Plashers Mead Part 17

"If we can go to tea with Miss Verney," said Guy, "we shall be able to go for a walk. And I never see you alone in the Rectory."

"I'll ask Mother," said Pauline.

"You want to come?"

"Of course. Of course."

"You see," said Guy, "it's one of the places where I nearly told you I loved you. And it wouldn't be fair not to tell you there, as soon as I can."

In the Rectory everybody was anxious to know how Guy liked Pauline's Miss Verney.

"Margaret, you are really unkind to laugh at her," protested Pauline.

"Guy understands, if you don't, how frightfully sympathetic she is. She is one of the people who really understands about being in love."

Margaret laughed.

"Don't I?" she said.

"No, indeed, Margaret, sometimes I don't think you do," said Pauline.

"Nor I?" asked Monica.

"You don't at all!" Pauline protested.

"Well, if it means being like Miss Verney, I hope I never shall," said Monica.

"Now, children, children," interrupted Mrs. Grey. "You must not be cross with one another."

"Well, Mother, Margaret and Monica are not to laugh at Miss Verney,"

Pauline insisted. "And to-morrow Guy and I want as a great exception to go for a walk to Wychford down. May we?"

"Well, as a great exception, yes," said Mrs. Grey; and Guy, with apparently an access of grateful industry, said he must go home and work.

Pauline wondered what Guy would have to tell her to-morrow, and she fell asleep that night hoping she would not be shy to-morrow; for, since Guy was still no more to Pauline than the personification of a vague and happy love just as Miss Verney's miniature was the personification of one that was not happy, she always was a little alarmed when the personification became real.

Wychford down seemed to rest on billowy clouds next morning, so light was Pauline's heart, so light was the earth on which she walked; and when Guy kissed her the larks in their blue world were not far away, so near did she soar upon his kiss to the rays of their glittering plumes.

"Every time I see you," said Guy, "the world seems to offer itself to us more completely. I never kissed you before under the sky like this."

She wished he would not say the actual word, for it made her realize herself in his arms and brought back in a flood all her shyness.

"I think it's dry enough to sit on this stone," said Guy.

So they sat on one of the outcrops of Wychford freestone that all around were thrusting themselves up from the gra.s.s like old gray animals.

"Now tell me more about Miss Verney," he went on. "Why was her love-affair unhappy?"

"Oh, she never told me much," said Pauline.

"You and I haven't very long," said Guy. "Love travels by so fast. You and I mustn't have secrets."

"I haven't any secrets," said Pauline. "I had one about Richard, but you know about him. And that was Margaret's secret, really. Why do you say that, Guy?"

"I was thinking of myself," he answered. "I was thinking how little you know about me--really not much more than you know of Miss Verney's miniature."

"Guy, how strange," she said. "Last night I thought that."

Then he began to talk in halting sentences, turned away from her all the time and digging his stick deep down in the turf, while Bob looked in with anxious curiosity for what these excavations would produce.

"Pauline, I so adore you that it clouds everything to realize that before I loved you I should have had love-affairs with other girls. Of course they meant nothing, but now they make me miserable. Shall I tell you about them or shall I.... Can I blot them for ever out of my mind?"

"Oh, don't tell me about them, don't tell me about them," Pauline murmured in a low, hurried voice. She felt that if Guy said another word she would run from him in a wild terror that would never let her rest, that would urge her out over the down's edge in desperate descent.

"I don't want to tell you about them," said Guy. "But they've stood so at the back of my thoughts whenever I have been with you; and yesterday at Miss Verney's, I had a sense of guilt as if I were responsible in some way for her unhappiness. I had to tell you, Pauline."

She sat silent under the song of the larks that in streams of melodious light poured through their wings.

"Why do you say nothing?" he asked.

"Oh, don't let's talk about it any more. Promise me never to talk about it. Oh, Guy, why 'of course'? Why 'of course'?"

"Of course?" he repeated.

"'Of course they meant nothing.' That seems so dreadful to me. Perhaps you won't understand."

"Dear Pauline, isn't that 'of course' the reason they torment me?" he said. "It isn't kind of you to a.s.sume anything else."

She forgave him in that instant; and before she knew what she had done had put her hand impulsively on his. To the Pauline who made that gesture he was no more the unapproachable lover, but some one whom she had wounded involuntarily.

"My heart of hearts, my adored Pauline."

With a sigh she faded to him; with a sigh the dog sat down by his master's neglected stick; with a sigh the April wind stole through the thickets of gorse and out over the down. And always more and more dauntlessly the larks flung before them their fountainous notes to pierce those blue s.p.a.ces that burned between the clouds. No more was said of the past that morning, and with April come they were happy sitting up there, although, as Guy said, such weather could hardly be expected to last. And since this walk was a great exception to the rule of their life, they were back at the Rectory very punctually, so that by propitiating everybody with good behavior they might soon demand another exception.

That night there recurred to Pauline, when she was in her room, a sudden memory of what Guy had said to her about girls with whom he had had love-affairs; and with the stark forms of shadows they made a procession across her walls in the candle-light. She wished now she had let Guy tell her more, so that she could give distinguis.h.i.+ng lineaments of humanity to each of these maddening figures. What were they like and why, taken unaware, was she set on fire with rage to know them? For a long while Pauline tossed sleeplessly on that bed to which usually morning came so soon; and even when the candle was put out she seemed to feel these forms of Guy's confession all about her. To-morrow she must see him again; she could no longer bear to think of him alone. These shapes that from his past vaguely jeered at her were to him endowed, each, with what memories? Oh, she could cry out with exasperation even in this silent house where she had lived so long unvexed!

"What is happening to me? What is happening to me?" asked Pauline, as the darkness drew nearer to her. "Why doesn't Margaret come?"

She jumped out of bed and ran trembling to her sister's room.

"Pauline, what is it?" asked Margaret, starting up.

"I'm frightened, Margaret. I'm frightened. My room seemed full of people."

"You goose. What people?"

"Oh, Margaret, I do love you."

She kissed her sister pa.s.sionately; and Margaret, who was usually so lazy, got out of bed and came back with her to her room, where she read aloud _Alice in Wonderland_, sitting by the bed with her dark hair fallen about her slim shoulders.