Part 34 (1/2)

He was told she was in the garden, and he was glad to dispense with the servant's a.s.sistance; he would find his way there himself, and, after some searching, he found the wicket. The thing itself and its name pleased him. When he had a garden he would have a wicket. He had already begun to a.s.sociate Ellen with her garden. She was never so much herself as when attending her flowers, and to please her he had affected an interest in them, but when he had said that the flowers were beautiful his eyes went to the garden walls and Ellen had seen that they had interested him more than the flowers. He had said that the b.u.t.tresses were of no use; they had been built because in those days people took a pleasure in making life seem permanent. The b.u.t.tresses had enabled him to admire the roses planted between them, and he had grown enthusiastic; but she had laughed at his enthusiasm, seeing quite clearly that he admired the flowers because they enhanced the beauty of the walls.

At the end of the garden there was a view of the Dublin mountains, and the long walk that divided the garden had been designed in order to draw attention to them. The contrast between the wild mountain and the homely primness of the garden appealed to his sense of the picturesque; and even now though the fate of his life was to be decided in a few minutes he could not but stay to admire the mysterious crests and hollows. In this faint day the mountains seemed more like living things, more mysterious and moving, than he had even seen them before, and he would have stood looking at them for a long while if he had not had to find Ellen. She was at the furthest end of the garden, where he had never been, beyond the rosary, beyond the gra.s.s-plot, and she was walking up and down. She seemed to have a fis.h.i.+ng-net in her hand. But how could she be fis.h.i.+ng in her garden? Ned did not know that there was a stream at the end of it; for the place had once belonged to monks, and they knew how to look after their bodily welfare and had turned the place into a trout preserve. But when Mr. Cronin had bought the property the garden was waste and the stream overgrown with willow-weed and meadow-sweet and every kind of brier. And it was Ellen who had discovered that the bottom of the stream was flagged and she had five feet of mud taken out of it, and now the stream was as bright and clear as in the time of the monks, and as full of trout. She had just caught two which lay on the gra.s.s panting, their speckled bellies heaving painfully.

”There is a great big trout here,” Ellen said, ”he must be a pound weight, and we tried to catch him all last season, but he is very cunning, he dives and gets under the net.”

”I think we shall be able to catch him,” said Ned, ”if he is in the stream and if I could get another net.”

”The gardener will give you one.”

And presently Ned came back with a net, and they beat up the stream from different ends, Ellen taking the side next the wall. There was a path there nearly free from briers, and she held her light summer dress round her tightly. Ned thought he had never seen anyone so prettily dressed. She wore a striped muslin variegated with pink flowers; there were black bows in her hat and black ribbon was run down the bottom of her dress; she looked very pretty against the old wall touched here and there with ivy. And the grace of her movement enchanted Ned when she leaned forward and prevented the trout from escaping up the stream. But Ned's side of the stream was overgrown with briers and he could not make his way through them. Once he very nearly slipped into the stream, and only saved himself by catching some p.r.i.c.kly briers, and Ellen had to come over to take the thorns out of his hand. Then they resumed their fis.h.i.+ng, hunting the trout up and down the stream. But the trout had been hunted so often that he knew how to escape the nets, and dived at the right moment. At last wearied out he let Ned drive him against the bank. Ellen feared he would jump out of the net at the last moment, but he was tired and they landed him safely.

And proud of having caught him they sat down beside him on the gra.s.s and Ellen said that the gardener and the gardener's boy had tried to catch him many times; that whenever they had company to dinner her father said it was a pity they had not the big trout on the table.

The fis.h.i.+ng had been great fun, princ.i.p.ally on account of Ellen's figure, which Ned admired greatly, and now he admired her profile, its gravity appealed to him, and her att.i.tude full of meditation. He watched her touching the gasping trout with the point of her parasol.

She had drawn one leg under her. Her eyes were small and grey and gem-like, and there was a sweet look of interrogation in them now and then.

”I like it, this l.u.s.treless day,” said Ned, ”and those swallows pursuing their food up and down the l.u.s.treless sky. It all seems like a fairy-tale, this catching of the fish, you and I. The day so dim,” he said, ”so quiet and low, and the garden is hushed. These things would be nothing to me were it not for you,” and he put his hand upon her knee.

She withdrew her knee quickly and a moment after got up, and Ned got up and followed her across the gra.s.s-plot, and through the rosary; not a word was said and she began to wonder he did not plead to be forgiven.

She felt she should send him away, but she could not find words to tell him to go. His conduct was so unprecedented; no one had ever taken such a liberty before. It was shameful that she was not more angry, for she knew she was only trying to feel angry.

”But,” he said, suddenly, as if he divined her thoughts, ”we've forgotten the fish; won't you come back and help me to carry them? I cannot carry three trout by myself.”

She was about to answer severely, but as she stood looking at him her thoughts yielded before an extraordinary feeling of delight; she tried in vain to collect her scattered mind--she wished to reproach him.

”Are you going to answer me, Ellen?” and he took her hand.

”Ned, are you a Catholic?” she said, turning suddenly.

”I was born one, but I have thought little about religion. I have had other things to think about. What does it matter? Religion doesn't help us to love one another.”

”I should like you better if you were a good Catholic.”

”I wonder how that is?” he said, and he admired the round hand and its pretty articulations, and she closed her hand on his with a delicious movement.

”I could like you better, Ned, if you were a Catholic.... I think I could.”

”What has my being a good Catholic got to do with your love of me?”

And he watched the small and somewhat severe profile looking across the old grey wall into the flat grey sky.

”I did not say I loved you,” she said, almost angrily; ”but if I did love you,” she said, looking at him tenderly, ”and you were religious, I should be loving something eternal. You don't understand what I mean?

What I am saying to you must seem like nonsense.”

”No, it doesn't, Ellen, only I am content with the reality. I can love you without wings.”

He watched for the look of annoyance in her face that he knew his words would provoke, but her face was turned away.

”I like you, but I am afraid of you. It is a very strange feeling. You ran away with a circus and you let the lion die and you went to fight in Cuba. You have loved other women, and I have never loved anyone. I never cared for a man until I saw you, until I looked up from the alb.u.m.”