The soft colour flew over her cheeks, — she smiled.
“Poor Robin!” she said— “You deserve to be happy and you will be! — not with me, but with some one much better, and ever so much prettier! I can see you as the master of Briar Farm — such a sweet home for you and your wife, and all your little children running about in the fields among the buttercups and daisies — a pretty sight, Robin! — I shall think of it often when — when I am far away!”
He was about to utter a protest, — she stopped him by a gesture.
“Hush!” she said.
And there was a moment’s silence.
CHAPTER VI
“When I think about love,” she began presently, in a soft dreamy voice— “I’m quite sure that very few people ever really feel it or understand it. It must be the rarest thing in all the world! This poor Sieur Amadis, asleep so long in his grave, was a true lover, — and I will tell you how I know he had said good-bye to love when he married. All those books we found in the old dower-chest, that day when we were playing about together as children, belonged to him — some are his own compositions, written by his own hand, — the others, as you know, are printed books which must have been difficult to get in his day, and are now, I suppose, quite out of date and almost unknown. I have read them all! — my head is a little library full of odd volumes! But there is one — a manuscript book — which I never tire of reading, — it is a sort of journal in which the Sieur Amadis wrote down many of his own feelings — sometimes in prose, sometimes in verse — and by following them carefully and piecing them together, it is quite easy to find out his sadness and secret — how he loved once and never loved again—”
“You can’t tell that,” interrupted Robin— “men often say they can only love once — but they love ever so many times—”
She smiled — and her eyes showed him what a stupid blunder he had made.
“Do they?” she queried, softly— “I am so glad, Robin! For you will find it easy then to love somebody else instead of me!”
He flushed, vexedly.
“I didn’t mean that—” he began.
“No? I think you did! — but of course if you had thought twice you wouldn’t have said it! It was uttered quite truly and naturally, Robin! — don’t regret it! Only I want to explain to you that the Sieur Amadis was not like that — he loved just once — and the lady he loved must have been a very beautiful woman who had plenty of admirers and did not care for him at all. All he writes proves that. He is always grieved to the heart about it. Still he loved her — and he seems glad to have loved her, though it was all no use. And he kept a little chronicle of his dreams and fancies — all that he felt and thought about, — it is beautifully and tenderly written all in quaint old French. I had some trouble to make it out — but I did at last — every word — and when he made up his mind to marry, he finished the little book and never wrote another word in it. Shall I tell you what were the last lines he wrote?”
“It wouldn’t be any use,” he answered, kissing again the hand he held— “I don’t understand French. I’ve never even tried to learn it.”
She laughed.
“I know you haven’t! But you’ve missed a great deal, Robin! — you have really! When I made up my mind to find out all the Sieur Amadis had written, I got Priscilla to buy me a French dictionary and grammar and some other French lesson-books besides — then I spelt all the words carefully and looked them all up in the dictionary, and learned the pronunciation from one of the lesson-books — and by-and-bye it got quite easy. For two years at least it was dreadfully hard work — but now — well! — I think I could almost speak French if I had the chance!”
“I’m sure you could!” said Robin, looking at her, admiringly— “You’re a clever little girl and could do anything you wanted to.”
Her brows contracted a little, — the easy lightness of his compliment had that air of masculine indifference which is more provoking to an intelligent woman than downright contradiction. The smile lingered in her eyes, however, — a smile of mingled amusement and compassion.
“Well, I wanted to understand the writing of the Sieur Amadis,” she went on, quietly— “and when I could understand them I translated them. So I can tell you the last words he wrote in his journal — just before he married, — in fact on the very eve of his marriage-day—” She paused abruptly, and looked for a moment at the worn and battered tomb of the old knight, green with moss and made picturesque by a trailing branch of wild roses that had thrown itself across the stone effigy in an attempt to reach some of its neighbours on the opposite side. Robin followed her gaze with his own, and for a moment was more than usually impressed by the calm, almost stern dignity of the recumbent figure.
“Go on,” he said— “What were the words?”
“These” — and Innocent spoke them in a hushed voice, with sweet reverence and feeling—”’Tonight I pull down and put away for ever the golden banner of my life’s ideal. It has been held aloft too long in the sunshine of a dream, and the lily broidered on its web is but a withered flower. My life is no longer of use to myself, but as a man and faithful knight I will make it serve another’s pleasure and another’s good. And because this good and simple girl doth truly love me, though her love was none of my seeking, I will give her her heart’s desire, though mine own heart’s desire shall never be accomplished, — I will make her my wife, and will be to her a true and loyal husband, so that she may receive from me all she craves of happiness and peace. For though I fain would die rather than wed, I know that life is not given to a man to live selfishly, nor is God satisfied to have it wasted by any one who hath sworn to be His knight and servant. Therefore even so let it be! — I give all my unvalued existence to her who doth consider it valuable, and with all my soul I pray that I may make so gentle and trustful a creature happy. But to Love — oh, to Love a long farewell! — farewell my dreams! — farewell ambition! — farewell the glory of the vision unattainable! — farewell bright splendour of an earthly Paradise! — for now I enter that prison which shall hold me fast till death release me! Close, doors! — fasten, locks! — be patient in thy silent solitude, my Soul!’”
