George Gissing
In the Year of Jubilee
Thus, for half an hour and more, they strolled on by upward ways, until Teignmouth lay beneath them, and the stillness of meadows all about. Presently Tarrant led from the beaten road into a lane all but overgrown with grass. He began to gather flowers, and offered them to Nancy. Personal conversation seemed at an end; they were enjoying the brilliant sky and the peaceful loveliness of earth. They exchanged simple, natural thoughts, or idle words in which was no thought at all.
Before long, they came to an old broken gate, half open; it was the entrance to a narrow cartway, now unused, which descended windingly between high thick hedges. Ruts of a foot in depth, baked hard by summer, showed how miry the track must be in the season of rain.
‘This is our way,’ said Tarrant, his hand on the lichened wood. ‘Better than the pier or the promenade, don’t you think?’
‘But we have gone far enough.’
Nancy drew back into the lane, looked at her flowers, and then shaded her eyes with them to gaze upward.
‘Almost. Another five minutes, and you will see the place I told you of. You can’t imagine how beautiful it is.’
‘Another day—’
‘We are all but there—’
He seemed regretfully to yield; and Nancy yielded in her turn. She felt a sudden shame in the thought of having perhaps betrayed timidity. Without speaking, she passed the gate.
The hedge on either side was of hazel and dwarf oak, of hawthorn and blackthorn, all intertwined with giant brambles, and with briers which here and there met overhead. High and low, blackberries hung in multitudes, swelling to purple ripeness. Numberless the trailing and climbing plants. Nancy’s skirts rustled among the greenery; her cheeks were touched, as if with a caress, by many a drooping branchlet; in places, Tarrant had to hold the tangle above her while she stooped to pass.
And from this they emerged into a small circular space, where the cartway made a turn at right angles and disappeared behind thickets. They were in the midst of a plantation; on every side trees closed about them, with a low and irregular hedge to mark the borders of the grassy road. Nancy’s eyes fell at once upon a cluster of magnificent foxgloves, growing upon a bank which rose to the foot of an old elm; beside the foxgloves lay a short-hewn trunk, bedded in the ground, thickly overgrown with mosses, lichens, and small fungi.
‘Have I misled you?’ said Tarrant, watching her face with frank pleasure.
‘No, indeed you haven’t. This is very beautiful!’
‘I discovered it last year, and spent hours here alone. I couldn’t ask you to come and see it then,’ he added, laughing.
‘It is delightful!’
‘Here’s your seat,—who knows how many years it has waited for you?’
She sat down upon the old trunk. About the roots of the elm above grew masses of fern, and beneath it a rough bit of the bank was clothed with pennywort, the green discs and yellowing fruity spires making an exquisite patch of colour. In the shadow of bushes near at hand hartstongue abounded, with fronds hanging to the length of an arm.
‘Now,’ said Tarrant, gaily, ‘you shall have some blackberries. And he went to gather them, returning in a few minutes with a large leaf full. He saw that Nancy, meanwhile, had taken up the book from where he dropped it to the ground; it lay open on her lap.
‘Helmholtz! Away with him!’
‘No; I have opened at something interesting.’
She spoke as though possession of the book were of vital importance to her. Nevertheless, the fruit was accepted, and she drew off her gloves to eat it. Tarrant seated himself on the ground, near her, and gradually fell into a half-recumbent attitude.
‘Won’t you have any?’ Nancy asked, without looking at him.
‘One or two, if you will give me them.’
She chose a fine blackberry, and held it out. Tarrant let it fall into his palm, and murmured, ‘You have a beautiful hand.’ When, a moment after, he glanced at her, she seemed to be reading Helmholtz.
The calm of the golden afternoon could not have been more profound. Birds twittered softly in the wood, and if a leaf rustled, it was only at the touch of wings. Earth breathed its many perfumes upon the slumberous air.
‘You know,’ said Tarrant, after a long pause, and speaking as though he feared to break the hush, ‘that Keats once stayed at Teignmouth.’
Nancy did not know it, but said ‘Yes.’ The name of Keats was familiar to her, but of his life she knew hardly anything, of his poetry very little. Her education had been chiefly concerned with names.
‘Will you read me a paragraph of Helmholtz?’ continued the other, looking at her with a smile. ‘Any paragraph, the one before you.’
She hesitated, but read at length, in an unsteady voice, something about the Conservation of Force. It ended in a nervous laugh.
‘Now I’ll read something to you,’ said Tarrant. And he began to repeat, slowly, musically, lines of verse which his companion had never heard:
‘O what can ail thee, Knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering? The sedge has wither’d from the lake, And no birds sing.’
