by Edith Nesbit
“I’ve taken the house for three years,” said he. “Well, one place is as good as another to be wretched in. But one room I must furnish — for you can’t work on oil-cloth.”
So next day he walked to Rochester and bought some old bureaux, and chairs, and book-cases, a few Persian rugs and some brass things, unpacked his books and settled down to the hermit’s life to which he had vowed himself. The woman came every morning from her cottage a mile away, and left at noon. He got his meals himself — always chops, or steaks, or eggs — and presently began to grow accustomed to the place. When the sun shone it was not so bad. He could make no way against the thorns and thistles on his five acres, and they quickly grew into a very wilderness. But a wilderness is pleasant to wander in; and a few flowers had survived long neglect, and here and there put out red, or white, or yellow buds. And he worked away at his book about Greek poetry.
He almost believed that he was contented; he had never cared for people so much as for books, and now he saw no people, and his books began to crowd his shelves. No one passed by “The Yews” — so called, he imagined, in extravagant compliment to the decaying cypress — for it stood by a grass-grown by-way that had once connected two main roads, each a couple of miles distant. These were now joined by a better road down in the valley, and no one came past Maurice’s window save the milk, the bread, the butcher, and the postman.
Summer turned brown and dry and became autumn, autumn turned wet and chilly and grew into winter, and all the winds of heaven blew cold and damp through the cracks of the ill-built house.
Maurice was glad when the spring came; he had taken the house for three years, and he was a careful man, and also, in his way, a determined. Yet it was good to look out once more on something green, and to see sunshine and a warm sky; it was near Easter now. In all these ten months nothing whatever had happened to him. He had never been beyond his five acres — and no one had been to see him. He had no relations, and friends soon forget; besides, after all, friends, unlike relations, cannot go where they are not invited.
It was on the Saturday before Easter that the quarryside fell in. Maurice was working in his study when he heard a sudden crack and a slow, splitting sound, and then a long, loud, rumbling noise, like thunder, that echoed and re-echoed from the hills on each side. And, looking from his window, he saw the cloud of white dust rise high above the edge of the old quarry, and seem to drift off to join the cotton-wool clouds in the blue sky.
“I suppose it’s all safe enough here,” he said, and went back to his manuscripts. But he could not work. At last something had happened; he found himself shaken and excited. He laid down the pen. “I wonder if any one was hurt?” he said; “the road runs just below, of course. I wonder whether there’ll be any more of it — I wonder?” A wire jerked, the cracked bell sounded harshly through the silence of the house. He sprang to his feet. “Who on earth — —” he said. “The house isn’t safe after all, perhaps, and they’ve come to tell me.”
As he went along the worn oil-cloth of the hall he saw through the comfortless white-spotted glass of his front door the outline of a woman’s hat.
He opened the door — it stuck as usual — but he got it open. There stood a girl holding a bicycle.
“Oh!” she said, without looking at him, “I’m so sorry to trouble you — my bicycle’s run down — and I’m afraid it’s a puncture, and could you let me have some water, to find the hole — and if I might sit down a minute.”
Her voice grew lower and lower.
He opened the door wide and put out his hand for the bicycle. She took two steps past him, rather unsteadily, and sat down on the stairs — there were no chairs: the furniture of the hall was all oil-cloth and hat pegs.
He saw now that she was very pale; her face looked greenish behind her veil’s white meshes.
He propped the machine against the door, as she leaned her head back against the ugly marbled paper of the staircase wall.
“I’m afraid you’re ill,” he said gently. But the girl made no answer. Her head slipped along the varnished wall and rested on the stair two steps above where she sat. Her hat was crooked and twisted; even a student of Greek could see that she had fainted.
“Oh Lord!” said he.
He got her hat and veil off — he never knew how, and he wondered afterwards at his own cleverness, for there were many pins, long and short; he fetched the cushion from his armchair and put it under her head; he took off her gloves and rubbed her hands and her forehead with vinegar, but her complexion remained green, and she lay, all in a heap, at the foot of his staircase.
Then he remembered that fainting people should be laid flat and not allowed to lie about in heaps at the foot of stairs, so he very gently and gingerly picked the girl up in his arms and carried her into his sitting-room. Here he laid her on the ground — he had no sofa — and sat beside her on the floor, patiently fanning her with a copy of the Athenæum, and watching the pinched, pallid face for some sign of returning life. It came at last, in a flutter of the eyelids, a long-drawn, gasping breath. The Greek scholar rushed for whisky — brandy he esteemed as a mere adjunct of channel boats — lifted her head and held the glass to her lips. The blood had come back to her face in a rush of carnation; she drank — choked — drank — he laid her head down and her eyes opened. They were large, clear grey eyes — very bewildered-looking just now — but they and the clear red tint in cheeks and lips transformed the face.
“Good gracious,” said he, “she’s pretty! Pretty? she’s beautiful!”
She was. That such beauty should so easily have hidden itself behind a green-tinted mask, with sunken eyelid, seemed a miracle to the ingenuous bookworm.
