The Happy Warrior Part 36

There was just the chance!--along the Ridge, down to Upabbot, behind the church and so to her home. His mind leapt across his route, eager to urge his pace. He pocketed his watch and set towards the shrine that had his heart.

CHAPTER VIII

WITH DORA IN THE DRIVE

I

There was just the chance! "Ah, Chance be kind!" his prayer, but in the simpler form: "If only I can see her!" For he could not have told himself precisely what he desired of her. The new condition of mind and body that possessed him was too newly come for him clearly to understand towards what it impelled him. We speak of love as an intoxication. He was as it were beneath the first and sudden influence of a draught of wine more potent than the drinker knows--causing an elevation of the spirits, that is to say, a sharper note in the surroundings, something of a singing in the ears; a readiness for adventure, but not a clear notion as to the form of adventure required; a sudden comprehension that there is more tingling stuff in life than ever the dull round has revealed; but a sense that it is there and must be found rather than an exact knowledge of what it will prove to be.

He only knew he wished to see her; that seemed the goal; he had no thoughts nor fancies to take him to what might lie beyond--then reached the Abbey gates and saw the drive, and saw her there, and stopped as if a hand suddenly rebuked him in the throat.

That he felt a surge run through his being and flame upon his face, that he felt suddenly abashed and could not dare to make his presence known--these marked his nearness to knowledge of his state.

II

The night was very clear. By now the full moon had disdained more trifling with the clouds that earlier had joined hands about her. Far to the west they trailed their watery burdens to the hills: she queened above them--queenly serene, aloof in the unbounded vault that all her empery of stars about her ruled and divided subject to her rule. The Abbey gates stood wide. Between their pillars little breezes came to him and brought to him the fragrance of the flowers that banked the drive on either hand. He saw they also stirred the dress and some light scarf that Dora wore.

Mystery was here. He knew not what--only that, conditioned by some new sense that caused him strangeness, he was upon the threshold of things as yet unknown.

He watched--afraid as yet. She was stooped above a cl.u.s.ter of pansies.

While he looked, she plucked a blossom here and there, her hand now hovering above their shade and now caressed amid their bloom, and raised them to her face.

She turned then and came towards him; and he drew back a step. Mystery was here; not yet, not yet to challenge what it held!

She reached the gates and paused a moment. The little breezes that had brought the flowers to him stopped their play; her scarf's floating ends--gossamer and delicately painted--came softly to her sides. You might have said that the night airs had heralded her here, had taken form in her scarf's ends to attend her as she walked, and now awaited which way she should please to move.

Snow-White-and-Rose-Red! The childish appreciation of her, aroused in him years before, returned to him again. Snow-White-and-Rose-Red--that was she! As when a child he had been caused a childish wonder and a child's unspoilt delight at so rare a thing as she appeared to him, so now, seeing her for the first time with the new eyes that belonged to his new condition, he felt himself amazed and almost awed that beauty could have this degree. Snow-White-and-Rose-Red! All she had promised in her girlish years dowered her now in the burgeoning of her maidenhood--and dowered more than it had told, as all the beauty of the opening bud scarcely can hint the opened blossom's beauty; and dowered more than it had told by the increasing strangeness, as she grew, of this rare perfection of each feature in one face. Rare, strangely rare, the transparent fairness of her skin; rare, rare that almost crimson shade on either cheek, sharply defined, not blended, as it were frozen there; rare the dark pansy of her wide and stilly eyes; rare, most rare of all, transcending all, the high air with which she bore herself--that her chaste and faultless face maintained, with which her eyes looked and that her presence seemed to make.

He saw her dress. He saw her scarf to be some filmy veil about her shoulders and that beneath it all her throat was bare. He saw that it was turned about her throat in a loose fold that lay where her bosom was disclosed by the silk evening gown she wore, draped low, but maidenly discreet. At throat, at breast, at arms, at hands, he saw this filmy thing was challenged of its whiteness and seemed to take a shade.

She moved; he thought to speak. Mystery was here and held him on its threshold.

Watching her he had a sudden new conception of her quality. Later, when he had spoken to her, when he had left her, when he trod again each pa.s.sage of their meeting, recalled her voice, her mode of speech, and how she bore herself, he recalled that conception and knew it was most proper to her, and thrilled to know it so.

As he looked, and afterwards as he remembered, he conceived the word that estimated all her beauty, all her quality and her degree--frozen.