He went through the poem; Nancy the while did not stir. It was as though he murmured melody for his own pleasure, rather than recited to a listener; but no word was inaudible. Nancy knew that his eyes rested upon her; she wished to smile, yet could not. And when he ceased, the silence held her motionless.
‘Isn’t it better?’ said Tarrant, drawing slightly nearer to her.
‘Of course it is.’
‘I used to know thousands of verses by heart.’
‘Did you ever write any?’
‘Half-a-dozen epics or so, when I was about seventeen. Yet, I don’t come of a poetical family. My father—’
He stopped abruptly, looked into Nancy’s face with a smile, and said in a tone of playfulness:
‘Do you remember asking me whether I had anything to do with—’
Nancy, flushing over all her features, exclaimed, ‘Don’t! please don’t! I’m ashamed of myself!’
‘I didn’t like it. But we know each other better now. You were quite right. That was how my grandfather made his money. My father, I believe, got through most of it, and gave no particular thought to me. His mother—the old lady whom you know—had plenty of her own—to be mine, she tells me, some day. Do you wish to be forgiven for hurting my pride?’ he added.
‘I don’t know what made me say such a thing—’
She faltered the words; she felt her will subdued. Tarrant reached a hand, and took one of hers, and kissed it; then allowed her to draw it away.
‘Now will you give me another blackberry?’
The girl was trembling; a light shone in her eyes. She offered the leaf with fruit in it; Tarrant, whilst choosing, touched the blue veins of her wrist with his lips.
‘What are you going to do?’ she asked presently. ‘I mean, what do you aim at in life?’
‘Enjoyment. Why should I trouble about anything else. I should be content if life were all like this: to look at a beautiful face, and listen to a voice that charms me, and touch a hand that makes me thrill with such pleasure as I never knew.’
‘It’s waste of time.’
‘Oh, never time was spent so well! Look at me again like that—with the eyes half-closed, and the lips half-mocking. Oh, the exquisite lips! If I might—if I might—’
He did not stir from his posture of languid ease, but Nancy, with a quick movement, drew a little away from him, then rose.
‘It’s time to go back,’ she said absently.
‘No, no; not yet. Let me look at you for a few minutes more!’
She began to walk slowly, head bent.
‘Well then, to-morrow, or the day after. The place will be just as beautiful, and you even more. The sea-air makes you lovelier from day to day.’
Nancy looked back for an instant. Tarrant followed, and in the deep leafy way he again helped her to pass the briers. But their hands never touched, and the silence was unbroken until they had issued into the open lane.
CHAPTER 6
The lodgings were taken for three weeks, and more than half the time had now elapsed.
Jessica, who declared herself quite well and strong again, though her face did not bear out the assertion, was beginning to talk of matters examinational once more. Notwithstanding protests, she brought forth from their hiding-place sundry arid little manuals and black-covered notebooks; her thoughts were divided between algebraic formulae and Nancy’s relations with Lionel Tarrant. Perhaps because no secret was confided to her, she affected more appetite for the arid little books than she really felt. Nancy would neither speak of examinations, nor give ear when they were talked about; she, whether consciously or not, was making haste to graduate in quite another school.
On the morning after her long walk with Tarrant, she woke before sunrise, and before seven o’clock had left the house. A high wind and hurrying clouds made the weather prospects uncertain. She strayed about the Den, never losing sight for more than a minute or two of the sea-fronting house where Tarrant lived. But no familiar form approached her, and she had to return to breakfast unrewarded for early rising.
Through the day she was restless and silent, kept alone as much as possible, and wore a look which, as the hours went on, darkened from anxiety to ill-humour. She went to bed much earlier than usual.
At eleven next morning, having lingered behind her friends, she found Tarrant in conversation with Mrs. Morgan and Jessica on the pier. His greeting astonished her; it had precisely the gracious formality of a year ago; a word or two about the weather, and he resumed his talk with Miss. Morgan—its subject, the educational value of the classics. Obliged to listen, Nancy suffered an anguish of resentful passion. For a quarter of an hour she kept silence, then saw the young man take leave and saunter away with that air which, in satire, she had formerly styled majestic.
And then passed three whole days, during which Lionel was not seen.
The evening of the fourth, between eight and nine o’clock, found Nancy at the door of the house which her thoughts had a thousand times visited. A servant, in reply to inquiry, told her that Mr Tarrant was in London; he would probably return to-morrow.
She walked idly away—and, at less than a hundred yards’ distance, met Tarrant himself. His costume showed that he had just come from the railway station. Nancy would gladly have walked straight past him, but the tone in which he addressed her was a new surprise, and she stood in helpless confusion. He had been to London—called away on sudden business.
