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Notwithstanding

<h2>CHAPTER XLII</h2> <blockquote>"There are seasons in human affairs when qualities, fit enough to conduct the common business of life, are feeble and useless, when men must trust to emotion for that safety which reason at such times can never give."—Sydney Smith. </blockquote> Annette had been waked early by two young swallows which had flown into her room, and had circled swiftly round it with sharp, ecstatic cries, and then had sped out again into the dawn. She dressed, and went noiselessly into the garden, and then wandered into the long meadows that stretched in front of the house. The low slanting sunshine was piercing the mist which moved slowly along the ground, and curled up into the windless air like smoke. The dew was on everything. She wondered the blades of grass could each bear such a burden of it. Every spider's web in the hedgerow, and what numbers there seemed, all of a sudden had become a glistening silver-beaded pocket. Surely no fly, however heedless, would fly therein. And everywhere the yellow tips of the groundsel had expanded into tiny white fluffy balls of down, strewing the empty fields, floating with the floating mist. [Pg 370] But though it was early, the little world of Riff was astir. In the distance she could hear the throb of the mill, and close at hand across the lane two great yellow horses were solemnly pacing an empty clover-field, accompanied by much jingling of machinery and a boyish whistle. Men with long rakes were drawing the weeds into heaps, and wreaths of smoke mingled with the mist. The thin fires leaped and crackled, the pale flames hardly wavering in the still, sunny air. Instinctively Annette's steps turned towards the sound of the mill. She crossed the ford by the white stepping-stones, dislodging a colony of ducks preening themselves upon the biggest stone, and followed the willow-edged stream to the mill. There had been rain in the night, and the little Rieben chafed and girded against the mill-race. She watched it, as a year ago she had watched the Seine chafe against its great stone bastions. The past rose before her at the sight and sound of the water, and the crinkling and circling of the eddies of yellow foam. How unendurable her life had seemed to her on that day! And now to-day life was valueless. Once again it had been shattered like glass. She had been cast forth then. Now she was cast forth once more. She had made herself a little niche, crept into a crevice where she had thought no angel with a flaming sword would[Pg 371] find her and drive her out. But she was being driven out once more into the wilderness. She had no abiding city anywhere. From where she stood she looked past the mill to the released and pacified water circling round the village, and then stretching away, silver band beyond silver band, in the direction of Riebenbridge. The sun had vanquished the mist, and lay warmly on the clustered cottages and the grey church tower, and on the old red and blue façade of Hulver among its hollies. And very high up above it all stretched a sky of tiny shredded clouds like a flock of a thousand thousand sheep. How tranquil it all was, and how closely akin to her, how fraught with mysterious meaning!—as the kind meadows and trees ever do seem fraught where we have met Love, even the Love that is unequal, and presently passes away. She must leave it all, and she must part with Roger. She had thought of him as her husband. She had thought of the children she should bear him. She looked at the water with eyes as tearless as a year ago, and saw her happiness pass like a bubble on its surface, break like the iridescent bubble that it is on life's rough river. But the water held no temptation for her to-day. She had passed the place where we are intolerant of burdens. She saw that they are the common lot. Roger and Janey had borne theirs in patience and in silence and[Pg 372] without self-pity for years. They were her ideal, and she must try to be like them. She did not need her solemn promise to Dick to keep her from the water's edge, though her sense of desolation was greater to-day than it had been a year ago. For there had been pride and resentment in her heart then, and it is not a wounded devotion but a wounded self-love which arouses resentment in our hearts. She felt no anger to-day, no bitter sense of humiliation, but her heart ached for Roger. Something in her needed him, needed him. There was no romance now as she had once known it, no field of lilies under a new moon. Her love for Roger had gone deeper, where all love must go, if it is to survive its rainbow youth. She had thought she had found an abiding city in Roger's heart. But he had let her leave him without a word after her confession. He had not called her back. He had not written to her since. "I am not good enough for him," said Annette to herself. "That is the truth. He and Janey are too far above me." She longed