The lady cast a mournful look at him. ‘Then tis as I feared.’ She covered her face with her hands and turned away, a picture of desolation. But she quickly regained something of her composure, shewing her face once more, and seeming to shake off despair with an impatient toss of the head and to confront the future bravely. Mr Bailey found himself close at her side, ready, not to say eager, to support her in his embrace should she shew signs of fainting or faltering or giving any other suitable feminine expression to her emotions. His attitude struck a nice balance between ardour and respect, compassion and self-approval. It was as if he said: ‘Here is my shoulder. I do not ask you to lean upon it, but here it is, and very ready to be made use of. My faithful heart beats only for you. My not unmanly bosom asks nothing better than that your head, if it so please you, should rest gracefully and confidingly upon it. My arms, which are all discretion and politeness, can be trusted to support your enchanting person—should the occasion arise—without affront to your invincible modesty.’ The lady seemed aware of this devotion, and sweetly, sadly, grateful for it. She answered his eloquent silence with something between a sigh and a smile. But again she moved out of reach and was marvellously at once near and inaccessible.
‘I find, sir, you are a gentleman,’ she said, sketching a curtsey. ‘Indeed I had guessed as much long since; and the discretion of your behaviour and the refinement of your conversation do but confirm that earlier conjecture. What whim it is that persuades you to play your present part of innkeeper I do not know and have no title to inquire . . .’
‘The whim, madam,’ he cried, almost saucily, ‘of providing myself and my family with the means of life. A prejudice in favour of food and drink and a roof over my head. Tis true that I have seen happier fortunes, but none happier than to avow myself your devoted slave.’
He was a man translated and triumphant, and his choice of words was significant of that triumph. ‘Servant,’ from such as he, whose gentility was in question even while it was being affirmed, might have passed as obsequious; whereas ‘slave’ was ardent, gallant, a confident claim, a proud boast. This was indeed the most arrogant speech he had ever uttered in his life, and her fluttering reception of it made of him such a tremendous fellow, and of her a thing so small and fragile, so exquisite and lovely and forlorn, that he was hard put to it not to break the bounds of discretion and take her at once into his arms. But that were to risk all, and to risk it too soon. He had still sense enough to remember that. It was incredible that so high a goddess could stoop to him and suffer his embrace even for a moment. Moreover, he was already sufficiently exalted, and perhaps half knew it. In not attempting her he felt humble, and found humility delicious; chivalrous, and enjoyed his chivalry; politic, and knew his policy a safe one. And there remained, after all, his natural curiosity to be satisfied. His guest, the lady’s escort, had run off without paying the reckoning. A trifle, no doubt, compared with the measure of this golden hour: but a curious trifle none the less.
‘You are too kind, sir,’ said she. ‘I am happy to know I may trust your discretion. For trust you I must, and with a secret.’
At the word secret, the light in Mr Bailey’s eye burned more brightly still.
‘I am no better than other men,’ said he: and at least half sincerely, though the other half of him could not but suspect that by his very statement he proved the contrary. ‘I am no better than other men, madam. But I would sooner die than betray a secret confided to me by such lips as yours.’
There was urgency in her manner. She came nearer to him and said, with lowered voice: ‘This is no time for fine speeches. I am afraid for my brother. Ask me no details, my friend, but give me leave to rely on your discretion and goodwill. A grave danger threatens my brother, and his danger is necessarily mine. We have enemies. We are reduced in fortune. Persecution has dogged us these last five years—ever since the ill-starred adventure of ’45. Believe me, my kind friend, we are no less loyal than honest. But malice pursues us. My brother at this moment is engaged on a most delicate mission. He does not tell me all, and it is best that you know nothing. I am distressed by this sudden flight of his. I wonder indeed that he should have left my side with no word of warning or explanation. I have not deserved it of him.’
The quality of her voice was subtly changing: a note of anger, almost a note of hatred, could be heard in it. A sudden and devastating doubt assailed Mr Bailey.
‘Your side, madam? Left your side without forewarning you?’
The lady flushed. ‘Indeed yes. A very uncivil performance. But for hearing his door slam and the sound of his footsteps descending the stair, I should have known nothing of his movements.’
‘Are you sure it was he? May he not be still in his room . . . unless,’ said Mr Bailey casually, ‘you have already satisfied yourself to the contrary?’
‘Indeed, sir, I wonder at you. How is there room for question, since you yourself saw him go?’ She stared. ‘Is it possible that you doubt me?’
She looked, to Mr Bailey’s eyes, so lovely in her indignation that he was fired anew. ‘Madam, I am yours to command. As for doubting you, I would sooner doubt myself. You are in all things perfection.’ He impetuously seized her hand. ‘You are an angel. You are——’
She turned away from him. ‘Could I think you sincere,’ she said, in a low voice, ‘I would ask you to say nothing of my brother’s strange departure. Or rather to contrive some story that should make it appear less strange. If I could persuade myself that you mean even the half of what you profess, I could bear this affliction with some show of patience, and remain here, under your roof, until my brother’s return. But no, I am friendless and forsaken, and I must go from here at daybreak.’
‘What have I done,’ cried Mr Bailey, ‘how have I offended you that you can speak so cruelly of leaving my house before you must?’
She softened. She was manifestly touched. ‘Do you then wish me to stay, my poor friend?’
Her eyes dazzled him. He now possessed both her hands and stooped to kiss them. ‘With all my heart,’ he said.
A light hand stroked his hair; a word, softly spoken, caressed him. Then he was alone in the room, and the clock began striking three.
