Wood and Stone (53 page)

“I'll teach her what kind of a fool I am,” muttered Mr. Goring, “when I've got her to myself, up at the farm. This business of dangling after a maid's apron strings, this kissing and cuddling, don't suit somehow with my nature. I'm not one of your fancy-courting ones and never was!”

“Listen, uncle!” said Gladys eagerly, laying her
hand on his arm. “Suppose I was to take her up to Cæsar's Quarry this afternoon? That would be a lovely chance! You could come strolling round about four o'clock. I'd be on the watch; and before she knew you were there, I'd scramble out, and you could climb down. She couldn't get away from you, and you'd have quite a nice little bit of
love-making
.”

Mr. Goring paused, and prodded the ground with the end of his stick.

“What a little devil you are!” he exclaimed. “Darn me if this here job isn't a queer business! Here are you, putting yourself out and fussing around, only for a fellow to have what's due to him. You leave us alone, sweetheart, my young lady and me! I reckon we know what's best for ourselves, without you thrusting your hand in.”

“But you might just walk up that way, uncle; it isn't far over the hill. I'd give—oh, I don't know what!—to see you two together. She wants to be teased a little, you know! She's getting too proud and self-satisfied for anything. It would do her ever so much good to be taught a lesson. It isn't much to do, is it? Just to give the girl you're going to marry one little kiss?”

“But how do I know you two wenches aren't fooling me, even now?” protested the cautious farmer. “'Tis just the sort of maids' trick ye might set out to play upon a man. How do I know ye haven't put your two darned little heads together over this job?”

Gladys looked round. They were approaching the Mill Copse.

“Please, uncle,” she cried, “don't say such things to me. You know I wouldn't join with anyone against you. Least of all with her! Just do as I tell you, and stroll up to Cæsar's Quarry about four o'clock. I promise you faithfully I haven't said a word to her about it. Please, uncle, be nice and kind over this.”

She threw her arms round Mr. Goring's neck. “You haven't done anything for me for a long time,” she murmured in her most persuasive tone. “Do you remember how I used to give you
butterfly-kisses
when I was a little girl, and you kept apples for me in the big loft?

Mr. Goring's nature may, or may not have been, as he described it; it is certain that the caresses and cajoleries of his lovely niece had an instantaneous effect upon him. His slow-witted suspicions melted completely under the spell of her touch.

“Well, my pretty,” he said, as they moved on, under the shadowy trees of the park, “maybe, if I've nothing else to do and things seem quiet, I'll take a bit of a walk this afternoon. But you mustn't count on it. If I do catch sight of 'ee, 'round Cæsar's way, I'll let 'ee know. But 'tisn't a
downright
promise, mind!”

Gladys clapped her hands. “You're a perfect love, uncle!” she cried jubilantly. “I wish I were
Lacrima
; I'd be ever, ever so nice to you!”

“Ye can be nice to me, as 'tis, sweetheart,”
replied
the farmer. “You and me have always been kind of fond of each other, haven't us? But I reckon ye'd best be slipping off now, up to your house. I never care greatly for meeting your father by
accident
-like. 
He's one of these sly ones that always makes a fellow feel squeamy and leery.”

That afternoon it happened that the adventurous Luke had planned a trip down to Weymouth, with a new flame of his, a certain Polly Shadow, whose parents kept a tobacco-shop in Yeoborough.

He had endeavoured to persuade his brother to accompany them on this little excursion, in the hope that a breath of sea-air might distract and refresh him; but James had expressed his intention of
paying
a visit to his gentle restorer, up at Wild Pine, who was now sufficiently recovered to enable her to sit out in the shade of the great trees.

The church clock had just struck three, when James Andersen approached the entrance to Nevil's Gully.

He had not advanced far into the shadow of the beeches, when he heard the sound of voices. He paused, and listened. The clear tones of Ninsy Lintot were unmistakeable, and he thought he
detected
—though of this he was not sure—the nervous high-pitched voice of Philip Wone. From the direction of the sounds, he gathered that the two young people were seated somewhere on the
bracken-covered
slope above the barton, where, as he well knew, there were several shady terraces overlooking the valley.

Unwilling to plunge suddenly into a conversation that appeared, as far as he could catch its purport, to be of considerable emotional tension, Andersen cautiously ascended the moss-grown bank on his left, and continued his climb, until he had reached the crest of the hill. He then followed, as silently as he could, the little grassy path between the
stubble-field
and the thickets, until he came to the open space immediately above these fern-covered terraces.