“You’re better now,” said he with feverish banality. “Give me your hands — so — now can — yes, that’s right — here, this chair is the only comfortable one — —”
She sank into the chair, and waved away the more whisky which he eagerly proffered. He stood looking at her with respectful solicitude.
After a few moments she stretched her arms like a sleepy child, yawned, and then suddenly broke into laughter. It had a strange sound. No one had laughed in that house since the wet night when Mr Brent took possession of it, and he had never been able to bring himself to believe that any one had ever laughed there before.
Then he remembered having heard that women have hysterical fits as well as fainting fits, and he said eagerly: “Oh don’t! It’s all right — you were faint — the heat or something — —”
“Did I faint?” she asked with interest. “I never fainted before. But — oh — yes — I remember. It was rather horrible. The quarry tumbled down almost on me, and I just stopped short — in time — and I came round by this road because the other’s stopped up, and I was so glad when I saw the house. Thank you so much; it must have been an awful bother. I think I had better start soon — —”
“No, you don’t; you’re not fit to ride alone yet,” said he to himself. Aloud he said: “You said something about a puncture — when you are better I’ll mend it. And, look here — have you had any lunch?”
“No,” said she.
“Then — if you’ll allow me.” He left the room, and presently returned with the tray set for his own lunch; then he fetched from the larder everything he could lay hands on: half a cold chicken, some cold meat pudding, a pot of jam, bottled beer. He set these confusedly on the table. “Now,” he said, “come and try to eat.”
“It’s very good of you to bother,” she said, a little surprise in her tone, for she had expected “lunch” to be a set formal meal at which some discreet female relative would preside. “But aren’t you — don’t you — do you live alone, then?”
“Yes, a woman comes in in the mornings. I’m sorry she’s gone: she could have arranged a better lunch for you.”
“Better? why, it’s lovely!” said she, accepting the situation with frank amusement, and she gave a touch or two to the table to set everything in its place.
/> Then they lunched together. He would have served her standing, as one serves a queen — but she laughed again, and he took the place opposite her. During lunch they talked.
After lunch they mended the punctured tyre, and talked all the while; then it was past three o’clock.
“You won’t go yet,” he said then, daring greatly for what seemed to him a great stake. “Let me make you some tea — I can, I assure you — and let us see if the tyre holds up — —”
“Oh, the tyre is all right, thanks to your cleverness — —”
“Well, then,” said he desperately, “take pity on a poor hermit! I give you my word, I have been here ten months and three days, and I have not in that time spoken a single word to any human being except my bedmaker.”
“But if you want to talk to people why did you begin being a hermit?”
“I thought I didn’t, then.”
“Well — now you know better, why don’t you come back and talk to people in the ordinary way?”
This was the first and last sign she gave that the circumstances in which she found herself with him were anything but ordinary.
“I have a book to finish,” said he. “Would you like to have tea in the wilderness or in here?” He wisely took her consent for granted this time, and his wisdom was justified.
They had tea in the garden. The wilderness blossomed like a rose, to Maurice’s thinking. In his mind he was saying over and over again: “How bored I must have been all this time! How bored I must have been!”
It seemed to him that his mind was opening, like a flower, and for the first time. He had never talked so well, and he knew it — all the seeds of thought, sown in those long, lonely hours, bore fruit now. She listened, she replied, she argued and debated.
“Beautiful — and sensible,” said Maurice to himself. “What a wonderful woman!” There was, besides, an alertness of mind, a quick brightness of manner that charmed him. Camilla had been languid and dreamy.
Suddenly she rose to her feet.
“I must go,” she said, “but I have enjoyed myself so much. You are an ideal host: thank you a thousand times. Perhaps we shall meet again some day, if you return to the world. Do you know, we’ve been talking and wrangling for hours and hours and never even thought of wondering what each other’s names are — I think we’ve paid each other a very magnificent compliment, don’t you?”
He smiled and said: “My name is Maurice Brent.”
“Mine is Diana Redmayne. If it sounds like somebody in the Family Herald, I can’t help it.” He had wheeled the bicycle into the road, and she had put on hat and gloves and stood ready to mount before she said: “If you come back to the world I shall almost certainly meet you. We seem to know the same people; I’ve heard your name many times.”
“From whom?” said he.
“Among others,” said she, with her foot on the pedal, “from my cousin Camilla. Good-bye.”
And he was left to stare down the road after the swift flying figure.
Then he went back into the lonely little house, and about half-past twelve that night he realised that he had done no work that day, and that those hours which had not been spent talking to Diana Redmayne, had been spent in thinking about her.
“It’s not because she’s pretty and clever,” he said; “and it’s not even because she’s a woman. It’s because she’s the only intelligent human being I’ve spoken to for nearly a year.”
So day after day he went on thinking about her.
It was three weeks later that the bell again creaked and jangled, and again through the spotted glass he saw a woman’s hat. To his infinite disgust and surprise, his heart began to beat violently.
“I grow nervous, living all alone,” he said. “Confound this door! how it does stick — I must have it planed.”
He got the door opened, and found himself face to face with — Camilla.
He stepped back, and bowed gravely.
