R. K. Weekes

“ Lastly the roof fell in, and a great foursquare of fire puffed up to heaven, with streams of starry sparks, and clouds of glare, and floating flakes of gold. Dorothea was crying; but Lettice, her lips set grimly, watched to the end the destruction of Gardiner's hotel, the home he loved, which he had confided to her care.
Night came, but not darkness. Rochehaut was burning, Poupehan in the valley flared with half-a-dozen haystacks and a house or two, Corbion church was a beacon of tall flames on the hill, Alle's martyrdom showed as a pulsing glow of dusky rose in the overhanging cloud. ”

“ The sky was golden, and gold were the strips of water lying in the ruts, winding away to the open hill and safety; but the wood was dark, dark, and already in its depths, here and there, a glow-worm had lit its tiny keen speck of unearthly fire, glass-green, steady, burning but unconsumed. "That's the way to the cave," murmured Gardiner, his voice dropping, his grip tightening on her arm. "Cosas de brujas—witches, I mean. Never tell me a wood isn't alive!"
He meant it. Lettice, who professed to be stolid, found herself responding to his fancy with an involuntary thrill. ”

“ Denis's hand went up to his head. "What are you talking about?"
"About Major Trent, whom Mr. Gardiner killed. He did kill him. He knocked him down with a chisel, and he died. Didn't he? Didn't he? You know you can't deny it!"
He could not, nor could he meet her eyes, so he missed their expression. Certain things are so cruelly hard that they must be carried through at a rush, or not at all. Dorothea's vengeance had turned into a two-edged sword in her hands, and she hewed with it recklessly because it was cutting her to the bone. ”

“ Nobody could play the injured innocent better than Lettice, above all when she was in the wrong. She played with Denis as delicately as a kitten plays with a leaf. "Yes, you're an ill-used person, aren't you?" he said. He put his arm round her shoulders and gently pressed her down into a chair; he would never let her stand if he could help it. "At any rate, you're not in it, Harry," he said, speaking over her head to Gardiner. "She's not carried over our sins to you, that's one good thing!"
"Yes, didn't I get a beamer?" said Gardiner, with his easy laugh. ”

“ Evey Byrne with a conscience, forsooth! Denis had tasted the first-fruits of pleasure in crushing down her scruples and making her own she loved him. He had wrung out the confession without mercy. She tried to hold him off with her weak little hands against his breast.
"Ah, but ye don't truly love me, Denis!"
"Don't I?" said Denis, kissing her fawn-soft eyes and sweet, half-reluctant lips.
"Ah, but 'tis so wicked! God'll never forgive us!"
"There is no God that counts," Denis answered. He kissed her again. He had no idea that in his heart he was kissing Dorothea. ”

“ She, a little materialist, living in her feelings, caring not a rap for the pleasures of the mind or fancy; he, a restless thinker, imaginative, uneven in grain, too close in sympathy with nature to be wholly civilized. That strain of wildness would keep him always solitary; but Dorothea, though she had never yet had a chance to find herself, was essentially a home woman. She wanted to adore, to be ruled by, to mother her man in the good old-fashioned way. All that would simply have bored Gardiner. To Denis, on the other hand, it was the ideal of married life. ”

“ Denis was at bottom a simple soul. He had three main interests—his religion, his aeroplanes, his friends; and they were all bound up together by a child-like faith. He believed in others because his own heart was pure. It was this bloom of innocence which Gardiner loved in his friend, and which both he and Lettice were tender to protect; and it was this which made his feeling for Dorothea at once so beautiful, and so vulnerable. ”

“ Death. She was going to die, all alone here in the dark. She would never see the sunshine any more. She would never see Denis any more, never be his wife, never taste the happiness which niggard Fate, at long last, was offering her. It was the end. And while she was trying to subdue her aching, unsatisfied rebellion, to remind herself that she had only petitioned to be allowed to save him and should be thankful, in a flash of sunset light which illumined and interpreted the past, Dorothea saw that it was the only perfect end. ”