Innocent’s voice faltered here — then she said— “That is the end. He signed it ‘Amadis.’”
Robin was very quiet for a minute or two.
“It’s pretty — very pretty and touching — and all that sort of thing,” he said at last— “but it’s like some old sonnet or mediaeval bit of romance. No one would go on like that nowadays.”
Innocent lifted her eyebrows, quizzically.
“Go on like what?”
He moved impatiently.
“Oh, about being patient in solitude with one’s soul, and saying farewell to love.” He gave a short laugh. “Innocent dear, I wish you would see the world as it really is! — not through the old-style spectacles of the Sieur Amadis! In his day people were altogether different from what they are now.”
“I’m sure they were!” she answered, quietly— “But love is the same to-day as it was then.”
He considered a moment, then smiled.
“No, dear, I’m not sure that it is,” he said. “Those knights and poets and curious people of that kind lived in a sort of imaginary ecstasy — they exaggerated their emotions and lived at the top-height of their fancies. We in our time are much more sane and level-headed. And it’s much better for us in the long run.”
She made no reply. Only very gently she withdrew her hand from his.
“I’m not a knight of old,” he went on, turning his handsome, sun-browned face towards her,— “but I’m sure I love you as much as ever the Sieur Amadis could have loved his unknown lady. So much indeed do I love you that I couldn’t write about it to save my life! — though I did write verses at Oxford once — very bad ones!” He laughed. “But I can do one thing the Sieur Amadis didn’t do — I can keep faithful to my Vision of the glory unattainable’ — and if I don’t marry you I’ll marry no-body —
so there!”
She looked at him curiously and wistfully.
“You will not be so foolish,” she said— “You will not put me into the position of the Sieur Amadis, who married some one who loved him, merely out of pity!”
He sprang up from the grass beside her.
“No, no! I won’t do that, Innocent! I’m not a coward! If you can’t love me, you shall not marry me, just because you are sorry for me! That would be intolerable! I wouldn’t have you for a wife at all under such circumstances. I shall be perfectly happy as a bachelor — perhaps happier than if I married.”
“And what about Briar Farm?” she asked.
“Briar Farm can get on as best it may!” he replied, cheerily— “I’ll work on it as long as I live and hand it down to some one worthy of it, never fear! So there, Innocent! — be happy, and don’t worry yourself! Keep to your old knight and your strange fancies about him — you may be right in your ideas of love, or you may be wrong; but the great point with me is that you should be happy — and if you cannot be happy in my way, why you must just be happy in your own!”
She looked at him with a new interest, as he stood upright, facing her in all the vigour and beauty of his young manhood. A little smile crept round the corners of her mouth.
“You are really a very handsome boy!” she said— “Quite a picture in your way! Some girl will be very proud of you!”
He gave a movement of impatience.
“I must go back to the orchard,” he said— “There’s plenty to do. And after all, work’s the finest thing in the world — quite as fine as love — perhaps finer!”
A faint sense of compunction moved her at his words — she was conscious of a lurking admiration for his cool, strong, healthy attitude towards life and the things of life. And yet she was resentful that he should be capable of considering anything in the world “finer” than love. Work? What work? Pruning trees and gathering apples? Surely there were greater ambitions than these? She watched him thoughtfully under the fringe of her long eyelashes, as he moved off.
“Going to the orchard?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She smiled a little.
“That’s right!”
He glanced back at her. Had she known how bravely he restrained himself she might have made as much a hero of him as of the knight Amadis. For he was wounded to the heart — his brightest hopes were frustrated, and at the very instant he walked away from her he would have given his life to have held her for a moment in his arms, — to have kissed her lips, and whispered to her the pretty, caressing love-nonsense which to warm and tender hearts is the sweetest language in the world. And with all his restrained passion he was irritated with what, from a man’s point of view, he considered folly on her part, — he felt that she despised his love and himself for no other reason than a mere romantic idea, bred of loneliness and too much reading of a literature alien to the customs and manners of the immediate time, and an uncomfortable premonition of fear for her future troubled his mind.
“Poor little girl!” he thought— “She does not know the world! — and when she DOES come to know it — ah, my poor Innocent! — I would rather she never knew!”
Meanwhile she, left to herself, was not without a certain feeling of regret. She was not sure of her own mind — and she had no control over her own fancies. Every now and then a wave of conviction came over her that after all tender-hearted old Priscilla might be right — that it would be best to marry Robin and help him to hold and keep Briar Farm as it had ever been kept and held since the days of the Sieur Amadis. Perhaps, had she never heard the story of her actual condition, as told her by Farmer Jocelyn on the previous night, she might have consented to what seemed so easy and pleasant a lot in life; but now it seemed to her more than impossible. She no longer had any link with the far-away ancestor who had served her so long as a sort of ideal — she was a mere foundling without any name save the unbaptised appellation of Innocent. And she regarded herself as a sort of castaway.