‘I thought of writing—nay, I did write, but after all didn’t post the letter. For a very simple reason—I couldn’t remember your address.’
And he laughed so naturally, that the captive walked on by his side, unresisting. Their conversation lasted only a few minutes, then Nancy resolutely bade him good-night, no appointment made for the morrow.
A day of showers, then a day of excessive heat. They saw each other several times, but nothing of moment passed. The morning after they met before breakfast.
‘To-morrow is our last day,’ said Nancy.
‘Yes, Mrs. Morgan told me.’ Nancy herself had never spoken of departure. ‘This afternoon we’ll go up the hill again.’
‘I don’t think I shall care to walk so far. Look at the mist; it’s going to be dreadfully hot again.’
Tarrant was in a mood of careless gaiety; his companion appeared to struggle against listlessness, and her cheek had lost its wonted colour.
‘You have tea at four or five, I suppose. Let us go after that, when the heat of the day is over.’
To this, after various objections, Nancy consented. Through the hours of glaring sunshine she stayed at home, lying inert, by an open window. Over the tea-cups she was amiable, but dreamy. When ready to go out, she just looked into the sitting-room, where Jessica bent over books, and said cheerfully:
‘I may be a little late for dinner. On no account wait—I forbid it!’
And so, without listening to the answer, she hurried away.
In the upward climbing lanes, no breeze yet tempered the still air; the sky of misted sapphire showed not a cloud from verge to verge. Tarrant, as if to make up for his companion’s silence, talked ceaselessly, and always in light vein. Sunshine, he said, was indispensable to his life; he never passed the winter in London; if he were the poorest of mortals, he would, at all events, beg his bread in a sunny clime.
‘Are you going to the Bahamas this winter?’ Nancy asked, mentioning the matter for the first time since she heard of it at Champion Hill.
‘I don’t know. Everything is uncertain.’
And he put the question aside as if it were of no importance.
They passed the old gate, and breathed with relief in the never-broken shadow of tangled foliage. Whilst pushing a bramble aside, Tarrant let his free arm fall lightly on Nancy’s waist. At once she sprang forward, but without appearing to notice what had happened.
‘Stay—did you ever see such ivy as this?’
It was a mass of large, lustrous leaves, concealing a rotten trunk. Whilst Nancy looked on, Tarrant pulled at a long stem, and tried to break it away.
‘I must cut it.’
‘Why?’
‘You shall see.’
He wove three stems into a wreath.
‘There now, take off your hat, and let me crown you. Have I made it too large for the little head?’
Nancy, after a moment’s reluctance, unfastened her hat, and stood bareheaded, blushing and laughing.
‘You do your hair in the right way—the Greek way. A diadem on the top—the only way when the hair and the head are beautiful. It leaves the outline free—the exquisite curve that unites neck and head. Now the ivy wreath; and how will you look?’
She wore a dress of thin, creamy material, which, whilst seeming to cumber her as little as garments could, yet fitted closely enough to declare the healthy beauty of her form. The dark green garland, for which she bent a little, became her admirably.
‘I pictured it in my letter,’ said Tarrant, ‘the letter you never got.’
‘Where is it?’
‘Oh, I burnt it.’
‘Tell me what was in it.’
‘All sorts of things—a long letter.’
‘I think that’s all nonsense about forgetting my address.’
‘Mere truth. In fact, I never knew it.’
‘Be so good as to tell me,’ she spoke as she walked on before him, ‘what you meant by your behaviour that morning before you went to London.’
‘But how did I behave?’
‘Very strangely.’
Tarrant affected not to understand; but, when she again turned, Nancy saw a mischievous smile on his face.
‘A bit of nonsense.—Shall I tell you?’ He stepped near, and suddenly caught both her hands,—one of them was trailing her sunshade. ‘Forgive me in advance—will you?’
‘I don’t know about that.’ And she tried, though faintly, to get free.
‘But I will make you—now, refuse!’
His lips had just touched hers, just touched and no more. Rosy red, she trembled before him with drooping eyelids.
‘It meant nothing at all, really,’ he pursued, his voice at its softest. ‘A sham trial—to see whether I was hopelessly conquered or not. Of course I was.’
Nancy shook her head.
‘You dare to doubt it?—I understand now what the old poet meant, when he talked of bees seeking honey on his lady’s lips. That fancy isn’t so artificial as it seemed.’
‘That’s all very pretty’—she spoke between quick breaths, and tried to laugh—‘but you have thrown my hat on the ground. Give it me, and take the ivy for yourself.’
‘I am no Bacchus.’ He tossed the wreath aside. ‘Take the hat; I like you in it just as well.—You shall have a girdle of woodbine, instead.’
