The Potter and the Clay: A Romance of Today

by Maud Howard Peterson

  *IV.*

  As Trevelyan and the girl drove up the long entrance way and neared thehouse, they could distinguish through the faint Scotch mist that hadfallen, the outline of Mactier waiting for them at the door.

  The old retainer hurried forward to welcome them.

  "Ay, sir, but ’tis gude to see ye! My heart’s been sore for a sight o’thy face this lang time!" he cried to Trevelyan.

  Trevelyan jumped down from the cart.

  "Hello, Mactier!" he cried. "Jove! But it’s good to see _you_ again!"

  Then he turned to Cary and helped her to the ground.

  "This is Mactier," he said, as one saying all that is sufficient."Mactier, I used to tell Miss Cary about you when I was a littleshaver."

  "Aweel ye were ever a mindful lad o’ me!" The old man smiled.

  He opened the door for them, and stood to one side to let them enter.

  "’Tis a bad day ye have for seeing the old place," he said as theypassed him.

  "You can bring the horse around in an hour," called Trevelyan as the oldman drove away.

  Then Trevelyan went back to Cary. The girl was standing at the furthestend of the great hall, looking out of the window. She could hear thebeat of the sea on the near-by crags and through the faint mist catch aglimpse of the water.

  Mactier had opened the long-closed blinds and the light seemedconcentrated around the figure of the girl. Trevelyan tore his ridinggloves from his hands and bent and unbent his fingers rapidly. "If Ihad dreamed—if I had known—" He reached her side.

  "I’m afraid it’s a gloomy day we’ve struck," he said quietly, "but I’min hopes the mist won’t last. On clear days from here you can see thehighest crag of all. It’s where I used to spend half my days, as alittle shaver,—up there on the top. It was my eyrie. I used to be arobber king and a shipwrecked mariner and a Viking all rolled in one."

  Trevelyan laughed, bending forward and nearer to her and looked out ofthe window, as though to penetrate the mist. Cary leaned against theframe of the window listening.

  "When I got a bit older," Trevelyan’s voice fell heavily on the silenceof the big lonely hall, "I used to climb up there—to get away fromeveryone, and where no one could find me; and I would hide up there, andsit by the hour, looking out at the sea and watching the white spraybreaking below me. And then later I used to try and think of what lovemeant—what love could be—if I should ever love—"

  He turned away abruptly and walked up and down the hall. After a littlehe came back to Cary, who had not stirred.

  "And sometimes I used to dream of a woman who would some day come intomy life—and I used to crawl to the edge of the crag and lean over andlook into the white foam below, until I got dizzy—looking for her face.It seemed her face must be in the white foam—foolish, wasn’t it?"

  Cary ran her finger along the ledge of the window.

  "We all have our dreams."

  Trevelyan watched her, as she turned her face again to the window. Themist outside increased and seemed to muffle the beat of the sea and allthe sounds of nature, and it hung around her and softened her face intowonderful curves. He turned his eyes away from her suddenly. He couldhave crushed that face in his hands, bringing it up to his own—

  "Mactier will be around in an hour," he said after a while in a matterof fact way, "and then I’ll drive you about the place a bit before wereturn. We can easily make it and be back for dinner."

  "Yes?" asked Cary, absent-mindedly.

  "Come! Wake up! And look around you! Isn’t this a fine old hall?" ButTrevelyan’s voice lacked enthusiasm.

  Cary turned and looked around her. Her dream spell had passed. The oddthrobbing in her throat, she had felt long ago in London, the eveningshe had bidden Trevelyan good-bye, returned with triple force. A waveof color swept over the usual pallor of her skin; her eyes were shining.Cary was transformed.

  "Fine?" her voice pulsed with the enthusiasm Trevelyan’s had lacked."It’s the finest old hall in all the world! The dearest old home! Takeme over it—from the top to the bottom, and show me where you and Johnand Tom Cameron used to play!"

  Trevelyan led her from room to room; passing quickly this one, that heldmemories of his mother; pausing on the threshold of another, to tell thestory of the Scotch boy’s playtime; to show to her the first stag’shead, shot when hunting with Mactier. Trevelyan told the story well,for he loved with all the unyielding strength of an unyielding nature,the memories his words called up. Now it was how Tom and he had slippedout of the window one night and scaled the ivy covered turret wall, thatthey might investigate the old cave down at the water’s edge, by thelight of the waning moon. Mactier had told them strange tales of thehappenings in the cave when the moon was on the wane. Again it was theday he had stumbled with his gun and the bullet had entered his thigh;how old Mactier had flung him across his shoulders, and borne him homethrough the darkness of the falling night. Again it was the morning hismother had died; how he had been awakened by the hurrying of many feet,and starting up in bed had found his father bending over him, callinghim by name.

  Never had the girl known Trevelyan to be so eloquent; never had she seenhim as he was to-day. Now Trevelyan’s voice was blithe with theblitheness of glad remembered things; now it broke with feeling, orvibrated with the passion of reviving scenes long dead to life. Heseemed not to be speaking of himself. He was telling her the story ofan English boy, Scottish bred; of his wild escapades; of his love offreedom and unrestricted things; of his dangers and his hopes; of whathe meant to be when he became a man!