She went into the house soon after Robin had left her, and busied herself with sorting the linen and looking over what had to be mended. “For when I go,” she said to herself, “they must find everything in order.” She dined alone with Priscilla — Robin sent word that he was too busy to come in. She was a little piqued at this — and almost cross when he sent the same message at tea-time, — but she was proud in her way and would not go out to see if she could persuade him to leave his work for half-an-hour. The sun was slowly declining when she suddenly put down her sewing, struck by a thought which had not previously occurred to her — and ran fleetly across the garden to the orchard, where she found Robin lying on his back under the trees with closed eyes. He opened them, hearing the light movement of her feet and the soft flutter of her gown — but he did not rise. She stopped — looking at him.
“Were you asleep?”
He stretched his arms above his head, lazily.
“I believe I was!” he answered, smiling.
“And you wouldn’t come in to tea!” This with a touch of annoyance.
“Oh yes, I would, if I had wanted tea,” he replied— “but I didn’t want it.”
“Nor my company, I suppose,” she added, with a little shrug of her shoulders. His eyes flashed mischievously.
“Oh, I daresay that had something to do with it!” he agreed.
A curious vexation fretted her. She wished he would not look so handsome — and — yes! — so indifferent. An impression of loneliness and desertion came over her — he, Robin, was not the same to her now — so she fancied — no doubt he had been thinking hard all the day while doing his work, and at last had come to the conclusion that it was wisest after all to let her go and cease to care for her as he had done. A little throbbing pulse struggled in her throat — a threat of rising tears, — but she conquered the emotion and spoke in a voice which, though it trembled, was sweet and gentle.
“Robin,” she said— “don’t you think — wouldn’t it be better — perhaps—”
He looked up at her wonderingly — she seemed nervous or frightened.
“What is it?” he asked— “Anything you want me to do?”
“Yes” — and her eyes drooped— “but I hardly like to say it. You see, Dad made up his mind this morning that we were to settle things together — and he’ll be angry and disappointed—”
Robin half-raised himself on one arm.
“He’ll be angry and disappointed if we don’t settle it, you mean,” he said— “and we certainly haven’t settled it. Well?”
A faint colour flushed her face.
“Couldn’t we pretend it’s all right for the moment?” she suggested— “Just to give him a little peace of mind?”
He looked at her steadily.
“You mean, couldn’t we deceive him?”
“Yes! — for his good! He has deceived ME all my life, — I suppose for MY good — though it has turned out badly—”
“Has it? Why?”
“It has left me nameless,” she answered,— “and friendless.”
A sudden rush of tears blinded her eyes — she put her hands over them. He sprang up and, taking hold of her slender wrists, tried to draw those hands down. He succeeded at last, and looked wistfully into her face, quivering with restrained grief.
“Dear, I will do what you like!” he said. “Tell me — what is your wish?”
She waited a moment, till she had controlled herself a little.
“I thought” — she said, then— “that we might tell Dad just for to-night that we are engaged — it would make him happy — and perhaps in a week or two we might get up a quarrel together and break it off—”
Robin smiled.
“Dear little girl! — I’m afraid the plan wouldn’t work! He wants the banns put up on Sunday — and this is Wednesday.”
Her brows knitted perplexedly.
“Something can be managed before then,” she said. “Robin, I cannot bear to disappoint him!
He’s old — and he’s so ill too! — it wouldn’t hurt us for one night to say we are engaged!”
“All right!” — and Robin threw back his head and laughed joyously— “I don’t mind! The sensation of even imagining I’m engaged to you is quite agreeable! For one evening, at least, I can assume a sort of proprietorship over you! Innocent! I — I—”
He looked so mirthful and mischievous that she smiled, though the teardrops still sparkled on her lashes.
“Well? What are you thinking of now?” she asked.
“I think — I really think — under the circumstances I ought to kiss you!” he said— “Don’t you feel it would be right and proper? Even on the stage the hero and heroine ACT a kiss when they’re engaged!”
She met his laughing glance with quiet steadfastness.
“I cannot act a kiss,” she said— “You can, if you like! I don’t mind.”
“You don’t mind?”
“No.”
He looked from right to left — the apple-boughs, loaded with rosy fruit, were intertwined above them like a canopy — the sinking sun made mellow gold of all the air, and touched the girl’s small figure with a delicate luminance — his heart beat, and for a second his senses swam in a giddy whirl of longing and ecstasy — then he suddenly pulled himself together.
“Dear Innocent, I wouldn’t kiss you for the world!” he said, gently— “It would be taking a mean advantage of you. I only spoke in fun. There! — dry your pretty eyes! — you sweet, strange, romantic little soul! You shall have it all your own way!”
She drew a long breath of evident relief.
“Then you’ll tell your uncle—”
“Anything you like!” he answered. “By-the-bye, oughtn’t he to be home by this time?”
“He may have been kept by some business,” she said— “He won’t be long now. You’ll say we’re engaged?”
“Yes.”
“And perhaps” — went on Innocent— “you might ask him not to have the banns put up yet as we don’t want it known quite so soon—”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 804