She was about to move towards the door.
"Mrs. Richborough!…" said Isbel abruptly.
"What is it?"
"Why were you so anxious to bring me here to-day?"
"You must know that without my telling you. Here all things are so transparent to all of us."
"You meant to tell Mr. Stokes, didn't you?"
The older woman looked down at her calmly. "Yes, I meant to restore you to your duty. But now I no longer pretend to know where your duty lies. Let me go now, my dear. All that is ancient history; everything has changed."
Isbel said nothing more, but allowed her to leave the room. The door closed behind her.
Judge resumed his seat.
"We need not fear this development," he said slowly. "She will remember nothing."
"So much the worse, for she will go back to her plots and schemes. You haven't thought of that?"
The suggestion startled him. "You think so?"
"How can it be otherwise? Oh, if her present mood lasted, I should never, never wish to speak ill of her. But we know it will disappear with her memory. What is to be done?"
He preserved silence for a few moments.
"After all, there is no cause for alarm. She will demand her price, and we shall pay it."
"No, no; she will accept nothing short of the whole-I know her. In that she will be disappointed, and so she will do whatever mischief she can. Oh, I'm quite sure of it."
"What do you mean by 'the whole?"
"She intends to marry you."
"And failing that?…"
"Failing that, she will dishonour me-or perhaps she means to dishonour me in any case. You heard with your ears what she said."
"Bit if I consented to marry her I should, of course, make her silence a condition." The words came in a very low voice, as he bent his head towards the floor.
"What do you mean?" she demanded, sharply. "How could you marry her? You don't love her."
"No."
"Then it would be wicked of you!…What put that awful thought in your head? I can't understand."
"Yet it would solve other difficulties, too."
"What difficulties? What difficulties can a wrong marriage solve? It would be criminal."
"Some such decisive step must be taken to end the situation. Our friendship won't continue to pass unnoticed."
"You wish to terminate it, then?"
"For your sake; not mine."
"And to achieve that result you accept a living death?…But perhaps you do really love her?"
"No."
Isbel laid her hand on his arm. "Promise me never to think of this again. It is absolute madness. We will find some other way out of our troubles. Promise me."
"You may be sure of one thing," replied Judge, looking at her steadily; "I shall not renounce my moral right to devote my life to your service, except as the very last resource. Beyond that I cannot go."
Suddenly Isbel raised her head and seemed to listen to some sound outside the room.
"What was that?" she asked quickly.
"It sounded extremely like a stiff window-shutter being jerked open; it's probably Mrs. Richborough in the next room."
He had scarcely spoken when another noise, more distinct and far more peculiar, struck their ears.
"It's music!" said Isbel, shaking from head to foot, and attempting unsuccessfully to rise.
"Yes…A bass viol-but some way off. I can't conceive what it can be. Would you wait here while I go and investigate?"
"No, you mustn't-I won't have it! I won't be left…"
Judge sat down again, and they went on listening in silence. The low, rich, heavy scraping sound certainly did resemble that of a deep-toned stringed instrument, heard from a distance, but to Isbel's imagination, it resembled something else as well. She thought she recognised it as the must of that dark upstairs corridor, which she had heard on her first visit to the house. But this time it was ever so much nearer, fuller, and more defined; the electric buzzing had resolved itself into perfectly distinct vibrations…A tune was being played, so there was no doubt about the nature of the noise. It was a simple, early-English rustic air-sweet, passionate and haunting. The sonorous and melancholy character of the instrument added a wild, long-drawn-out charm to it which was altogether beyond the range of the understanding and seemed to belong to other days, when feelings were more poignant and delicate, less showy, splendid, and odourless…After the theme had been repeated once, from beginning to end, the performance ceased, and was succeeded by absolute stillness.
They looked at each other.
"How beautiful!…but how perfectly awful!" said Isbel.
"Do you wish to go downstairs at once?"
Some seconds passed before she answered.
"No, I'll stay. How could we leave it without finding out?…We'll go in there in a minute. I don't wish to while she's there. Let's finish what we were saying…You mustn't commit that crime."
"Your honour comes before everything."
"You don't belong to her." She drew a long breath before proceeding…"You belong to me."
"I do not belong to you."
"Yes-you know it is so."
"I beg you to reflect upon what you're saying. You are not yourself at present. Don't use language you will be sure to regret afterwards."
Isbel ignored his interruption.
"I have lied too much to my own heart, and it's time I were honest. They talk of faith and loyalty, but how can one be loyal to others if one is not first loyal to one's own nature? There cannot be a greater sin than to pretend that our feelings are what in reality they are not."
"This is no place for such deliberations. I beg you earnestly to say no more here and now. Reserve it until later."
"No, I must speak. If I don't speak out now, when shall I get another chance?…My engagement has been a ghastly mistake…It must have always been in the back of my mind, but now I see it all clearly for the first time…" She crouched nearly double, and covered her face with her two hands.
Judge, much agitated, got up.
"I can't listen to this. It's impossible for me to discuss such a subject. It rests entirely between you and your own heart."
"I made the terrible blunder of imagining that identity of tastes and friends means love. I took things too much for granted…His nature had no depth…He has never suffered. It isn't in him."