for a moment that the position might have been reversed, that it might have been she who was too good for Roger—only it was unthinkable. But if he had been under some cloud, then she knew that they would not have had to part. She had reached the stile where the water meadows begin, and instinctively she stood still[Pg 373] and looked at her little world once more, and thankfulness flooded her heart. After all, Roger had come in for his inheritance, for this place which he loved so stubbornly. She was not what he thought, but if she had been, if she had never had her mad moment, if she had never gone to Fontainebleau, it was almost certain Dick would never have made his will. She had at any rate done that for Roger. Out of evil good had come—if not to her, to him. She crossed the stile, where the river bent away from the path, and then came back to it, slow and peaceful once more, whispering amid its reeds, the flurry of the mill-race all forgotten. Would she one day—when she was very old—would she also forget? Across the empty field thin smoke wreaths came drifting. Here too they had been burning the weeds. At her feet, at the water's edge, blue eyes of forget-me-not peered suddenly at her. It had no right to be in flower now. She stooped over the low bank, holding by a twisted willow branch, and reached it and put it in her bosom. And as she looked at it, it seemed to Annette that in some forgotten past she had wandered in a great peace by a stream such as this, a kind understanding stream, and she had gathered a spray of forget-me-not such as this, and had put it in her bosom, and she had met beside the stream one that loved her: and all had been well, exceeding well. A great peace enfolded her, as a mother enfolds[Pg 374] her new-born babe. She was wrapt away from pain.   Along the narrow path by the water's edge Roger was coming: now dimly seen through the curling smoke, now visible in the sunshine. Annette felt no surprise at seeing him. She had not heard of his return, but she knew now that she had been waiting for him. He came up to her and then stopped. Neither held out a hand, as they looked gravely at each other. Then he explained something about having missed the last train from Ipswich, and how he had slept there, and had come out to Riebenbridge by the first train this morning. "I have the will," he said, and touched his breast. And his eyes passed beyond her to the familiar picture he knew so well, of Riff beyond the river, and the low church tower, and the old house among the trees. He looked long at it all, and Annette saw that his inheritance was his first thought. It seemed to her natural. There were many, many women in the world, but only one Hulver. His honest, tired face quivered. "I owe it to you," he said. She did not answer. She turned with him, and they went a few steps in silence; and if she had not been wrapt away from all pain, I think she must have been wounded by his choosing that moment to tell her that the notary had[Pg 375] pronounced Hulver "Heevair," and that those French lawyers were a very ignorant lot. But he was in reality only getting ready to say something, and it was his habit to say something else while doing so. He had no fear of being banal. It was a word he had never heard. He informed her which hotel he had put up at in Ipswich, and how he had had a couple of poached eggs on arrival. Then he stopped. "Annette," he said, "of course you understood about my not writing to you, because I ought to have written." Annette said faintly, as all women must say, that she had understood. No doubt she had, but not in the sense which he imagined. "I owe it all to you," he said again, "but I shouldn't have any happiness in it unless I had you too. Annette, will you marry me?" She shook her head. But there would be no marriages at all if men took any notice of such bagatelles as that. Roger pressed stolidly forward. "I had not time to say anything the other day," he said, hurrying over what even he realized was thin ice. "You were gone all in a flash. But—but, Annette, nothing you said then makes any change in my feeling for you. I wanted to marry you before, and I want to marry you now." "Didn't they—the doctor and the notary—didn't they tell you when you saw my signature that I was—guilty?" [Pg 376] "Yes," said Roger firmly, "they did. The doctor spoke of you with great respect, but he did think so. But you have told me you were not. That is enough for me. Will you marry me, Annette?" "You are good, Roger," she said, looking at him with a great tenderness,—"good all through. That is why you think I am good too. But the will remains. My signature to it remains. That must be known when the will is proved. Mrs. Stoddart says so. She said my good name must suffer. I am afraid if I married you that you and Janey would be the only two people in Riff who would believe that I was innocent." "And is not my belief enough?" She looked at him with love unspeakable. "It is enough for me," she