Merry Go Round (3 page)

And now Miss Langton took no pleasure in the quiet close where before she had delighted to linger; the old cathedral, weather-beaten, grey and lovely, no longer gave its accustomed message of resignation and of hope. She took to walking
far into the country, but the meadows, bespangled with buttercups in spring, the woods, with their autumnal russet, but increased her uneasiness; and most willingly she went to a hill from which at no great distance could be seen the shining sea, and for a moment its immensity comforted her restless heart. Sometimes at sundown over the slate grey of the western clouds was spread a great dust of red gold that swept down upon the silent water like the train of a goddess of fire; and presently, thrusting through sombre cumuli, like a Titan breaking his prison walls, the sun shone forth, a giant sphere of copper. With almost a material effort it seemed to push aside the thronging darkness, filling the whole sky with brilliancy; and then over the placid sea was stretched a broad roadway of unearthly fire, upon which might travel the mystical, passionate souls of men, endlessly, to the source of the deathless light. Bella Langton turned away with a sob and walked back slowly the way she came. Before her in the valley the grey houses of Tercanbury clustered about the tall cathedral, but its ancient beauty pressed her heart with bands of pain.

Then came the spring: the fields were gay with flowers, a vernal carpet whereon with delicate feet might walk the angels of Messer Perugino, and she could bear the agony no longer; in every hedgerow, on every tree, the birds sang with infinite variety, singing the joy of life and the beauty of the rain and the glorious sunshine. They told her one and all that the world was young and beautiful, but the time of man so short that every hour of it must be lived as though it were the last.

When a friend asked her to spend a month in Brittany, sick of her inaction, she accepted eagerly. To travel might ease her aching heart, and the fatigue of the journey allay that springing of the limbs which made her feel apt for hazardous undertakings. Alone the two ladies wandered along that rugged coast. They stayed at Carnac, but the mysterious antique stones suggested only the nothingness of life; man came and went, with hope and longing, and left the signs of his dim faith to be a mystery to succeeding ages; they went to Le Faouet, where the painted windows of the ruined church of Saint Fiacre gleam like precious stones: but the restful charm of these
scenes had no message for a heart thirsting for life and the love that quickens. They passed to the famous calvaries of Plougastel and Saint Thégonnec; and those grim crosses, with their stone processions, (the effort at beauty of a race bowed down by the sense of sin), oppressed her under that grey western sky with dismay: they suggested only death and the grave's despair, but she was full of expectation, of longing for she knew not what. It seemed to her as though, she knew not how, she were sailing on that dark silent sea of which the mystics speak, where the common rules of life availed not. Travel gave her nothing that she sought, but increased rather her unquiet; her hands itched for work to do, and she went back to Tercanbury,

A
T
last, one afternoon of that very summer, after the vesper service in the cathedral, Miss Langton, wandering listlessly towards the door, saw a young man seated at the back of the nave; it was late, so that he and she seemed to possess that vast building by themselves. With glowing eyes he stared into vacancy, as though his own thoughts blinded him to the Gothic loveliness about him, and his eyes were singularly dark. His hair was fair, and his face, womanlike in its transparent delicacy of skin, was thin and oval. Presently a verger went to him saying that the cathedral would be closed, and as he rose, paying no other attention to the man's words, he passed within a yard of Bella, but in his abstraction saw her not. She thought no more of him, but on the following Saturday, going, as was her habit, to the afternoon service, she saw the youth again, seated as before in the furthermost part of the nave, well away both from sightseers and from devout. A curiosity she did not understand impelled her to remain there rather than go into the choir, separated from the nave by an elaborate screen, where by right of her dignity a seat was reserved for her not far from her father's decanal stall.

The boy, for he was little more, this time was reading a book, which she noticed was written in verse; now and again, with a smile, he threw back his head, and she imagined he repeated to himself a line that pleased him. The service began, softened by distance so that the well-known forms gained a new mystery; the long notes of the organ pealed reverberating along the vaulted roof, or wailed softly, like the voice of a young child, among the lofty columns. At intervals the choir gave a richer depth to the organ music, and it was so broken and deadened by obstructing stone that it sounded vaguely like the surging of the sea. Presently this ceased, and a tenor's voice, the pride of the cathedral, rang out alone; and as though the
magic sound had power over all material obstacles, the melody of the old-fashioned anthem – her father loved the undecorated music of a past age – rose towards heaven in a sobbing prayer. The book fell from the young man's hand, and an eager look came into his face as he drank in the silver harmonies; his face was transfigured with ecstasy so that it resembled the face of some pictured saint glorified by a mystic vision of the celestial light. And then, falling on his knees, he buried his face in his hands, and Bella saw that with all his soul he prayed to a God that gave men ears to hear and eyes to see the beauty of the world. What was there in the sight that made her own heart beat with a new emotion?

