Warwick Deeping

“ And can you tell me, sir, why winter is always ‘fell’ with these gentlemen, and any poor thrush ‘a member of the feathered tribe’? Damn it, why can’t they call a wind a wind, instead of ‘Black Boreas’s breath,’ or some such scholarly twaddle? I tell you, Richard, this sort of stuff sickens me; it is like looking at some painted and behooped old hag, and trying to think she’s a pretty shepherdess. Why, sir, your verses are as different from them as the scent of new-mown hay from the scent of a beauty’s pomade-box. They smell of the downs and of the woods and the sea, sir—they do that, by gad! ”

“ A young man in love might vote Dame Venus herself a very prosaic and ordinary person.
Jeffray’s favorite haunt was a rock on the Common, where he could bask in the sun, and look into the blue distance towards Pevensel. Bess was in his thoughts always; in truth, she was thought itself, the very blood within his brain. He rehearsed her every pose, gesture, and expression, the simple and half-tender words that she had spoken to him, the way her eyes grew full of light when they met his. He remembered her bathing at Holy Cross, a white pillar of loveliness glimmering in the sun. ”

“ He had rattled his poetical notions against the skulls of his Sussex peers, and half-fooled himself into imagining that he was in love with gray-eyed Mistress Jilian, his cousin, who wore flaming petticoats and preposterous hoops, and rouged and ogled like the veteran of thirty that she was. Richard Jeffray confessed himself a fool as he rode down that day through the wilds of Pevensel and cogitated upon the beauties of a rustic life. The landscape was certainly not at fault, and the man of sentiment believed himself in sympathy with nature. The human element was the poison in the pot. ”

“ They only care for a pretty face, and love only so long as the woman pleases them. Is not that so, Richard?”
“For God’s sake, Jilian, don’t talk like this—”
“Yes, yes, that is very well, but can I—a woman—help seeing the truth?”
Jeffray drew a deep breath and leaned back against the harpsichord.
“I know it is all my fault,” he said, “and I am very miserable over what has happened. Leave me alone a moment, and let me take it all in. I am just as unhappy as you are, Jilian; it is no use my pretending that I do not see the change in you.” ”

“ Jeffray laughed, and lay back with a thoughtful light in his eyes, as he watched the cloud shadows playing over the sunny heights of Pevensel. Wilson was drumming on the window-sill with his fingers, and still holding the Annual Register upon his knee. He was watching Richard with a grave and bent-browed tenderness, seeming to see in him the spirit of the coming age, when fine gentlemen would give up the carrying of muffs and the writing of odes in imitation of Horace. Men would wake again to the beauty that lived in the woods and upon the mountains. ”

“ He held out the hare and the three birds in one great red paw, grinning amiably, yet with a glint in his red-brown eyes. Bess smiled at Dan under her scarlet hood. A lass needed wit in such a woodland haunt as this, where the strongest arm ruled, and men fought like quick, subtle, and resourceful, glib with her tongue and clever with her eyes. The felinity of her nature was developed when she must purr and fawn, or spit and extend her claws as necessity commanded. Bess did not love Black Dan, but Isaac Grimshaw’s son was a man to be humored rather than rebuffed. ”

“ What was this tall, black-haired, lissome wench to him that she should make his heart beat louder as over the tragic breathing of some song? Richard, riding through Pevensel, strove to laugh such romantic memories away. Because the girl had a fine body and a passionate face, should he suffer his thoughts to dally with her in the deeps of her own mysterious woods? Yet despite his strainings after sanity he found himself wondering how she fared in the forest, whether Black Dan still pestered her, and whether she carried one of his pistols in her bosom? ”

“ Jilian smiled more optimistically, and, taking a fan from the table, spread its painted sticks and seemed inclined to rehearse some of her charming affectations.
“The small-pox can’t spoil a gentlewoman’s figure, Martha,” she said.
“Don’t you fret, my dear. Men like a slim waist and a plump bosom. And there ain’t a lady in Sussex with hair like yours. And your nose is there with a purty eye peeping out like a jewel on either side, and a little red mouth below it as any gentleman would be proud to kiss. Don’t you fret yourself about young Mr. Jeffray, my dear.” ”

“ And stick to your money, Richard; for whatever poets may say, money is the only sure friend in this world.”
The Lady Letitia’s philosophy was not vastly cheering to her nephew’s spirit, but then the sordid truth is never welcome to the ardent soul of youth. He pitied her for the poverty of her sentiments, and yet felt uncomfortably conscious all the while that there was much shrewd wisdom in her words. His money, yes! Would Miss Jilian Hardacre have loved him if he had been without a penny? Would Sir Peter have waxed so amiable and hearty? ”

