Part 19 (1/2)

DRIFTING

On the day following their religious discussion an accident happened which resulted in Geoffrey and Beatrice being more than ever thrown in the company of each other. During the previous week two cases of scarlatina had been reported among the school children, and now it was found that the complaint had spread so much that it was necessary to close the school. This meant, of course, that Beatrice had all her time upon her hands. And so had Geoffrey. It was his custom to bathe before breakfast, after which he had nothing to do for the rest of the day.

Beatrice with little Effie also bathed before breakfast from the ladies'

bathing-place, a quarter of a mile off, and sometimes he would meet her as she returned, glowing with health and beauty like Venus new risen from the Cyprian sea, her half-dried hair hanging in heavy ma.s.ses down her back. Then after breakfast they would take Effie down to the beach, and her ”auntie,” as the child learned to call Beatrice, would teach her lessons and poetry till she was tired, and ran away to paddle in the sea or look for prawns among the rocks.

Meanwhile the child's father and Beatrice would talk--not about religion, they spoke no more on that subject, nor about Owen Davies, but of everything else on earth. Beatrice was a merry woman when she was happy, and they never lacked subjects of conversation, for their minds were very much in tune. In book-learning Beatrice had the advantage of Geoffrey, for she had not only read enormously, she also remembered what she read and could apply it. Her critical faculty, too, was very keen.

He, on the other hand, had more knowledge of the world, and in his rich days had travelled a good deal, and so it came to pa.s.s that each could always find something to tell the other. Never for one second were they dull, not even when they sat for an hour or so in silence, for it was the silence of complete companions.h.i.+p.

So the long morning would wear away all too quickly, and they would go in to dinner, to be greeted with a cold smile by Elizabeth and heartily enough by the old gentleman, who never thought of anything out of his own circle of affairs. After dinner it was the same story. Either they went walking to look for ferns and flowers, or perhaps Geoffrey took his gun and hid behind the rocks for curlew, sending Beatrice, who knew the coast by heart, a mile round or more to some headland in order to put them on the wing. Then she would come back, springing towards him from rock to rock, and crouch down beneath a neighbouring seaweed-covered boulder, and they would talk together in whispers, or perhaps they would not talk at all, for fear lest they should frighten the flighting birds.

And Geoffrey would first search the heavens for curlew or duck, and, seeing none, would let his eyes fall upon the pure beauty of Beatrice's face, showing so clearly against the tender sky, and wonder what she was thinking about; till, suddenly feeling his gaze, she would turn with a smile as sweet as the first rosy blush of dawn upon the waters, and ask him what _he_ was thinking about. And he would laugh and answer ”You,”

whereon she would smile again and perhaps blush a little, feeling glad at heart, she knew not why.

Then came tea-time and the quiet, when they sat at the open window, and Geoffrey smoked and listened to the soft surging of the sea and the harmonious whisper of the night air in the pines. In the corner Mr.

Granger slept in his armchair, or perhaps he had gone to bed altogether, for he liked to go to bed at half-past eight, as the old Herefords.h.i.+re farmer, his father, had done before him; and at the far end of the room sat Elizabeth, doing her accounts by the light of a solitary candle, or, if they failed her, reading some book of a devotional and inspired character. But over the edge of the book, or from the page of crabbed accounts, her eyes would glance continually towards the handsome pair in the window-place, and she would smile as she saw that it went well. Only they never saw the glances or noted the smile. When Geoffrey looked that way, which was not often, for Elizabeth--old Elizabeth, as he always called her to himself--did not attract him, all he saw was her sharp but capable-looking form bending over her work, and the light of the candle gleaming on her straw-coloured hair and falling in gleaming white patches on her hard knuckles.

And so the happy day would pa.s.s and bed-time come, and with it unbidden dreams.

Geoffrey thought no ill of all this, as of course he ought to have thought. He was not the ravening lion of fiction--so rarely, if ever, to be met with in real life--going about seeking whom he might devour. He had absolutely no designs on Beatrice's affections, any more than she had on his, and he had forgotten that first fell prescience of evil to come. Once or twice, it is true, qualms of doubt did cross his mind in the earlier days of their intimacy. But he put them by as absurd. He was no believer in the tender helplessness of full-grown women, his experience having been that they are amply capable--and, for the most part, more than capable--of looking after themselves. It seemed to him a thing ridiculous that such a person as Beatrice, who was competent to form opinions and a judgment upon all the important questions of life, should be treated as a child, and that he should remove himself from Bryngelly lest her young affections should become entangled. He felt sure that they would never be entrapped in any direction whatsoever without her full consent.

Then he ceased to think about the matter at all. Indeed, the mere idea of such a thing involved a supposition that would only have been acceptable to a conceited man--namely, that there was a possibility of this young lady's falling in love with him. What right had he to suppose anything of the sort? It was an impertinence. That there was another sort of possibility--namely, of his becoming more attached to her than was altogether desirable--did, however, occur to him once or twice. But he shrugged his shoulders and put it by. After all, it was his look out, and he did not much care. It would do her no harm at the worst. But very soon all these shadowy forebodings of dawning trouble vanished quite.

They were lost in the broad, sweet lights of friends.h.i.+p. By-and-by, when friends.h.i.+p's day was done, they might arise again, called by other names and wearing a sterner face.

It was ridiculous--of course it was ridiculous; he was not going to fall in love like a boy at his time of life; all he felt was grat.i.tude and interest--all she felt was amus.e.m.e.nt in his society. As for the intimacy--felt rather than expressed--the intimacy that could already almost enable the one to divine the other's thought, that could shape her mood to his and his to hers, that could cause the same thing of beauty to be a common joy, and discover unity of mind in opinions the most opposite--why, it was only natural between people who had together pa.s.sed a peril terrible to think of. So they took the goods the G.o.ds provided, and drifted softly on--whither they did not stop to inquire.

One day, however, a little incident happened that ought to have opened the eyes of both. They had arranged, or rather there was a tacit understanding, that they should go out together in the afternoon.

Geoffrey was to take his gun and Beatrice a book, but it chanced that, just before dinner, as she walked back from the village, where she had gone to buy some thread to mend Effie's clothes, Beatrice came face to face with Mr. Davies. It was their first meeting without witnesses since the Sunday of which the events have been described, and, naturally, therefore, rather an awkward one. Owen stopped short so that she could not pa.s.s him with a bow, and then turned and walked beside her. After a remark or two about the weather, the springs of conversation ran dry.

”You remember that you are coming up to the Castle this afternoon?” he said, at length.

”To the Castle!” she answered. ”No, I have heard nothing of it.”

”Did not your sister tell you she made an engagement for herself and you a week or more ago? You are to bring the little girl; she wants to see the view from the top of the tower.”

Then Beatrice remembered. Elizabeth had told her, and she had thought it best to accept the situation. The whole thing had gone out of her mind.

”Oh, I beg your pardon! I do remember now, but I have made another plan--how stupid of me!”

”You had forgotten,” he said in his heavy voice; ”it is easy for you to forget what I have been looking forward to for a whole week. What is your plan--to go out walking with Mr. Bingham, I suppose?”

”Yes,” answered Beatrice, ”to go out with Mr. Bingham.”

”Ah! you go out with Mr. Bingham every day now.”

”And what if I do?” said Beatrice quickly; ”surely, Mr. Davies, I have a right to go out with whom I like?”

”Yes, of course; but the engagement to come to the Castle was made first; are you not going to keep it?”

”Of course I am going to keep it; I always keep my engagements when I have any.”