Grey Wethers: A Romantic Novel

by V. Sackville-West

He remained unmoved, examining her with a sort of abstracted interest. She thought that she had never seen him so much like an animal, pausing even while poised for flight, and a despair overcame her when she remembered her own conceit that she could tame and bring to heel again a creature so wild. She was ashamed when she remembered that she had pitied him, had assumed that he must be unhappy, had smiled to herself when she thought of keeping up his pretence of temper like a sulky child. That smile had had in it much that was tender, much that was maternal; had she then forgotten Lovel, or had her imagination so metamorphosed his image, that she could have persuaded herself of his need for tenderness, tolerance, or pity? He had need for none of those soft things; she had been mistaken in thinking that he in any way needed her; he needed no one; he stood alone. Nevertheless, she would not retreat without some struggle; he might, still, prove to be no worse than angry and hurt; if he insisted on remaining so, it should, at least, not be owing to a lack of good-will on her part. “Lovel,” she said, “Lovel, have I offended you in any way? See, I have come here deliberately to ask you and to say that I am sorry for whatever I may have done; how can I say more?”

Still he did not reply, but turned his head slightly and uneasily as though looking for escape. He still had that air of being poised in the clearing of the trees, alienating him from her as if she had come upon him in the midst of some secret rite which he only awaited her departure to resume. She felt inclined to cry out, “We were so close to one another, once!” and the pain of the loss stabbed her sharply, but instead she pleaded again with him, “Lovel, if you would only speak to me we could put this misunderstanding right.” Where was the smile she had so confidently hoped to startle into his eyes? He had never shown himself so aloof or so forbidding; she felt herself small, insignificant, and importunate; if she had found him in the open, she thought, he would have been more vulnerable, but here among the trees he seemed curiously protected.

He had not moved a step ever since she came up with him; was he rooted there, a tree himself, or a sapling? she did not know; and a panic began to spread over her at his fancied communion and alliance with nature. He was as brown as the earth, his clothes were the colour of dead leaves, his shirt was red like a robin’s breast. She remembered again the tales she had heard of him, and her own fancies that had followed him at the poacher’s trade, and this time she was afraid. She wove them together with the ignorant tales of the witchcraft among the Lovels. Could there be any truth in these fantastic notions? a secret of harmony in nature which entitled the initiated to powers inexplicable to the uninitiated? why did all animals so dread Olver Lovel? so trust to Nicholas? what of her own intuitions? her sudden, reasonless terrors? her mingled love and fear of the sarsen stones and of trees? her constant phrase, uttered half in jest, that some day she would be fetched away? And how was Lovel concerned? what part was he to have in the fetching? If only he were not so brown, brown as earth, lithe as the saplings, his shirt red as a robin’s breast; if only his eyes were not constant pilgrims to the horizon.

She turned to leave him; at all costs she must get out of this wood, where she felt the old threat closing in round her, and in which Lovel was so mysteriously implicated. She turned slowly, not to betray her panic, still with the half-hope that he would speak and thereby break her spell. But when he spoke, it only deepened.

“There is no misunderstanding,” he said.

She wheeled round again upon him.

“Then why have you so avoided me?” she said passionately. “A fortnight ago we met by the Grey Wethers, we had no quarrel, we parted friends. The next day you were sent for to the Manor House, you would not come, you sent your brother. I sent for you later myself,—a special message. You would not come. I thought I had offended you in some way. Do you know that I have looked for you all over the hills to ask you for your reason? A fortnight I have spent in looking for you.”

“I know,” he said. “I have seen you.”

Her voice died away; she had thrown herself against his defences and bruised herself. Her indignation had made a tiny uproar in the wood without detracting from the calm of the trees or the dignity of Lovel. She made a small gesture of abandonment; her one desire now was to get away. “There is nothing more to be said.”