“ Dorothea had sunk down on the rug in a miserable little heap, and was propping herself against the mantelpiece. "Oh, I have been bad, I have been bad," she said on a long quivering breath, twisting her hands together, while the tears came tumbling down her cheeks and into her lap. "Oh, it doesn't seem fair that a miserable little nobody like me should be allowed to do so much harm. Oh, if there is a God, why didn't he kill me when my baby died, and have done with it? To let me, me hurt a man like Denis—oh, I ought to have been squashed like a blackbeetle! And Mr. Gardiner too. ”

“ Lettice, who could bend her supple mind to look through the eyes of tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor or any one else even down to the thief, and could sympathize with all, could not sympathize with Gardiner: could not believe, or even pretend to believe, that cowardice might ever be more expedient for him than courage. It was not so much the immorality of running away, it was the stupidity of it: the fact that he was destroying his own future happiness, making it impossible for himself ever again to live at peace with his own soul. All very well for weaklings to be weak ”

“ There were owls, too, hoo-hooing, and one whose note was like a silvery bell, calling from the woods across the valley. It was a night of romance—a night for love.
Gardiner's planets were Mercury and Venus; he incongruously combined the money-getting instinct with a sensuous temperament. He had intended to spend those minutes calmly in reviewing the pros and cons of marriage with Dorothea—for there were a good many cons; marriage, even with a rich woman, did not come into his scheme of life. But the white enchantment of the moonlight was too much for him; he became a lover and nothing more. ”

“ Nature had never designed Denis for a teacher. He would have crushed a stupid pupil. He was hard even on Dorothea, when she failed to know what he hadn't told her. But she was so eager, pliant, uncrushable, so ardently in earnest, so reverent in attention, so insinuating in meekness: in a word, she flattered him so sweetly that he began, unconsciously at first, yet surely, he began to enjoy teaching her.
Even if there had been no question of Trent, Dorothea and Harry Gardiner would never have made friends. They had nothing in common. ”

“ She did not imagine that she could move Denis, but there were certain things he ought to know, and which, in justice to Dorothea, she meant to set before him. They would not move him now, but he would not forget them; and in time to come they might sink in and soften his judgment.
"I don't see why you shouldn't forgive her," she pronounced.
"I'd rather not discuss it."
"Very well, don't you say anything, but will you listen?" Denis moved restlessly in his chair. "You're too hard on her," said Lettice, hitting straight and hard. "You will treat her as a woman, when she's only a child. ”

“ Oh, Lettice was right; it is a fatal thing to be a coward."
"Lettice?"
"I went to her on my way. Yes, I did mean to bolt in the first instance; I've got my rig-out strapped on my bike at this instant. It was she stopped me. She does know how to sting up your conscience! But they can't really drag you in, Denis, can they? You never did actually say one syllable beyond the truth. Did you make them see that?"
"I think so," said Denis. "I don't think they'll take it any further. And if they did, they couldn't convict. It's all right. I don't know what you're putting yourself about for." ”

“ Gardiner had lived all his life too close to nature to escape the call of the spring. If his work had been out of doors, in the garden or the farm, he might have come through better; but he was in the printing room; always hot and stuffy with glue, and his exercise was limited to the five minutes' walk to and fro. He lost his sleep, and in the long vigils he was tormented by visions of Rochehaut. ”

“ Denis, rooted in his old-fashioned courtesy, had never learned to leave her alone. This was a very different type of mind; less restful, because more perceptive. When they reached the crest of the hill he pulled up. Lettice tried to persuade herself it was not done to let her get her breath, but she was quite sure it was.
"See that hedge over there?" he said, pointing across the expanse of level silvery grass. "Well, you'd never think it, but beyond that it's nothing but arable flats, beet and cabbages and potatoes, all the way to Rochehaut. Anything duller you can't imagine. ”