Frozen and thus invested with the strange rareness that frozen beauty has. Frozen and thus most proper that those flames upon her cheeks never could stain beyond themselves, as blood that will not run in snow; proper the quaint precision of the words she used, as icicles broken in a cold hand; proper the high pitch of her voice, curiously hard, without modulations, as winter sounds are hard.

Snow-White-and-Rose-Red--and frozen snow and frozen red. She was that in his new discovery of her: and was that better than he knew; caparisoned and trained for that.

III

She raised to her face the pansies he had seen her gather, caressed them a moment against her lips, then turned and went a few steps back.

And then he spoke--stepped from the pillar's shadow and into mystery's doors and called her--"Dora!"

The little breezes ran among the flowers: "Bend! Bend! you sleepy things and blow her your caresses where she moves again!"--ran among the tree-tops high above the borders: "Salute! Salute! you sentinels, and show your joy, she comes!"--chased from her path a daring leaf or two--sprung to her person and bade her veil attend her--caught his low whisper and tossed it from her ears.

Tiny the stir; yet stiller all the voice he made. He waited; breathed her name again--"Dora!" and then she heard.

She gave the faintest start; turned, and said, "Why--Percival?" and then a little laugh, and then spoke "Percival!" again.

He went to her. "Did I frighten you? I'm sorry."

He went into the mystery that barred him at the gate. Her surprise caused the shades upon her cheeks to flame to sudden crimson, promoting her beauty to its most high effect. Her lips--also of her surprise--were lightly parted, alert, with the aspect of some nymph of the woods and glades, startled and poised to listen. Not yet, not yet his to know all the truth of what influence had him here. He only had known he wished to see her: he only knew now that he wished to stay and talk with her. He was in the mystery--not yet of it; but already, at this first contact with her presence, a glimmering, a suspicion arose--softened his voice, quickened his senses.

"I ought to have been frightened," she said. "I never heard you come.

But I scarcely was startled. It is the most curious circ.u.mstance, but I happened to be thinking of you."

As icicles broken in a cold hand!

He did not cry, as love might have directed him--"Thinking of me!

You!" Not yet, not yet the knowledge that would give that ardour. He only was boyishly pleased. He only said: "Were you, Dora? I'm awfully glad you were."

And she, no more aware of deeper things than he: "Well, they were not particularly nice thoughts I had of you," she said, and gave a little laugh that toned with the clear pitch of her voice. "Indeed, I was vexed with you."

He laughed back an easy laugh: "I wonder what I've done?"

"It is what you have not done, Percival--or did not do. I was at the Manor all the afternoon and had the dullest time that anybody could imagine. Your fault. Rollo was expecting you to tea, and was looking out for you all the time, and was the most ungracious person. To me, you know, it is ridiculous how he seems to dote upon you."

And Percival laughed brightly again. Happy, happy to be with her--alone, alone at this hour, in this still place! "Old Rollo!" he laughed. "Well, anyway, if I failed him, I've seen you."

She asked him. "But why have you come--so late?" and at that his laughter left him.

"I wanted to see you," he said. "I don't know why," and paused.

He did not know; but in declaring it to her, and in that pause, came a step nearer discovery. Some nameless reason held his speech, and, while she waited, fluttered in his eyes and communicated its influence to her also. In that pause suspicion came to both of some strange element that trembled in the air--fugitive, remote, but causing its presence to be known as a scent declares itself upon the breeze. She saw a tinge of redness kindle in his face. He saw the faintest trace of deepening colour in the shades upon her cheeks.

Not yet, not yet the truth! Transient the spell and quickly gone.

Only, a little shaken by it, "You're going away soon, Dora," he said.

"I think that's why I came."

Free of it: "But that's not a reason," she answered him lightly. "I am not going so suddenly--not till the end of the week."

"Sat.u.r.day--it's the day after to-morrow."

"Ah, well, time goes so slowly here."

"Dull for you--I can imagine that. To this French school, are you going, Dora? I heard you telling Lady Burdon of it."

"It's not a school. No more school for me, and I am very thankful."

"Tell me what you do there."

She went into a sudden break of laughter. She had somewhere picked up a single vulgar phrase that consorted most strangely with her precise manner of speech. "Your coming here like this," she laughed, "and asking such very funny things!"--then used her phrase--"it tickles me to death."