Part 28 (2/2)

Next day, G.o.dfrey, once more arrayed in his best clothes, attended the prize-giving and duly was made to look foolish, only getting home just in time for dinner, after which his father requested him to check certain examination papers. Then came Sunday and church at which Isobel did not appear; two churches in fact, and after these a tea party to the churchwardens and their wives, to whom G.o.dfrey was expected to explain the wonders of the Alps. Before it was over, if he could have managed it, these stolid farmers with their families would have lain at the bottom of the deepest moraine that exists amid those famous mountains. But there they were, swallowing tea and munching cake while they gazed on him with ox-like eyes, and he plunged into wild explanations as to the movements of glaciers.

”Something like one of them new-fangled machines what carry hay up on to the top of stacks,” said Churchwarden No. 1 at length.

”Did you ever sit on a glacier while it slided from the top to the bottom of a mountain, Master G.o.dfrey, and if so, however did you get up again?” asked Churchwarden No. 2.

”Is a glacier so called after the tradesman what cuts gla.s.s, because gla.s.s and ice are both clear-like?” inquired Churchwarden No. 1, filled with sudden inspiration.

Then G.o.dfrey, in despair, said that he thought it was and fled away, only to be reproached afterwards by his father for having tried to puzzle those excellent and pious men.

On Monday his luck was better, since Mr. Knight was called away immediately after lunch to take a funeral in a distant parish of which the inc.u.mbent was absent at the seaside. G.o.dfrey, by a kind of instinct, sped at once to the willow log by the stream, where, through an outreaching of the long arm of coincidence, he found Isobel seated.

After casually remarking that the swallows were flying neither high nor low that day, but as it were in mid-air, she added that she had not seen him for a long while.

”No, you haven't--say for three years,” he answered, and detailed his tribulations.

”Ah!” said Isobel, ”that's always the way; one is never left at leisure to follow one's own fancies in this world. To-morrow, for instance, my father and all his horrible friends--I don't know any of them, except one, but from past experience I presume them to be horrible--are coming down to lunch, and are going to stop for three days' partridge shooting. Their female belongings are going to stop also, or some of them are, which means that I shall have to look after them.”

”It's all bad news to-day,” remarked G.o.dfrey, shaking his head. ”I've just had a telegram saying that I must report myself on Wednesday, goodness knows why, for I expected to get a month's leave.”

”Oh!” said Isobel, looking a little dismayed. ”Then let us make the best of to-day, for who knows what to-morrow may bring forth?”

Who indeed? Certainly not either of these young people.

They talked awhile seated by the river; then began to walk through certain ancient grazing grounds where the monks used to run their cattle. Their conversation, fluent enough at first, grew somewhat constrained and artificial, since both of them were thinking of matters different from those that they were trying to dress out in words; intimate, pressing, burning matters that seemed to devour their intelligences of everyday with a kind of eating fire. They grew almost silent, talking only at random and listening to the beating of their own hearts rather than to the words that fell from each other's lips.

The sky clouded over, and some heavy drops of rain began to fall.

”I suppose that we must go in,” said Isobel, ”we shall be soaked presently,” and she glanced at her light summer attire.

”Where?” exclaimed G.o.dfrey. ”The Abbey? No, my father will be back by now; it must be the Hall.”

”Very well, but I dare say _my_ father is there by now, for I understand that he is coming down this afternoon to arrange about the shooting.”

”Great heavens!” groaned G.o.dfrey, ”and I wanted to--tell you a story which I thought perhaps might interest you, and I don't know when I shall get another chance--now.”

”Then why did you not tell your story before?” she inquired with some irritation.

”Oh! because I have only just thought of it,” he replied rather wildly.

At this moment they were pa.s.sing the church, and the rain began to fall in earnest. By some mutual impulse they entered through the chancel door which was always unlocked, and by some mutual folly, left it open.

Advancing instinctively to the tombs of the unknown Plantagenet lady and her knight which were so intimately connected with the little events of their little lives, they listened for a while to the rush of the rain upon the leaden roof, saying nothing, till the silence grew irksome indeed. Each waited for the other to break it, but with a woman's infinite patience Isobel waited the longer. There she stood, staring at the bra.s.s of the Plantagenet lady, still as the bones of that lady which lay beneath.

”My story,” said G.o.dfrey at last with a gasp, and stopped.

”Yes,” said Isobel. ”What is it?”

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