This arranged, we said good-night, Rosalind with ever such abrightened-up face, of which I thought for half an hour and then fellasleep to dream of Yellowsands.
CHAPTER V
CONCERNING THE HAVEN OF YELLOWSANDS
On the morrow, at the peep of day, Rosalind was off to seek her lord.An hour or so after I started in leisurely pursuit.
Yellowsands! I had heard in a vague way of the place, as a whim of acertain young nobleman who combined brains with the pursuit ofpleasure. Like most ideas, it was simple enough when once conceived.Any one possessing a mile or two of secluded seaboard, cut off on theland side by precipitous approaches, and including a sheltered rivermouth ingeniously hidden by nature, in the form of a jutting wall ofrock, from the sea, might have made as good use of these naturalopportunities as the nobleman in question, had they only been as wiseand as rich. William Blake proposed to rebuild Jerusalem in this greenand pleasant land. My lord proposed to erect a miniature Babylon amidsimilar pleasant surroundings, a little dream-city by the sea, a homefor the innocent pleasure-seeker stifled by the puritanism of the greattowns, refugium peccatorum in this island of the saints.
"Once it was the Puritan Fathers who left our coasts," he is recordedto have said; "nowadays it is our Prodigal Sons."
No doubt it was in further elaboration of this aphorism that the littlesteamboat that sailed every other day from Yellowsands to the beckoningshores of France was called "the Mayflower."
My lord's plan had been simple. By the aid of cunning architects hehad first blasted his harbour into shape, then built his hotels andpleasure-palaces, and then leased them to dependants of his who knewthe right sort of people, and who knew that it was as much as theirlease was worth to find accommodation for teetotal amateurphotographers or wistful wandering Sunday-school treats. As,unfortunately, the Queen's highway ran down in tortuous descent to thehandful of fishermen's cottages that had clung there limpet-like forages, there was always a chance of such a stray visitation; but it wasremote, and the whole place, hand and heart, was in the pocket of mylord.
So much to give the reader some idea of the secret watering-place ofYellowsands, situated at the mouth of that romantic little torrent, theriver Sly. Such further description as may be needed may be kept tillwe come within sight of its gilded roofs and marble terraces.
CHAPTER VI
THE MOORLAND OF THE APOCALYPSE
I reckoned that it would take me two or three days, leisurely walking,to reach Yellowsands. Rosalind would, of course, arrive there longbefore me; but that I did not regret, as I was in a mood to findcompany in my own thoughts.
Her story gave me plenty to think of. I dwelt particularly on thecareless extravagance of the happy. Here were two people to whom lifehad given casually what I was compelled to go seeking lonely andfootsore through the world, and with little hope of finding it at theend; and yet were they so little aware of their good fortune as to riskit over a trumpery theory, a shadow of pseudo-philosophy. Out of thedeep dark ocean of life Love had brought them his great moon-pearl, andthey sat on the boat's edge carelessly tossing it from one to theother, unmindful of the hungry fathoms on every side. A sudden slip,and they had lost it for ever, and might only watch its shimmering fallto the bottom of the world. Theories! Theories are for the unknown andthe unhappy. Who will trouble to theorise about Heaven when he hasfound Heaven itself? Theories are for the poor-devil outcast,--for himwho stands outside the confectioner's shop of life without a penny inhis pocket, while the radiant purchasers pass in and out through thedoors,--for him who watches with wistful eyes this and that sugaredmarvel taken out of the window by mysterious hands, to bless some happycustomer inside. He is not fool enough even to hope for one of thoseglistering masterpieces of frosted sugar and silk flowers, which riseto pinnacles of snowy sweetness, white mountains of blessedness, richinside, they say, with untold treasures for the tooth that is sweet.No! he craves nothing but a simple Bath-bun of happiness, and even thatis denied him.
Would I ever find my Bath-bun? I disconsolately asked myself. I hadbeen seeking it now for some little time, and seemed no nearer thanwhen I set out. I had seen a good many Bath-buns on my pilgrimage, itis true. Some I have not had space to confide to the reader; butsomehow or other they had not seemed the unmistakably predestined forwhich I was seeking.