“ She was near Jeffray; sometimes her knee touched his. They could almost hear each other breathing, while the sweet smell of the wet woods steamed up like incense into the night.
Jeffray appeared sunk in thought. He looked often at Bess with kindlings of tenderness in his eyes. The pleasurableness of life seemed to steal into either heart, chastened by a melancholy born of the troubled happenings of the day. They remembered, both of them, the dead man lying in the grass. It seemed that the blood-red flower of Bess’s dream had colored forth the shedding of Dan’s blood. ”

“ She flashed up petulantly, her eyes beginning to glitter.
“To be sure, I am ugly now, an old fright; I shall never be pretty again. Don’t deny it, Richard; I saw it all in your eyes from the first moment. Yes, I am ugly, and very miserable, and it is hard and bitter and cruel. I am beginning to hate myself just as everybody else will hate me.”
Jeffray hung his head, looked as ashamed and contrite as though every word accused him of dishonor. Yet for the life of him he could not forget Bess Grimshaw’s face, the scent of her clothes, the glimmer of her hair. ”

“ The Lady Letitia actually broke out into a merry laugh. Her eyes twinkled, and she tapped on the floor applaudingly with her stick.
“Richard, mon cher, when will you learn to put on the breeches?”
“Madam!”
“Lud, sir, when will you discover that these silly sentiments, these toys of honor, are only idols invented and decorated by us women to delude and impress the callow male. We must get husbands, and keep ’em, if we can. Foh, sir, better marry a red-cheeked, bouncing wench who wants you because you are a man, than a fine spinster who is hunting for a household and for money.” ”

“ Ever and again the poop-windows were drenched and darkened by the waves that broke over the stern of the ship. Bess was half lying on her bunk, with her red cloak wrapped round her, Jeffray leaning against the bulkhead, with the St. Thomas à Kempis, that had been his father’s, open in his hand. Captain George looked at them as though half dazed, blood running down his face to soak into his ragged beard.
“Well, captain, what news for us?”
“News!” and the man laughed with a spasmodic croaking in the throat. “We’re going to the bottom as fast as the ship can take in water.” ”

“ Men were cursing and belaboring the beasts with sticks, the fierce and strenuous figures looming dim and blurred under the light through the trees. The significance of the thing flashed through Jeffray’s mind, as he held the mare well in hand and swung along the winding path, dodging the swooping boughs as they trailed above his head. He had seen a smuggling cavalcade threading through the forest, in some peril of capture, to judge by the way the men were beating the pack-horses. Jeffray remembered, at the same moment, the cornet and the light-horse at Rodenham village. ”

“ Nothing was more natural, therefore, to such philosophy than that Jeffray should signalize his return to the saddle by a pilgrimage through Pevensel in quest of Bess. The brisk delight of a canter over the purpling moors was itself a joy to a man who had been three weeks abed. How the larks sang, and how the broom flashed and glittered in the wind! The cloud galleons bellied out their white sails over the crests of the downs. The diverse greens, checkering the landscape, seemed dusted with gold-dust by the daughters of the dawn. ”

“ The disease had seized him sharply, but not dangerously, and even Richard had vanity enough to feel some satisfaction at Surgeon Stott’s verdict that he would be left with few scars. There is a delicious languor in convalescence when the world seems to spread itself anew before the reawakened eyes, and life is reborn like a dream of renewed youth into the heart. Nature seems to welcome the exile with smiling eyes and soft breathings of her green-clad bosom. ”

“ Every one seemed born for laughter and coquetting. Sir Peter himself led out the Lady Letitia to a minuet, the dowager sailing through it with a stateliness that might have stood for history. Mr. Lot had discovered Miss Julia Perkaby, and his red face glistened under the magic of those languishing dark eyes. As for Richard Jeffray, he looked distinguished enough to have played the Young Pretender, and his courtesies to Miss Jilian had tottered on the brink of a declaration. Dick Wilson watched the rout from a dark corner under the minstrels’ gallery. ”

“ I shall be proud to paint Richard Jeffray’s grandmother—pardon me, madam—aunt, I mean. Upon my word, madam, you look extraordinarily young to have so old a nephew.”
Aunt Letitia, not in the least disturbed by the painter’s slip, received his clumsy apologies and awkward apings of flattery with infinite good humor.
“La, Mr. Wilson,” she said, frankly, “I am an old woman, and, thank God, I know it. I think it is a pitiful sight, sir, to see an old woman frittering away the solemn and awful years of age in folly, when she should be preparing herself to meet her Maker.” ”