said, "but not for you. You would not be happy, or only for a little bit, not for long, with a wife whom every one, every one from the Bishop to the cowman, believed to be Dick's cast-off mistress." Roger set his teeth, and became his usual plum colour. "We would live it down." "No," she said. "That is the kind of thing that is never lived down—at least, not in places like this. I know enough to know that." He knew it too. He knew it better than she did. He got the will slowly out of his pocket and opened it. They looked together at her [Pg 377]signature. Roger saw it through tears of rage, and crushed the paper together again into his pocket. "Oh! Annette," he said, with a groan. "Why did you sign it?" "I did it to please Dick," she said. Across the water the church bell called to an early service. Roger looked once more at his little world, grown shadowy and indistinct in a veil of smoke. It seemed as if his happiness were fading and eddying away into thin air with the eddies of blue smoke. "We must part," said Annette. "I am sure you see that." The forget-me-not fell from her bosom, and she let it lie. He looked back at her. He had become very pale. "I see one thing," he said fiercely, "and that is that I can't live without you, and what is more, I don't mean to. If you will marry me, I'll stand the racket about the scandal. Hulver is no good to me without you. My life is no good to me without you. If you won't marry me, I'll marry no one, so help me God. If you won't take me, I shall never have any happiness at all. So now you know!—with your talk of parting." She did not answer. She stooped and picked up the forget-me-not again, and put it back in her bosom. Perhaps she thought that was an answer. "Annette," he said slowly, "do you care[Pg 378] for me enough to marry me and live here with me? You as my wife and Hulver as my home are the two things I want. But that is all very well for me. The scandal will fall worst on you. If I can stand it, can you?" "Yes." "It will come very hard on you, Annette." "I don't mind." "I shan't be able to shield you from evil tongues. There is not a soul in the village that won't end by knowing, sooner or later. And they think all the world of you now. Can you bear all this—for my sake?" "Yes." "And yet you're crying, Annette." "I was thinking about the aunts. They will feel it so dreadfully, and so will Mrs. Nicholls. I'm very fond of Mrs. Nicholls." He caught her to him and kissed her passionately. "Do you never think of yourself?" he stammered. "You chucked your name away to please poor Dick. And you're ready to marry me and brave it out—to please me." "You are enough for me, Roger." She clung to him. He trembled exceedingly, and wrenched himself away from her. "Am I? Am I enough? A man who would put you through such a thing, even if you're willing, Annette. You stick at nothing. You're willing. But—by God—I'm not." [Pg 379] She looked dumbly at him, with anguish in her violet eyes. She thought he was going to discard her after all. "I thought I wanted Hulver more than anything in the world," he said wildly, tearing the will out of his pocket, "but the price is too high. My wife's good name. I won't pay it. Annette, I will not pay it." And he strode to the nearest bonfire and flung the will into it. The smoke eddied, and blew suddenly towards them. The fire hesitated a moment, and then, as Annette gazed stupefied, a little flame curled busily along the open sheet. Before he knew she had moved, she had rushed past him, and had thrust her hands into the fire and torn out the burning paper. The flame ran nimbly up her arm, devouring her thin sleeve, and he had only just time to beat it out with his hands before it reached her hair. He drew her out of the smoke and held her forcibly. She panted hard, sobbing a little. The will gripped tight in her hand was pressed against her breast and his. "Annette!" he said hoarsely, over and over again. Still holding the will fast, she drew away from him, and opened it with trembling, bleeding fingers, staining the sheet. "It is safe," she said. "It's safe. It's only scorched. You can see the writing quite clear through the brown. Look, Roger, but you mustn't touch it. I can't trust you to touch[Pg 380] it. It is safe. Only the bottom of the sheet is burnt where there wasn't anything written. Look! Dick's name is there, and the doctor's, and the notary's. Only mine is gone.... Oh, Roger! Now my name is gone, the will is—just about right, isn't it?" Roger drew in his breath, and looked at the blood-smeared, smoke-stained page. "It is all right now," he said in a strangled voice. And then he suddenly fell on his knees and hid his convulsed face in her gown. "You mustn't cry, Roger. And you mustn't kiss the hem of my gown. Indeed, you mustn't. It makes me ashamed. Nor my hands: they're quite black. Oh! how my poor Roger cries!"   THE END <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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