And oh, how I could love a girl, if she would only give me thechance,--that is, be the right girl! Oh, Sylvia Joy! where art thou?Why so long dost thou remain hidden "in shady leaves of destiny"?
"Seest thou thy lover lowly laid, Hear'st thou the sighs that rend his breast?"
And then, as the novelists say, "a strange thing happened."
The road I was tramping at the moment was somewhat desolate. It ran upfrom a small market town through a dreary undulating moorland, forkingoff here and there to unknown villages of which the horizon gave nohint. Its cheerless hillocks were all but naked of vegetation, for anever very flourishing growth of heather had recently been burnt rightdown to the unkindly-looking earth, leaving a dwarf black forest ofcharred sticks very grim to the eye and heart; while the dull surfaceof a small lifeless-looking lake added the final touch to the Dead-Seamournfulness of the prospect.
Suddenly I became aware of the fluttering of a grey dress a littleahead of me. Unconsciously I had been overtaking a tall young womanwalking in the same direction as myself, with a fine athletic carriageof her figure and a noble movement of her limbs.
She walked manfully, and as I neared her I could hear the sturdy ringof her well-shod feet upon the road. There was an air of expectancyabout her walk, as though she looked to be met presently by some onedue from the opposite direction.
It was curious that I had not noticed her before, for she must havebeen in sight for some time. No doubt my melancholy abstractionaccounted for that, and perhaps her presence there was to be explainedby a London train which I had listlessly observed come in to the townan hour before. This surmise was confirmed, as presently,--over thebrow of a distant undulation in the road, I descried a farmer's gigdriven by another young woman. The gig immediately hoisted ahandkerchief; so did my pedestrian. At this moment I was within a yardor two of overtaking her. And it was then the strange thing happened.
Distance had lent no enchantment which nearness did not a hundred timesrepay. The immediate impression of strength and distinction which thefirst glimpse of her had made upon me was more and more verified as Idrew closer to her. The carriage of her head was no whit less noblethan the queenly carriage of her limbs, and her glorious chestnut hair,full of warm tints of gold, was massed in a sumptuous simplicity abovea neck that would have made an average woman's fortune. This glowingdescription, however, must be lowered or heightened in tone by theassociation of these characteristics with an undefinable simplicity ofmien, a certain slight rusticity of effect. The town spoke in herwell-cut gown and a few simple adornments, but the dryad still movedinside.
I suppose most men, even in old age, feel a certain anxiety, consciousor not, as they overtake a woman whose back view is in the leastattractive. I confess that I felt a more than usual, indeed a quiteirrational, perturbation of the blood, as, coming level with her, Idared to look into her face. As I did so she involuntarily turned tolook at me--turned to look at me, did I say? "To look" is a feebleverb indeed to express the unexpected shock of beauty to which I wassuddenly exposed. I cannot describe her features, for somehow featuresalways mean little to me. They were certainly beautifully moulded, andher skin was of a lovely pale olive, but the life of her face was inher great violet eyes and her wonderful mouth. Thus suddenly to lookinto her face was like unexpectedly to come upon moon and starsreflected in some lonely pool. I suppose the look lasted only a secondor two; but it left me dazzled as that king in the Eastern tale, whoseemed to have lived whole dream-lives between dipping his head into abowl of water and taking it out again. Similarly in that moment Iseemed to have dived into this unknown girl's eyes, to have walkedthrough the treasure pala
ces of her soul, to have stood before theflaming gates of her heart, to have gathered silver flowers in thefairy gardens of her dreams. I had followed her white-robed spiritacross the moonlit meadows of her fancy, and by her side had climbedthe dewy ladder of the morning star, and then suddenly I had beenwhirled up again to the daylight through the magic fountains of hereyes.
I'll tell you more about that look presently! Meanwhile the gigapproached, and the two girls exchanged affectionate greetings.
"Tom hasn't come with you, then?" said the other girl, who wasevidently her sister, and who was considerably more rustic in style andaccent. She said it with a curious mixture of anxiety and relief.
"No," answered the other simply, and I thought I noticed a slightdarkening of her face. Tom was evidently her husband. So she wasmarried!
"Yes!" said a fussy hypocrite of reason within me, "and what's that todo with you?"