‘I don’t believe your explanation,’ said Nancy.
‘Not believe me?’
With feigned indignation, he moved to capture her again; but Nancy escaped. Her hat in her hand, she darted forward. A minute’s run brought her into the open space, and there, with an exclamation of surprise, she stopped. Tarrant, but a step or two behind her, saw at almost the same moment the spectacle which had arrested her flight. Before them stood two little donkeys munching eagerly at a crop of rosy-headed thistles. They—the human beings—looked at each other; Tarrant burst into extravagant laughter, and Nancy joined him. Neither’s mirth was spontaneous; Nancy’s had a note of nervous tension, a ring of something like recklessness.
‘Where can they come from?’ she asked.
‘They must have strayed a long way. I haven’t seen any farm or cottage.—But perhaps some one is with them. Wait, I’ll go on a little, and see if some boy is hanging about.’
He turned the sharp corner, and disappeared. For two or three minutes Nancy stood alone, watching the patient little grey beasts, whose pendent ears, with many a turn and twitch, expressed their joy in the feast of thistles. She watched them in seeming only; her eyes beheld nothing.
A voice sounded from behind her—‘Nancy!’ Startled, she saw Tarrant standing high up, in a gap of the hedge, on the bank which bordered the wood.
‘How did you get there?’
‘Went round.’ He showed the direction with his hand. ‘I can see no one, but somebody may come. It’s wonderful here, among the trees. Come over.’
‘How can I?—We will drive the donkeys away.’
‘No; it’s much better here; a wild wood, full of wonderful things. The bank isn’t too steep. Give me your hand, and you can step up easily, just at this place.’
She drew near.
‘Your sunshade first.’
‘Oh, it’s too much trouble,’ she said languidly, all but plaintively. ‘I’d rather be here.’
‘Obey!—Your sunshade—’
She gave it.
‘Now, your hand.’
He was kneeling on the top of the bank. With very little exertion, Nancy found herself beside him. Then he at once leapt down among the brushwood, a descent of some three feet.
‘We shall be trespassing,’ said Nancy.
‘What do I care? Now, jump!’
‘As if you could catch me!’ Again she uttered her nervous laugh. ‘I am heavy.’
‘Obey! Jump!’ he cried impatiently, his eyes afire.
She knelt, seated herself, dropped forward. Tarrant caught her in his arms.
‘You heavy! a feather weight! Why, I can carry you; I could run with you.’
And he did carry her through the brushwood, away into the shadow of the trees.
At dinner-time, Mrs. Morgan and her daughter were alone. They agreed to wait a quarter of an hour, and sat silent, pretending each to be engaged with a book. At length their eyes met.
‘What does it mean, Jessica?’ asked the mother timidly.
‘I’m sure I don’t know. It doesn’t concern us. She didn’t mean to be back, by what she said.’
‘But—isn’t it rather—?’
‘Oh, Nancy is all right. I suppose she’ll have something to tell you, to-night or to-morrow. We must have dinner; I’m hungry.’
‘So am I, dear.—Oh, I’m quite afraid to think of the appetites we’re taking back. Poor Milly will be terrified.’
Eight o’clock, nine o’clock. The two conversed in subdued voices; Mrs. Morgan was anxious, all but distressed. Half-past nine. ‘What can it mean, Jessica? I can’t help feeling a responsibility. After all, Nancy is quite a young girl; and I’ve sometimes thought she might be steadier.’
‘Hush! That was a knock.’
They waited. In a minute or two the door was opened a few inches, and a voice called ‘Jessica!’
She responded. Nancy was standing in the gloom.
‘Come into my room,’ she said curtly.
Arrived there, she did not strike a light. She closed the door, and took hold of her friend’s arm.
‘We can’t go back the day after to-morrow, Jessica. We must wait a day longer, till the afternoon of Friday.’
‘Why? What’s the matter, Nancy?’
‘Nothing serious. Don’t be frightened, I’m tired, and I shall go to bed.’
‘But why must we wait?’
‘Listen: will you promise me faithfully—as friend to friend, faith fully—not to tell the reason even to your mother?’
‘I will, faithfully.’
‘Then, it’s this. On Friday morning I shall be married to Mr Tarrant.’
‘Gracious!’
‘I may tell you more, before then; but perhaps not. We shall be married by licence, and it needs one day between getting the licence and the marriage. You may tell your mother, if you like, that I want to stay longer on his account. I don’t care; of course she suspects something. But not a syllable to hint at the truth. I have been your best friend for a long time, and I trust you.’
She spoke in a passionate whisper, and Jessica felt her trembling.
‘You needn’t have the least fear of me, dear.’
‘I believe it. Kiss me, and good-night!’