CHAPTER 5
THE LISTENERS: AND WHAT ELSE THEY HEARD THAN THE SOUND OF HORSES’ HOOVES
For a man bent on making a secret departure our gentleman in the three-cornered hat must be accounted unlucky, for at least three pairs of ears, besides those of the landlord and the deserted lady, listened to the sound of his vanishing horses. Mr Bailey’s daughter, for one, had needed no waking. She had lain for an hour or more listening to her own heart-beats, and feeling at intervals her child stirring in the womb, before the noise of footsteps tiptoeing past her door recalled her to a sense of where she was. The moment before, her thoughts had been with her dark slim honey-tongued lover: that romantic creature who looked, they said, like a gipsy, but could talk (whispered her heart) like a prince in a fairy-tale. She was remembering an August evening when she had wandered across Dyking Common into that fairy-tale. She saw him in the near distance driving his geese into their pen. He waved to her and waited. And it was this attitude of waiting that piqued her curiosity. There was no impudence in it: there was only a quiet satisfaction, as though they were already old friends and this a planned meeting. Nor did he approach her: that would have sent her running. He stood and smiled a welcome, and she from a little distance watched him with wide eyes. So this was the famous Gipsy Noke. She had seen him many a time in the street, but here he was different, here he was curiously a part of nature: and the best part. The bright grass, the trees, the bending blue sky: these seemed his natural setting: he was their comrade and their equal. She turned her gaze to the ground and sauntered slowly by, afraid lest he should pursue her, yet loth to leave him. She was not quite unintelligent, but her intelligence now was quiescent. Her behaviour was all but involuntary, for her mind formed no image of what she feared or of what she wanted. Two instincts working in her, a dumb fear and a dumb desire, she was deaf to the small, lisping, infant voice of reason. Her feet brought her to a standstill; her head turned; her eyes looked. The man’s dark eyes were still watching her. He smiled and called: ‘Come and lend a hand with these geese, missy, wilta now?’ He needed no help, but she went to him without further hesitation. ‘I pen they in for why?’ said Noke, serenely at his ease. ‘Because there be handy folk about, that’s for why, my dear. I pen they in, so there’ll be a squawken if em’s tampered with.’ He smiled at her. His eyes were bright with geniality and excitement. His speech fascinated her. She had never met anyone so queerly attractive. ‘You’re not of these parts, are you?’ she said shyly. ‘Nay,’ he answered, with a hint of teasing. ‘I be the King of Ameriky. They do call me a gipsy hereabouts. But you’ll call me Harry, wilta now, seeing we be friends, my pretty?’ She was too much excited to answer: the dark warmth of his glance made her tingle, mind and body. ‘You be Mus Bailey’s girl, bainta?’ She nodded. ‘Ah,’ said he, ‘come you into my cot, darlen, and see where I do live.’ He held out a hand to her. She was suddenly afraid, and wanted to run away. But she wanted, too, to stay. And she stayed. She was a true daughter of Wooma, and he a true son of Koor; but the centuries had taught the man more than the woman. He knew whither they were both tending: she knew nothing but a consciousness of delicious danger. And now her ignorance was half-wilfuclass="underline" she shut out thought, and drifted on the tide of an agelong impulse. Agelong, primitive, but not simple: an impulse, baffling in its complexity, whose direction we see but whose nature is not to be encompassed by any man’s definition, whether mystic or moralist or man of science. The biologist will draw you a map of its behaviour; the psychologist will explore its ramifications; the poet will find in the mystery the beauty and meaning he himself has put there. And it may be that the poet, who has the last word, had also the first; and that the word became flesh; and that flesh is the hieroglyphic of a mind in labour. ‘Come in now,’ said Harry Noke; and his hand, strong and persuasive, closed on hers. She struggled to free herself, but he only laughed, and she quickly gave up the struggle. She shrank from entering the cot, but she entered it willingly, and even, despite her dragging feet, eagerly. The place enchanted her: both its outward and inward aspects were a surprise and a delight. It was a one-roomed shanty built round the trunk of a great oak. It had an uneven boarded floor, raised from the ground (said its maker proudly) by large stones. On the tree-trunk, which was the centre and support of the whole structure, hung various kitchen utensils: a frying-pan, a saucepan, a kettle, and a pint jug. Outside, surrounding the whole, a ditch had been dug; and the site was a good one—the flat summit of a small natural eminence. At their entry, a large lean dog came bounding from his corner to greet them, and a voice said: ‘Pretty fellow!’ Noke’s parrot could say no more than that, but two well-chosen words can give a man perennial satisfaction. Letitia was startled, and her hand involuntarily clung to the fingers enclosing it. ‘Oh, it’s only a parrot,’ she said. ‘What a beauty!’ The place was warm and dim and filled with a strong smell of hay. ‘And so be you, my blossom,’ answered the prince of this darkness. His arm came round her. ‘You be a rare body of beauty, Tisha Bailey.’ She had been told substantially the same not seldom before, but never had the flattery seemed so sweet, nor induced in her so wild a hunger for more. In the past, a few light kisses had been all her knowledge of love; but now, body and soul, she felt herself burning, melting, liquefying, until she was all responsiveness. . . . This she had been remembering, and much more, as she lay and tossed in her bed and waited for sleep to visit her with quietness: how his eyes had shone in the darkness, how his hands had stroked her face, and how shy she had been of the dog’s presence, till the soft golden rain of her lover’s talk fell on her naked bosom and flooded her heart. This she had been remembering when that sound roused her from reverie: footsteps going past her door and descending the stairs, and then, after an interval tense with listening, the sound of horses. ‘I wonder who that can be? Is anyone ill?’