"Everything, you fool!" answered a robuster voice in my soul, kickingthe feeble creature clean out of my head on the instant.
For, absurd as it may sound, with that look into those Arabian Nights'eyes, had come somewhere out of space an overwhelming intuition, nay,an unshakable conviction, that the woman who was already being rolledaway from me down the road in that Dis's car of a farmer's gig, was nowand for ever and before all worlds the woman God had created for me,and that, unless I could be hers and she mine, there would be no home,no peace for either of us so long as we lived.
And yet she was being carried away further and further every moment,while I gazed after her, aimlessly standing in the middle of the road.Why did I not call to her, overtake her? In a few moments she would belost to me for ever--
Though I was unaware of it, this hesitation was no doubt owing to astealthy return of reason by the back-door of my mind. In fact, hepresently dared to raise his voice again. "I don't deny," he ventured,ready any moment to flee for his life, "that she is written yours inall the stars, and particularly do I see it written on the face of themoon; but you mustn't forget that many are thus meant for each otherwho never meet, not to speak of marrying. It is such contradictionsbetween the purposes and performance of the Creator that makelife--life; you'll never see her again, so make your mind easy--"
At that moment the gig was on the point of turning a corner into a darkpine-wood; but just ere it disappeared,--was it fancy?--I seemed tohave caught the flash of a momentarily fluttering handkerchief. "Won'tI? you fool!" I exclaimed, savagely smiting reason on the cheek, as Isprang up wildly to wave mine; but the road was already blank.
At this a sort of panic possessed me, and like a boy I raced down theroad after her. To lose her like this, at the very moment that she hadbeen revealed to me. It was more than I could bear.
Past the dreary lake, through the little pine-wood I ran, and then Iwas brought to a halt, panting, by cross-roads and a finger-post. Aninvoluntary memory of Nicolete sang to me as I read the quaint names ofthe villages to one of which the Vision was certainly wending. Yes! Iwas bound on one more journey to the moon, but alas! there was noheavenly being by my side to point the way. Oh, agony, which was theroad she had taken?
It never occurred to me till the following day that I might have beenable to track her by the wheel-marks of the gig on the dusty summerroad. Instead I desperately resorted to the time-honoured expedient ofsetting up a stick and going in the direction of its fall. Like mostancient guide-posts, it led me quite wrong, down into a pig's-trough ofa hamlet whither I felt sure she couldn't have been bound. Then I ranback in a frenzy, and tried the other road,--as if it could be any use,with at least three quarters of an hour gone since I had lost sight ofher. Of course I had no luck; and finally, hot and worn out withabsurd excitement, I threw myself down in a meadow and called myself anass,--which I undoubtedly was.
For of all the fancies that had obsessed my moonstruck brain, this wassurely the maddest. Suppose I had overtaken the girl, what could Ihave said to her? And, suppose she had listened to me, how did I knowshe was the girl I imagined her to be? But this was sheer reason again,and has no place in a fantastic romance. So I hasten to add that themood was one of brief duration, and that no cold-water arguments wereable to quench the fire which those eyes had set aflame within me, nodaylight philosophy had any power to dispel the dream of a face whichwas now my most precious possession, as I once more took up my stickand listlessly pursued my way to Yellowsands.
For I had one other reason than my own infatuation, or thought I had.Yes, brief and rapid as our glance at each other had been, I hadfancied in her eyes a momentary kindling as they met mine, a warmsummer-lightning which seemed for a second to light up for me the innerheaven of her soul.
Of one feeling, however, I was sure,--that on my side this apocalypticrecognition of her, as it had seemed, was no mere passionatecorrespondence of sex, no mere spell of a beautiful face (for suchpassion and such glamour I had made use of opportunities to study), butwas indeed the flaming up of an elemental affinity, profounder thansex, deeper than reason, and ages older than speech.
But it was a fancy, for all that? Yes, one of those fancies that arefancies on earth, but facts in heaven. Perhaps you don't believe inthem. Well, I'm afraid that cannot be helped.
CHAPTER VII
"COME UNTO THESE YELLOW SANDS!"