"You must think it over in quietness. Say no more now."
She sat up suddenly, and stared at him.
"You throw me to him, then?-you who profess to have such ideal love for me!"
Judge was silent.
"So you don't love me?"
"In the end you will understand that I love you deeply and truly."
She slowly rose to her feet. "Then what do you advise me to do?"
"Do nothing at all, but wait."
"You have no questions for me?"
"What questions?"
"I love no one but you," said Isbel. She caught his hand, and crushed it hard in hers; then abruptly turned her back on him…Judge stood like one transfixed.
At the same moment Mrs. Richborough came into the room. Her natural pallor was intensified, while her face was set and drawn, as though she had received a shock.
"Oh, what's the matter?" exclaimed Isbel, taking a step in her direction.
The older woman swayed, as if about to fall. Judge hastened forward to support her.
"I'm afraid I've just seen a sight which I can only regard as a warning. As you look out of the window there is a man, with his back turned. He looked round, and then I saw his face. I can't describe it…I think I'll go downstairs, if you don't mind."
The others looked at one another.
"Shall I take you down?" asked Judge.
"If you would assist me to the head of the stairs, I shall be all right."
He asked no questions, but at once supported her from the room. Isbel followed. On arriving at the top of the staircase, he lent the dazed w
oman his arm down the first few steps, then watched her out of sight before rejoining his companion.
Again they gazed at each other.
"You heard what she said," remarked Judge quietly. "Under the circumstances I don't feel justified in asking you to accompany me into that room."
"Are you going?"
"Yes, I'm going."
"Then I shall go, too."
Chapter XV THE MUSIC OF SPRING
They walked over to the right-hand door, which Judge, after turning the handle, at once kicked wide open with his foot…A sudden and unanticipated flood of brilliant sunshine, streaming through the room form an open window on the further side, momentarily blinded them, so that they staggered back with the shock.
Judge was the first to recover himself.
"It's all right, we can go in. The room's empty."
Isbel hastened to the window. It was breast-high. There was no glass in it, but it possessed a stout wooden shutter, opening outwards, which at present was swung to its full extent squarely against the outside wall. The aperture of the window was so narrow that there was barely space for their two heads together, and she found her smooth cheek grazing his harsh one.
From out of doors came not only the sunlight but the song of birds, the loud sighing of the wind in its passage through the trees, and an indescribable fresh, sweet smell, as of meadow grass, turned-up earth, and dew-drenched flowers. It seemed more like spring than autumn.
"Where are we, then?" was Isbel's first inquiry, uttered in a tone of bewilderment. "How do we come to be to high up from the ground?"
"I don't recognise any of it. It's all new to me."
From the foot of the house wall, forty feet below, the free country started. Judge stared in vain for familiar landmarks-the more he gazed, the more puzzled he became. Not only had his own grounds disappeared, but neither in the foreground nor in the distance was there a single sign of human occupancy or labour. Look where he would, fields, hedgerows, roads, lanes, houses, had vanished entirely out of the landscape.
A bare hillside of grass and chalk, perhaps a couple of hundred feet high, fell away sharply from the house, to terminate in a miniature valley along which a brook, glittering in the sunlight, wound its way. Beyond it there was a corresponding hill up, but not so steep or high; and here the woods began; an undulating but unbroken forest appeared to extend right to the horizon, many miles distant. The intensely blue sky was adorned with cirrus-clouds, while the dazzling sun was high above their heads, about half a point to the right. Apart, altogether, from the strangeness of the scenery, anything less like a late October afternoon would be hard to imagine; the forests were brilliantly green, many of the smaller, isolated trees in the valley were crowned with white blossom, while the air itself held that indefinable spirit of wild sweetness which is inseparable from a spring morning.
"Just look at that man!" said Isbel, suddenly.
He was sitting on the slope of the hill, directly opposite their window and not a stone's throw from them, but half hidden by the crest of the small hollow which he had selected for his perch, which explained why they had not previously noticed him. He sat motionless, facing the valley, with his back to the house; what he was doing there they could not imagine. It was his extraordinary attire which had evoked Isbel's exclamation. Only his head, the uppper half of his back, and one out-stretched leg were visible; but the leg was encased in a sage-green trouser, tightly cross-gartered with yellow straps, the garment on his back resembled, as far as could be seen, a purple smock, and the hair of his hatless head fell in a thick, bright yellow mane as far as his shoulders.
Notwithstanding Isbel's amazement, she began to laugh.
"No wonder poor Mrs. Richborough was startled! Is it a man, or a tulip?"
"He looks like an ancient Saxon come to life," replied Judge, also laughing, but more moderately.
"Ulf, perhaps."
"Very likely," he agreed, without understanding her.
"Cry out and ask him if his name's Ulf."
"But who was Ulf?"
"Don't you know? Why he's the man who built your house. The trolls ran away with him, poor fellow! and probably he's been sitting here ever since, yearning to get back home again…Do call out."
"You really want me to call?"
"If you don't I shall, and that will be immodest."
Judge shouted at the top of his voice. The man neither responded nor turned his head.