  And Cary, held fast by the magic of the story, felt her pulses throb;her being thrill. An unreasonable regret that she had not been aScottish child to follow where he led, up the high crags or down intothe black caves, took possession of her; and she recalled a picture of asea churned into foam; of a boat drifting out toward the waste of ocean;and above the gray surface of the stone-hued waters, a boy’s head turnedlandward.

  Once, in following Trevelyan from one room to another, she glanced outof the window and noticed vaguely that the heavy rain drops lay upon theglass. Later, she was conscious of the dull booming of thunder, echoingamong the nearby crags and losing itself in the beat of the surf. Thena flash of vivid lightning lit up the sudden darkness that had fallen onthe room.

  Trevelyan rushed to the window. The thralldom of the Scotch boy’s storywas upon him still.

  "It’s a storm!" he cried. "It’s a storm come to welcome me!"

  He turned to Cary.

  "Come here!" he commanded, "where you can watch the sea and the stormfight it out together!"

  She came instantly.

  The darkness increased until they could not distinguish each other’sfaces. The thunder came and beat itself against the crags and spentitself. Now and again they could see, by the glare of the prolongedlightning, the waters lashed into a white fury. Once, by its light, shelooked at Trevelyan’s face. It was white and he was breathing deeply.He was looking seaward and seemed unconscious of her presence. Once, heflung out his hand and it touched hers. It was colder than the stormchill in the air. Once, she looked at him again, and he, turning, mether eyes. Some power as mighty as the storm held her look to his, andthen above the beating of the thunder on the crags and the booming, ofthe surf, she heard his voice.

  "Just you and I and the storm! You and I in all the world—all that theworld holds!" She felt his hand upon her shoulder; she felt itscoldness through her heavy dress and she shrank away from him, her voiceand her words broken, with a nameless fear.

  Above the storm she could hear Trevelyan laugh.

  "Let you go, when I’ve got you at last! Let you go when your face hashaunted me through all the days and all the nights of the long months!_Let—you—go!_"

  "Oh, Robert!"

  "Oh, you think I’m mad! Well, perhaps I am for love of you. You hauntme. You possess me. It was your face I dreamed of in the foam. There
!don’t tremble so! I won’t hurt you, child!" The thunder drowned hisvoice.

  "Do you dream what you are to me or could make of me? Do you know whatit is to hold a man’s soul in your hands?"

  The spell of his words lifted. The instinct of an unknown dangerpossessed her. She slipped away in the blackness toward the door. Thesilence grew and grew.

  Gradually the darkness lifted and the thunder and the boom of the surflessened and the lightning came at long and longer intervals. Carybecame acutely conscious of every sound. Somewhere in the distance sheheard voices and the echo of men’s footfalls. She kept her eyes awayfrom Trevelyan who was standing with his back to her. Danger lay thatway.

  Then the spell of Trevelyan’s nearness crept over her again. She triedto fight it off, trembling. She moved a step toward him, one handpressed close to her breast. Then she paused, arrested by a voice.

  "Robert! Cary! _Cary!_"

  The sound echoed down the great hall, across the still deserted rooms,to the study where they stood.

  Trevelyan turned sharply.

  "John!"

  Cary’s hand crept from her breast to her face and she covered her eyes.

  "John!"

  Trevelyan crossed the space between them.

  "Cary!"

  The woman shrank back.

  "Don’t—you frighten me!" she moaned.

  Trevelyan caught her by the wrist.

  "Cary! Cary! Take that back! How can love frighten? See, I loveyou—love you!"

  She was in his arms and he was leaning over her, his mouth close to herface.

  "Cary!" he whispered.

  Down the long hall, through the silence of the deserted rooms, came thevoice.

  "Cary! Where are you? Cary!"

  She wrenched herself out of Trevelyan’s arms.

  "You are a coward!" she said slowly.

  A wild tide of passion leaped up in Trevelyan.

  "How dare you call me a coward," he said, and his lips could hardlyarticulate, "If you were not a woman—" he choked and his voice diedaway.

  Cary moved nearer to the door. Once, she turned her pale face andlooked at Trevelyan. Trevelyan stood rigid and mute where she had lefthim, the knuckles of one hand pressed to his mouth. She faltered.

  "Cary! Cary! Where are you?"

  She turned, her thumb and forefinger pressing her throat.

  "Here!" she cried. Then, louder: "Here!"

  Trevelyan passed her, and strode through the deserted rooms into thegreat hall.

  "Cary is in the study," he said to the group of men he found there,"Hello Tom!"

  "John arrived an hour after you left," said Cameron, regardingTrevelyan’s rigid face curiously, "and when the storm came up nothingwould do but that he must come for you both in a closed carriage. Iknew you’d be safe enough—if necessary find shelter with some of thetenant’s wives. But John—"

  Trevelyan turned to old Mactier.

  "You can close up the house," he said shortly.

  Stewart found the girl standing in the study. He went up to her and drewher arm through his and quietly led her down the long dark passage thatconnected with the great hall. He could feel that she was trembling.He patted her hand soothingly.

  "There, there! child. It’s all right. I know!"