Nothing further happened to me till I reached Yellowsands, except anexciting ride on the mail-coach, which connected it with the nearestrailway-station some twenty miles away. For the last three or fourmiles the road ran along the extreme precipitous verge of cliffs thatsloped, a giant's wall of grassy mountain, right away down to a dreamyamethystine floor of sea, miles and miles, as it seemed, below. Toride on that coach, as it gallantly staggered betwixt earth and heaven,was to know all the ecstasy of flying, with an added touch of danger,which birds and angels, and others accustomed to fly, can neverexperience. And then at length the glorious mad descent down threeplunging cataracts of rocky road, the exciting rattling of the harness,the grinding of the strong brakes, the driver's soothing calls to hishorses, and the long burnished horn trailing wild music behind us, likeinvisible banners of aerial brass,--oh, it stirred the dullest bloodamongst us thus as it were to tear down the sky towards the white roofsof Yellowsands, glittering here and there among the clouds of treeswhich filled the little valley almost to the sea's edge, while floatingup to us came soft strains of music, silken and caressing, as thoughthe sea itself sang us a welcome. Had you heard it from aboard theArgo, you would have declared it to be the sirens singing, and it wouldhave been found necessary to lash you to the mast. But there were nomasts to lash you to in Yellowsands--and of the sirens it is not yettime to speak.
It was the golden end of afternoon as the coach stopped in front of themain hotel, The Golden Fortune; and for the benefit of any with not toolong purses who shall hereafter light on Yellowsands, and be alarmed atthe name and the marble magnificence of that delightful hotel, I maysay that the charges there were surprisingly "reasonable," owing to oneother wise provision of the young lord and master of that happy place,who had had the wit to realise that the nicest and brightest andprettiest people were often the poorest. Yellowsands, therefore, wascarried on much like a club, to which you had only to be the right sortof person to belong. I was relieved to find that the hotel peopleevidently considered me the right sort of person, and didn't take mefor a Sunday-school treat,--for presently I found myself in a charminglittle corner bedroom, whence I could survey the whole extent of thelittle colony of pleasure. The Golden Fortune was curiously situated,perched at the extreme sea-end of a little horse-shoe bay hollowed outbetween two headlands, the points of which approached each other soclosely that the river Sly had but a few yards of rocky channel throughwhich to pour itself into the sea. The Golden Fortune, therefore,backed by towering woodlands, looked out to sea at one side, across tothe breakwater headland on another, and on its land side commanded acomplete view of the gay little haven, with its white houses builtterrace on terrace upon its woo
ded slopes, connected by flights ofzigzag steps, by which the apparently inaccessible shelves andplatforms circulated their gay life down to the gay heart of theplace,--the circular boulevard, exquisitely leafy and cool, where onefound the great casino and the open-air theatre, the exquisiteorchestra, into which only the mellowest brass and the subtlest stringswere admitted, and the Cafe du Ciel, charmingly situated among thetrees, where the boulevard became a bridge, for a moment, at the mouthof the river Sly. Here one might gaze up the green rocky defile throughwhich the Sly made pebbly music, and through which wound romantic walksand natural galleries, where far inland you might wander
"From dewy dawn to dewy night, And have one with you wandering,"
or where you might turn and look across the still lapping harbour, outthrough the little neck of light between the headlands to theshimmering sea beyond,--your ears filled with a melting tide of sweetsounds, the murmur of the streams and the gentle surging of the sea,the rippling of leaves, the soft restless whisper of women's gowns, andthe music of their vowelled voices. It was here I found myself sittingat sunset, alone, but so completely under the spell of the place that Ineeded no companion. The place itself was companion enough. Theelectric fairy lamps had popped alight; and as the sun sank lower,Yellowsands seemed like a glowing crown of light floating upon thewater.
I had as yet failed to catch any sight of Rosalind; so I sat alone, andso far as I had any thoughts or feelings, beyond a consciousness ofheavenly harmony with my surroundings, they were for that hauntingunknown face with the violet eyes and the heavy chestnut hair.
Presently, close by, the notes of a guitar came like little goldbutterflies out of the twilight, and then a woman's voice rose like asilver bird on the air. It was a gay wooing measure to which she sang.I listened with ears and heart. "All ye," it went,--
The Quest of the Golden Girl: A Romance Page 11