"Again!" commanded Isbel, laughing. "Louder-much louder! As if someone were running off with property of yours…"
This time Judge roared, and then Isbel added her strange clanging cry twice or thrice, laughing between whiles; but still they were unable to attract his attention.
Temporarily abandoning the effort, she turned her head and glanced sideways at Judge, with an almost joyous expression. "We can't be in October. That hawthorn's blooming…and look at those beeches over there, with their pale-green, transparent leaves…Hark!…"
They kept quiet for a minute…A distant cuckoo was calling. The cry was regularly repeated, at very short intervals.
Judge rubbed his eyes, in actual doubt whether he were awake or dreaming. "It's spring, sure enough-but how can it be?"
"Oh, if we could only get down into it all!"
Both instinctively measured the wall beneath them with their eyes, but the distance to the ground was too great, the footholds were too precarious.
She leant further out, inhaling the sweet, fragrant air in deep breaths, and sighing it out again…"Beautiful!-beautiful!…"
Then once more she became fascinated by the man.
"It can't be true. Such men don't exist-at least, nowadays. It's an optical illusion. If it were a real person he would answer us."
Judge hailed him again, but without result. A moment later, however, the man stooped to pick something up, and when he regained his sitting posture they caught a glimpse of a fiddle-shaped instrument in his hand, somewhat larger than a modern viola. Wasting no time in preliminaries, he swung his bow across it, and at once started to repeat the air they had heard already from the other room.
Isbel, drawing back a little, rested her elbow on the window-sill and her face on her elbow, in order better to concentrate her thoughts on the music. Judge retired altogether into the room, to make space for her. The tone of the instrument, notwithstanding its small size, was midway in depth between that of a violoncello and that of a contra-bass, and the low, slow scrape of its strings had a peculiarly disturbing effect upon her feelings. The theme had a strange, archaic flavour, as though it had come down through the centuries, yet it was so appropriate that Isbel could almost fancy it to be the voice of the landscape. It was hauntingly beautiful, and full of queer surprises; each long, sonorous note contained a world of music in itself, but it was the powerful, yet delicate and passionate thought slowly being developed as the air proceeded which stirred her so exceedingly.
While she stood listening, feelings which she had not had for ten years suddenly returned to her, and she realised, as in a flash, how far down the hill of life she had already travelled. That complex state of youth, composed of wildness, melancholy, audacity, inspiration, and hope, was momentarily restored to her, but only as a memory, as if for the purpose of mocking her…As the music finished, tears stood in her eyes, and her heart was choking, yet she was not unhappy…
Judge approached her from behind…"Isbel!"…
"It was like the voice of spring," she said, without turning round. "You are tortured, but you don't know what is happening to you."
"Music must have been like that at one time."
"Did you feel it, too?"
"It must be very, very old."…They hardly knew what they were saying to each other.
The musician had sunk back into a reclining position, so that only the crown of his head was visible. Isbel at last looked round. She caught sight of Judge's face, with its contracted muscles and pained expression, but instantly left that to glance at an envelo
pe which he held in his hand.
"What have you there?"
He handed it to her. "I found it lying on the floor."
The envelope was addressed to Mrs. Richborough, at the Metropole, but its contents had been abstracted. On the back had been scribbled very roughly in ink the first few bars of the tune they had just heard.
"It has probably got blown down," suggested Judge. "She must have left it for the ink to dry, and forgotten it, in her alarm."
Isbel looked at it for some moments, and then slipped it in her hand-bag. "That woman will take notes on the Day of Judgement. But why shouldn't she? That music could have meant nothing to her."
"What does it mean to us?"
They stood close by the window, but not looking out. Isbel's face bore a singular smile.
"It means something, I think."
"What?"
"Do you feel nothing?"
"I feel great happiness, which I am striving not to account for."
"It means what spring means," said Isbel.
She suddenly threw both arms around his neck, clutching him tightly, but at the same time turning away in such a manner that it was the back of her hair only which brushed his cheek…When she disengaged herself violently a few seconds later, her face was hot, and she was in tears…
Judge breathed hard, and looked dark under the eyes, but he made no attempt to draw nearer.
"What's wrong, Isbel?"
"You are cruel!…"
"I cruel…?"
"Oh, go away from me-altogether!…"
She turned her back on him, and bent her head.
"Will you listen to me?…I have no right…"
"I know. You've told me a thousand times already…You put law first, love second."
"I demand a very small assurance from you, but that assurance I must have. Are you free now?"
"I won't say-I refuse to answer. I'll have everything, or nothing from you." She wheeled round furiously. "If I'm not worth that, I'm worth nothing at all…"
The scent of violets and primroses seemed to come in with the breeze through the open window, while Isbel's voice, like soft brass, thrilled the ear with its strange range of tones. She stood there, confronting him-a warm, passionate girl, in sweet clothes-as though she were a second self, his own soul reflected from a magic mirror. Among the whole world of human beings, they two alone possessed the entry into each other's innermost nature…That delicately-modelled woman's mouth, which had just uttered such words of scorn-if he pleased, in another instant it should break into the loveliest smiles…
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