Part 10 (2/2)

Soon afterwards he look to doing more than merely listening there. He watched her habits, observed her hours, and waited to catch a glimpse of her.

In all this he was very careful not to be seen.

The year advanced; the time came when the trellises were heavy with roses, and haunted by the b.u.t.terflies. By little and little, he had come to conceal himself for hours behind her wall, motionless and silent, seen by no one, and holding his breath as Deruchette pa.s.sed in and out of her garden. Men grow accustomed to poison by degrees.

From his hiding-place he could often hear the sound of Deruchette conversing with Mess Lethierry under a thick arch of leaves, in a spot where there was a garden-seat. The words came distinctly to his ears.

What a change had come over him! He had even descended to watch and listen. Alas! there is something of the character of a spy in every human heart.

There was another garden-seat, visible to him, and nearer Deruchette would sit there sometimes.

From the flowers that he had observed her gathering he had guessed her taste in the matter of perfumes. The scent of the bindweed was her favourite, then the pink, then the honeysuckle, then the jasmine. The rose stood only fifth in the scale. She looked at the lilies, but did not smell them.

Gilliatt figured her in his imagination from this choice of odours. With each perfume he a.s.sociated some perfection.

The very idea of speaking to Deruchette would have made his hair stand on end. A poor old rag-picker, whose wandering brought her, from time to time, into the little road leading under the inclosure of the Bravees, had occasionally remarked Gilliatt's a.s.siduity beside the wall, and his devotion for this retired spot. Did she connect the presence of a man before this wall with the possibility of a woman behind it? Did she perceive that vague, invisible thread? Was she, in her decrepit mendicancy, still youthful enough to remember something of the old happier days? And could she, in this dark night and winter of her wretched life, still recognise the dawn? We know not: but it appears that, on one occasion, pa.s.sing near Gilliatt at his post, she brought to bear upon him something as like a smile as she was still capable of, and muttered between her teeth, ”It is getting warmer.”

Gilliatt heard the words, and was struck by them. ”It warms one,” he muttered, with an inward note of interrogation. ”It is getting warmer.”

What did the old woman mean?

He repeated the phrase mechanically all day, but he could not guess its meaning.

III

THE AIR ”BONNIE DUNDEE” FINDS AN ECHO ON THE HILL

It was in a spot behind the enclosure of the garden of the Bravees, at an angle of the wall, half concealed with holly and ivy, and covered with nettles, wild mallow, and large white mullen growing between the blocks of stone, that he pa.s.sed the greater part of that summer. He watched there, lost in deep thought. The lizards grew accustomed to his presence, and basked in the sun among the same stones. The summer was bright and full of dreamy indolence: overhead the light clouds came and went. Gilliatt sat upon the gra.s.s. The air was full of the songs of birds. He held his two hands up to his forehead, sometimes trying to recollect himself: ”Why should she write my name in the snow?” From a distance the sea breeze came up in gentle breaths, at intervals the horn of the quarrymen sounded abruptly, warning the pa.s.sers-by to take shelter, as they shattered some ma.s.s with gunpowder. The Port of St.

Sampson was not visible from this place, but he could see the tips of masts above the trees. The sea-gulls flew wide and afar. Gilliatt had heard his mother say that women could love men; that such things happened sometimes. He remembered it; and said within himself, ”Who knows, may not Deruchette love me?” Then a feeling of sadness would come upon him; he would say, ”She, too, thinks of me in her turn. It is well.” He remembered that Deruchette was rich, and that he was poor: and then the new boat appeared to him an execrable invention. He could never remember what day of the month it was. He would stare listlessly at the great bees, with their yellow bodies and their short wings, as they entered with a buzzing noise into the holes in the wall.

One evening Deruchette went in-doors to retire to bed. She approached her window to close it. The night was dark. Suddenly, something caught her ear, and she listened. Somewhere in the darkness there was a sound of music. It was some one, perhaps, on the hill-side, or at the foot of the towers of Vale Castle, or, perhaps, further still, playing an air upon some instrument. Deruchette recognised her favourite melody, ”Bonnie Dundee,” played upon the bagpipe. She thought little of it.

From that night the music might be heard again from time to time at the same hours, particularly when the nights were very dark.

Deruchette was not much pleased with all this.

IV

”A serenade by night may please a lady fair, But of uncle and of guardian let the troubadour beware.”

_Unpublished Comedy_

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