“ Between her participles and her stitches Lettice would often lift up her eyes to the hills; she dearly loved a distant view. But to-day she was watching her companion.
Dorothea had plumped down among the withered leaves and sat there, hugging her knees and staring gloomily into the forest. To the feminine eye it was plain that she wore no stays; she bent about like a willow wand, and her attitudes were unstudied as a child's. Youth is often tragic; but there was real bitter experience written on those soft childish contours, and it was the contradiction which interested Lettice. ”

“ The imaginative man is at the mercy of his nerves; there is always an unsound link in his courage, liable to snap at any unexpected strain. It is a question of sheer luck whether he finds out his weakness and is able to take precautions beforehand. The unimaginative man never understands this. To Denis's infinite dismay, Gardiner simply backed into the corner, throwing up his arm as if to ward a blow. Denis himself cried out the first denial that rose to his lips.
"Mrs. Trent, it was an accident, I give you my word it was!" ”

“ Well, of course I'd love to have him forgive me, but I know he couldn't possibly, and anyway I don't matter about," said Dorothea, her voice softened into dreams. "It's him—it's him. It does mean such a lot, Lettice! It isn't only that he is what he used to be, what I thought he never could be again; it's ever so much more than that. Denis wasn't made to think of women as he thought of—of me and Mrs. Byrne. He was made to marry, Lettice. ”

“ In fine, when Louisa had done with her, she was herself a star of loveliness bright enough to dazzle anybody.
Lettice was waiting in the hall to see her cousin start, Denis having as usual got ready half-an-hour too soon, with his rod and his rug and his bag and a basket for Geraldine the kitten. They were exchanging those labored last words which even the best of friends manufacture while the carriage delayeth its coming, when this vision swept down on them, with her nose in the air. Evidently Dorothea had not forgiven Lettice for cutting short her talk, or Denis for suffering it to be done. ”

“ Gardiner lifted his head. The moon was gone now, behind the trees, which threw black shadows across the argent of the lake. He was cold and stiff and desperately tired, but he stood up and began to retrace his steps towards the road. Soon the topaz-gleaming lamps shone through the trees, and he came out not a hundred yards from the point where he had left his bicycle. There was Mars, the star of battles, shining over the glow of London. In the opposite direction lay Southampton and the sea. ”

“ There were the green marshes, ruled out like a chess-board with glistening waterways, and bordered with the dark blue sea: the farm, and the sheds, and the outbuildings, all like toys made of cardboard and glittering tin.
After circling over the aerodrome to get his height, Denis turned his back on the coast and flew inland. As they passed, the great farm horses plunged and fidgeted, the laborers stood still in the fields, peering up from under their hands, the cottagers ran out into the road to watch them overhead. ”

“ The Bellevue, when Gardiner first set eyes on it, was a cross between a hostelry and a farm, tumbled round three sides of a quadrangle where black-and-white pigs rooted and grunted, among middens and mangy grass, under the windows of the dining-room. The Ardennes hotel of those days had no drains, no baths, no basins bigger than soup-plates and not many towels, no easy-chairs, no salons; in fact, none of the comforts of a refined home. ”

“ For Wandesforde, wherever he was, on the principle of the conservation of energy, drove at making himself comfortable. He used to say that Denis would have put up in a pigsty without troubling to turn out the pig. Two months of war had made them more intimate than five years at Bredon.
"And that's that," said Wandesforde, licking the flap of his envelope. He got up and stretched himself. "Ho! I'm tired. I think I shall turn in. Four-thirty to-morrow, isn't it? Ungodly hour to rout you out on a chilly morning!" ”

“ It was Lettice's turn that afternoon to fetch the daily loaf from the Boulangerie Lapouse, opposite the church. Her path led over the hill past the crucifix, across the fields and through a corner of Gardiner's enchanted wood, which here ran down quite close to the village. She toiled along, as usual with her head in the clouds, but her dreams were broken and her steps stayed by a sudden burst of firing. She paused in the fringes of the wood.
All down the street men in gray were systematically spraying the houses with petrol; others were taking their choice of the furniture. ”