She looked more beautiful than ever — and he looked at her, and wondered how he could ever have thought her even passably pretty.
“Won’t you ask me in?” she said timidly.
“No,” said he, “I am all alone.”
“I know,” she said. “I have only just heard you’re living here all alone, and I came to say — Maurice — I’m sorry. I didn’t know you cared so much, or — —”
“Don’t,” he said, stopping the confession as a good batsman stops a cricket ball. “Believe me, I’ve not made myself a hermit because of — all that. I had a book to write — that was all. And — and it’s very kind of you to come and look me up, and I wish I could ask you to come in, but —— And it’s nice of you to take an interest in an old friend — you said you would, didn’t you, in the letter — and — I’ve taken the advice you gave me.”
“You mean you’ve fallen in love with some one else.”
“You remember what you said in your letter.”
“Some one nicer and worthier, I said,” returned Camilla blankly, “but I never thought —— And is she?”
“Of course she seems so to me,” said he, smiling at her to express friendly feeling.
“Then — good-bye — I wish you the best of good fortune.”
“You said that in your letter, too,” said he. “Good-bye.”
“Who is she?”
“I mustn’t tell even you that, until I have told her,” he smiled again.
“Then good-bye,” said Camilla shortly; “forgive me for troubling you so unnecessarily.”
He found himself standing by his door — and Camilla on her bicycle sped down the road, choking with tears of anger and mortification and deep disappointment. Because she knew now that she loved him as much as it was in her to love any one, and because she, who had humbled so many, had now at last humbled herself — and to no purpose.
Maurice Brent left his door open and wandered down across his five acres, filled with amazement. Camilla herself had not been more deeply astonished at the words he had spoken than he had been. A moment before he had not even thought that he was in love, much less contemplated any confession of it: and now seemingly without his will he stood committed to this statement. Was it true, or had he only said it to defend himself against those advances of hers in which he merely saw a new trap? He had said it in defence — yes — but it was true, for all that; this was the wonderful part of it. And so he walked in the wilderness, lost in wonder; and as he walked he noted the bicycles that passed his door — along his unfrequented road, by ones and twos and threes — for this was a Saturday, and the lower road was still lying cold and hidden under its load of chalk, and none might pass that way. This road was hot and dusty, and folk went along it continually. He strolled to his ugly iron gate and looked over, idly. Perhaps, some day, she would come that way again — she would surely stop — especially if he were at the gate — and perhaps stay and talk a little. As if in mocking answer to the new-born thought came a flash of blue along the road; Diana Redmayne rode by at full speed — bowed coldly — and then at ten yards’ distance turned and waved a white-gloved hand, with a charming smile. Maurice swore softly, and went indoors to think.
His work went but slowly on that day — and in the days that followed. On the next Friday he went over to Rochester, and in the dusk of the evening he walked along the road, about a mile from “The Yews,” and then, going slowly, he cast handfuls of something dark from his hand, and kicked the white dust over it as it lay.
“I feel like the enemy sowing tares,” said he.
Then he went home, full of anxious anticipation. The next day was hot and bright. He took his armchair into the nightmare of a verandah, and sat there reading; only above the top of the book his eyes could follow the curve of the white road. This made it more difficult to follow the text. Presently the bicyclists began to go past, by ones and twos and threes; but a certain percentage was wheeling its machines — others stopped within sight to blow up their tyres. One man sat down under the hedge thirty yards
away, and took his machine to pieces; presently he strolled up and asked for water. Brent gave it, in a tin basin, grudgingly, and without opening the gate.
“I overdid it,” he said, “a quarter of a pound would have been enough; yet I don’t know — perhaps it’s well to be on the safe side. Yet three pounds was perhaps excessive.”
Late in the afternoon a pink figure wheeling a bicycle came slowly down the road. He sat still, and tried to read. In a moment he should hear the click of the gate: then he would spring up and be very much astonished. But the gate did not click, and when next he raised his eyes the pink blouse had gone by, and was almost past the end of the five acres. Then he did spring up — and ran.
“Miss Redmayne, can’t I help you? What is it? Have you had a spill?” he said as he overtook her.
“Puncture,” said she laconically.
“You’re very unfortunate. Mayn’t I help you to mend it?”
“I’ll mend it as soon as I get to a shady place.”
“Come into the wilderness. See — here’s the side gate. I’ll fetch some water in a moment.”
She looked at him doubtfully, and then consented. She refused tea, but she stayed and talked till long after the bicycle was mended.
On the following Saturday he walked along the road, and back, and along, and again the place was alive with angry cyclists dealing, each after his fashion, with a punctured tyre. He came upon Miss Redmayne sitting by the ditch mending hers. That was the time when he sat on the roadside and told her all about himself — reserving only those points where his life had touched Camilla’s.
The week after he walked the road again, and this time he overtook Miss Redmayne, who was resolutely wheeling her bicycle back in the way by which she had come.
“Let me wheel it for you,” he said. “Whither bound?”
“I’m going back to Rochester,” she said. “I generally ride over to see my aunts at Felsenden on Saturdays, but I fear I must give it up, or go by train; this road isn’t safe.”