The Heart of Penelope

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

But Downing made no answer. Instead, he flung open the door, preceded her down the darkened passage, and then, or so it seemed to Penelope, almost thrust her out on to the flagged path.

Why this great haste, this sudden hurry to be quit of the farmhouse? As yet there was no rain, and doubtless the high wind would keep off the storm till night. In the last hour—nay, it was not even an hour since she had felt the weight of Downing's hand laid in reproach on her shoulder—her mood had indeed changed. Mrs. Robinson had been reluctant to come in, but now she was very loth to go.

There came a time in Penelope's life when every feeling she had ever possessed for Downing—and, looking back, she had to tell herself that she had loved him with every kind of love a woman may give a man—became merged in boundless and awed gratitude, and when her thoughts would especially single out this storm-driven afternoon and evening. But now Mrs. Robinson felt aggrieved by his reserve, surprised at his coldness, and, standing there on the flagged path, waiting while her companion spent what seemed to her much unnecessary time in securely fastening the door behind them, she felt very sore, and inclined to linger unduly.

And so, as he came quickly towards her, Downing saw a curious look on her face that caused his own expression suddenly to change. A light leapt into his grey eyes, but Mrs. Robinson had turned pettishly away. 'I must stop a moment,' she said; 'the laces of my shoe have come untied.'

The wind was rising swirling clouds of dust below, but Downing caught her words, and understood the mingled feelings which had prompted their utterance. Quickly passing her, he knelt on the lowest of the steps which led from the flagged path to the road, tied her shoe-laces, and then, after glancing up and down the deserted road, he bent over and kissed lingeringly, first one and then the other, of the wearer's feet.

Then he sprang up, and, for a moment, he looked at her deprecatingly, but Penelope, mollified by what she took to be an act of unwonted humility and homage, laughed and blushed as she let him put her hand through his arm.

They walked down the hill in silence. The wind was still rising, large drops of rain began to fall at intervals, and yet, for the first time that afternoon, Mrs. Robinson felt wholly content. There was something in her nature which responded to wild weather, and, but for the lateness of the hour, she would have liked so to make her way through wind and beating rain back to Monk's Eype.

At last they found themselves on a level, monotonous stretch of road. To the right, rising beyond a piece of rough, untilled ground, in the centre of which stood a grove of high trees, lay the straggling little town of Burcombe, and Mrs. Robinson looked doubtfully at the long, rain-flecked road before them. 'If we make our way across, and go through the grounds of Burcombe Abbey,' she said, indicating the grove of trees, 'we should get to the town far sooner than by going round this way. I think the place is let this summer, but if the storm becomes worse, we might take shelter in one of the out-buildings, and send some one for a carriage.'

The first flash of lightning, the first real rush of rain, hastened their decision. Downing looked down with a feeling of exultation at his companion; her face was bent before the wind, but her voice was full of strength and a certain joyous cheer. Still, when the lightning lit up for a moment the lonely expanse of brown heath and rough ground about them, he felt her involuntary shudder, and she held closer to him.

Soon they had passed through a broken palisade into the comparative shelter afforded by the high trees which surrounded and embowered the remains of what had once been a famous Cistercian monastery. It was good to be out of the storm, under one of the arched avenues which bordered a straight dark pool, covered with still duck-weed, stretching before them.