And when he sat once more on his chair there was a look in his face of exquisite content, and a smile of happiness trembled on his lips, so that Bella turned sick with envy. What power was there in his soul that gave a magic colour to things that left her, for all her striving, still untouched? She waited till he walked slowly out, and, seeing him nod to the verger at the door, asked who he was.

'I don't know, miss,' was the answer; 'he comes here every Saturday and Sunday regular. But he never goes into the choir. He just sits there in the corner where no one can see him, and reads a book. I don't interfere with him, because he's very quiet and respectful.'

Bella could not tell why she thought so often of the fair-haired youth who had never so much as noticed her presence, nor why, on the Sunday that followed, she went again to the nave awaiting his appearance. Observing him more closely, she noticed the slimness of his figure and the shapely length of his hands, which seemed to touch things with a curious delicacy; once their eyes met, and his were blue like the summer sea in Italy, and deep. A somewhat nervous woman, she would never have ventured to address a stranger, but the candid simplicity of his expression, in which strangely there was also a certain appealing pathos, overcame her shyness, overcame also her sense of the impropriety of making friends with a person about whom she knew nothing. Some hidden intuition told her that she was arrived at a turning-point in her life, and courage now
was needed to seize with both hands a new happiness; and as though the very stars were favourable there had occurred to her a way to scrape acquaintance. Excited, for it seemed very adventurous, she waited impatiently for Saturday, and then, asking her favourite verger for his keys, after the service went boldly to the youth whose name even she did not know.

'Would you like me to take you over the cathedral?' she asked without a word of introduction. 'We can go round alone, and it's very pleasant without the chatter of vergers and the hurry of a crowd.'

He blushed to the very roots of his hair when she spoke, but then smiled charmingly.

'It's very kind of you,' he answered; 'I've wanted to do that always.'

His voice was pleasant and low, and he showed no surprise whatever; but all the same Bella, now somewhat startled by her own audacity, thought it needful to explain why she ventured the suggestion.

'I've seen you here very often, and it struck me that you would like to see the cathedral at its best. But I'm afraid you must put up with me.'

He smiled again, and appeared now to take note of her for the first time. Bella, looking straight in front of her, felt his eyes rest thoughtfully on her face, and suddenly she seemed to herself old and lined and dowdy.

'What book is that you have?' she asked, to break the silence.

Without speaking he gave it her, and she saw it was a little collection, evidently much read, for the binding scarcely held the leaves together, of Shelley's lyrical poems.

Bella unlocked the gate that led into the apse, and locked it again behind her.

'Isn't it delightful to feel one's self alone here?' he cried, and with springing step and smiling eyes walked forwards.

At first he was a little shy, but presently the spirit of the place, with its dark chapels and stone knights recumbent, the tracery of its jewelled windows, loosened his tongue, and he poured forth his boyish enthusiasm with a passion that astonished Bella. His delight communicated itself to her so that
she found a new enchantment in the things she knew so well; his glowing poetic fervour seemed to gild the old walls with magic sunshine; and, as if those prisoned stones were strangely thrown open to heaven, they gained something of the outer freshness of green lawns and flowers and leafy trees: the warm breath of the west wind stole among the Gothic columns, lending a new splendour to the ancient glass, and to the groinery a more living charm. The boy's cheeks were flushed with excitement, and Bella's heart beat as she listened, enchanted with his pleasure; he gesticulated a good deal, and under the movements of his long exquisite hands (her own, for all her well-bred ancestry, were short, thick-set and ungraceful) the past of the mighty church rose before her, so that she heard the clank of steel when knights in armour marched over the still flags, and saw with vivid eyes that historic scene when the gentlemen of Kent in gaily hose and doublet, the ladies with ruff and farthingale, assembled to praise the God of storm and battle because Howard of Effingham had scattered the armada of King Philip.

'Now let's go into the cloister,' he said eagerly.

They sat on a stone parapet looking out on the cool green sward where in time past Augustine monks had wandered meditative; there was a dainty gracefulness about the arcade, with the slender columns, their capitals delicately carved, recalling somewhat the cloisters of Italy, which, notwithstanding their cypress-trees and their crumbling decay, suggest a peaceful happiness rather than the Northern sense of stricken sin. The boy, though he knew the magic of the South only from books and pictures, was quick to catch the impression, and his face expressed a rather pitiful longing. When Bella told him she had travelled in Italy, he questioned her eagerly, and his young enthusiasm gave a warmth to her answers which with any other, fearing to be ridiculous, she would carefully have suppressed. But the scene before them was very lovely; in massive splendour the tall central tower looked down upon them, and its stately beauty entered their souls, so that the youth, though he had never seen the monasteries of Tuscany, was comforted. They sat for a while in silence.

'You must be a very important person,' he said at last, turning to her, 'or we should never be allowed to remain here so long.'

'I dare say to a verger I am,' she answered, smiling. 'It must be late.'

