living the life of the recluse, he enjoyed that sense of inward harmony and freedom of spirit known only to those who dare divorce themselves from society, with its many tyrannies, and from familiar commerce with their fellowmen. He experienced the sensible increase of will-power, and the mental elation, that are born of solitude, silence, and whole-hearted devotion to a single idea. The values shifted, and many worldly matters, many amusements, which had formerly appeared to him of vital importance, now began to appear slightly absurd. He ate and drank sparingly, since meat and liquor tend to render the action of the brain sluggish, and the imagination somewhat gross. His dear fairy-lady should regain the completeness of her humanity; but he would fit himself to meet her half way on her mysterious return journey from the regions of the dead, by purging himself of all superfluous animality.
And his environment lent itself to these practices and experiments. The household had settled back into its accustomed decorum and regularity. It asked no questions, it obeyed in respectful silence. And, if certain tremors shook it at times in face of its new master's supposed dealings with things occult and supernatural, it accepted them as a necessary part of its service. Indeed, it may be questioned whether Lowndes, the grey-faced, long-armed valet, Renshaw, and Watkins, irreproachably correct of demeanour, would not have suffered far greater inconvenience and perturbation had they been called upon to adapt themselves to the ordinary ways of the ordinary, English country-gentleman. Their pride would have suffered likewise, since eccentricity had been so long enthroned in their midst, that its absence would have seemed a loss of prestige, a regrettable coming down in the social scale. They displayed much solicitude for Laurence's comfort, and much grim alacrity in turning guests from his door. Captain Bellingham's fears that his friend might develop into a crank appeared to be in very fair road to fulfilment; but the household rejoiced silently and grimly thereat.
So did not Armstrong, the shrewd and kindly Scotch agent.
"Whether the place induces a whimsicality in the family, or the family in the place, I would not presume to declare," he lamented one day, when having a crack with a trusted friend and fellow-countryman. "It is like the matter of priority between the owl and the egg, a hidden thing, transcending human wit. But a certain impracticability is assuredly bred in their bones, poor bodies, which needs must eventually come out in the flesh of every one of them. They're over proud of the intelligence of which it has pleased the Almighty to bestow on them so handsome a portion—as the intelligence of Saxons and Southerners go, you understand. And being puffed up with conceit of themselves they proceed to apply their bit of unusual reason in wild and impolitic speculations, to the endangering of their own and other persons' peace and security. A sair pity, a sair pity! Not that I would deny degrees in the natural wrong-headedness of the poor, misguided creatures. The present representative of the family is a young man of excellent parts and practical ability; and though I fear he is going astray in some particulars, I find in him a praiseworthy application to business, by times."