'Won't you come and have tea with me?' he asked. 'I have rooms just opposite the cathedral gate.' Then, catching Bella's look, he added with a smile: 'My name is Herbert Field, and I'm eminently respectable.'

She hesitated, for it seemed odd to drink tea with a youth whom she had never seen before, but she was mortally afraid of seeming prudish; and a visit to his rooms, whereby she might learn more about him, would add a finish to the adventure. Finally her sense decided her that living life, not mere existence, for once lay under her hand.

'Do come,' he said; 'I want to show you my books.'

And with a little persuasive motion he touched her hand.

'I should like it very much.'

He took her to a tiny room over a chemist's shop, simply furnished as a study, with a low ceiling and panelled walls: these were decorated with a few photographs of pictures by Pietro Perugino, and there were a good many books.

'It's rather poky, I'm afraid, but I live here, so that I can always see the gateway. I think it's one of the finest things in Tercanbury.'

He made her sit down while he boiled water and cut bread-and-butter. Bella, at first somewhat intimidated by the novelty of the affair, was a little formal; but the boy's manifest delight in her presence affected her so that she became gay and light-hearted. Then he displayed a new side of his character: the rather strenuous passion for the beautiful was momentarily put aside and he showed himself quite absurdly boyish. His laughter rang out joyously, and, feeling less shy now that Miss Langton was his guest, he talked unrestrainedly of a hundred topics that sprang up one after another in his mind.

'Will you have a cigarette?' he asked when they had finished their tea, and, on Bella's laughing refusal: 'You don't mind if I smoke, do you? I can talk better.'

He drew their chairs to the open window, so that they could look at the massive masonry before them, and, as though he had known Bella all his life, chattered on. But when at last she rose to go, his eyes grew suddenly grave and sad.

'I shall see you again, shan't I? I don't want to lose you now I've found you so strangely.'

Really he was asking Miss Langton to make an assignation, but by now the Dean's daughter had thrown all caution to the winds.

'I dare say we shall meet sometime in the cathedral.'

Womanlike, though she meant to grant all he desired, she would not give in too quickly.

'Oh, that won't do,' he insisted. 'I can't wait a week before seeing you again.'

Bella smiled at him while he looked eagerly into her eyes, holding her hand very firmly, as though till she made some promise he would never let it go.

'Let's take a walk in the country tomorrow,' he said.

'Very well,' she replied, telling herself that there could be no harm in going with a boy twenty years younger than herself. 'I shall be at the Westgate at half-past five.'

But the evening brought counsels of prudence, and Miss Langton wrote a note to say that she had forgotten an engagement, and was afraid she could not come. Yet it left her irresolute, and more than once she reproached herself because from sheer timidity she would cause Herbert Field the keenest disappointment. She told herself sophistically that perhaps, owing to the Sunday delivery, the letter had not reached him, and, fearing he would go to the Westgate and not understand her absence, persuaded herself that it was needful to go there and explain in person why she could not take the promised walk.

The Westgate was an ancient, handsome pile of masonry which in the old days had marked the outer wall of Tercanbury, and even now, though on one side houses had been built, a road to the left led directly into the country. When Bella arrived, somewhat early, Herbert was already waiting for her, and he looked peculiarly young in his straw hat.

'Didn't you get a note from me?' she asked.

'Yes,' he answered, smiling.

'Then why did you come?'

'Because I thought you might change your mind. I didn't altogether believe in the engagement. I wanted you so badly that I fancied you couldn't help yourself. I felt you must come.'

'And if I hadn't?'

'Well, I should have waited. ... Don't be horrid. Look at the sunshine calling us. Yesterday we had the grey stones of the cathedral; today we've got the green fields and the trees. Don't you feel the west wind murmuring delicious things?'

Bella looked at him, and could not resist the passionate appeal of his eyes.

'I suppose I must do as you choose,' she answered.

And together they set off. Miss Langton, convinced that her interest was no less maternal than when she gave jellies to some motherless child, knew not that Dan Cupid, laughing at her subterfuge, danced gleefully about them and shot his silver arrows. They sauntered by a gentle stream that ran northward to the sea, shaded by leafy willows; and the country on that July afternoon was fresh and scented: the cut hay, drying, gave out an exquisite perfume, and the birds were hushed.

'I'm glad you live in the Deanery,' he said; 'I shall like to think of you seated in that beautiful garden.'

'Have you ever seen it?'

'No; but I can imagine what it is like behind that old red wall, the shady lawns and the roses. There must be masses of roses now.'

The Dean was known as an enthusiast for that royal flower, and his blossoms at the local show were the wonder of the town. They went on, and soon, half unconsciously, as though he sought protection from the hard world, Herbert put his arm in hers. Bella blushed a little, but had not the heart to withdraw; she was strangely flattered at the confidence he showed. Very discreetly she questioned him, and with perfect simplicity he told of his parents' long struggle to give him an education above their state.