Yes, his conjecture had been right. Seated side by side beneath the tall-waving bracken, the
auburn-haired
Ninsy and her anarchist friend were engaged in an absorbing and passionate discussion. Both of them were bare-headed, and the young man's hand rested upon the motionless fingers of his companion, which were clasped demurely upon her lap. Philip's voice was raised in intense and pitiful supplication.

“I'd care for you day and night,” Andersen heard him cry. “I'd nurse you when you were ill, and keep you from every kind of annoyance.”

“But, Philip dear,” the girl's voice answered, “you know what the doctor said. He said I mustn't marry on any account. So even if I had nothing against it, it wouldn't be possible for us to do this.”

“Ninsy, Ninsy!” cried the youth pathetically, “don't you understand what I mean? I can't bear having to say these things, but you force me to, when you talk like that. The doctor meant that it would be wrong for you to have children, and he took if for granted that you'd never find anyone ready to live with you as I'd live with you. It would only be a marriage in name. I mean it would only be a marriage in name in regard to children. It would be a real marriage to me, it would be heaven to me, to live side by side with you, and no one able any more to come between us! I can't realize such happiness. It makes me feel dizzy even to think of it!”

Ninsy unclasped her hands, and gently repulsing him, remained buried in deep thought. Standing erect above them, like a sentry upon a palisade, James
Andersen stared gloomily down upon this little drama. In some strange way,—perhaps because of some sudden recurrence of his mental trouble,—he seemed quite unconscious of anything dishonourable or base in thus withholding from these two people the
knowledge
that he was overhearing them.

“I'll take care of you to the end of my life!” the young man repeated. “I'm doing quite well now with my work. You'll be able to have all you want. You'll be better off than you are here, and you know perfectly well that as soon as your father's free he'll marry that friend of his in Yeoborough. I saw him with her last Sunday. I'm sure its only for your sake that he stays single. She's got three children, and that's what holds him back—that, and the thought that you two mightn't get on
together
. You'd be doing your father a kindness if you said yes to me, Ninsy. Please, please, my darling, say it, and make me grateful to you forever!”

“I can't say it,—Philip, dear, I can't, I can't”; murmured the girl, in a voice so low that the sentinel above them could only just catch her words. “I do care for you, and I do value your goodness to me, but I can't say the words, Philip. Something seems to stop me, something in my throat.”

It was not to her throat however, that the
agitated
Ninsy raised her thin hands. As she pressed them against her breast a look of tragic sorrow came into her face. Philip regarded her wistfully.

“You're thinking you don't love me, dear,—and never can love me. I know that, well enough! I know you don't love me as I love you. But what does that matter? I've known that, all the time.
The thing is, you won't find anyone who loves you as I do,—ready to live with you as I've said I will, ready to nurse you and look after you. Other people's love will be always asking and demanding from you. Mine—oh, it's true, my darling, it's true!—mine only wants to give up everything to make you happy.”

Ninsy was evidently more than a little moved by the boy's appeal. There was a ring of passionate sincerity in his tone which went straight to her heart. She bent down and covered her face with her hands. When at length she lifted up her head and answered him, there were tears on her cheeks, and the watchful listener above them did not miss the quiver in her tone.

“I'm sorry, Philip boy, more sorry than I can say, that I can't be nicer to you, that I can't show my gratitude to you, in the way you wish. But though I do care for you, and—and value your dear love—something stops me, something makes it impossible that this should happen.”

“I believe it's because you love that fellow
Andersen
!” cried the excited youth, leaping to his feet in his agitation.

In making this movement, the figure of the
stone-carver
, silhouetted with terrible distinctness against the sky-line, became visible to him. Instinctively he uttered a cry of surprise and anger.

“What do you want here? You've been listening! You've been spying on us! Get away, can't you! Get back to your pretty young lady—her that's going to marry John Goring for the sake of his money! Clear out of this, do you hear? Ninsy's
sick of you and your ways. Clear off! or I'll make you—eavesdropper!”

By this time Ninsy had also risen, and stood facing the figure above them. Every vestige of colour had left her cheeks, and her hand was pressed against her side. Andersen made a curious incoherent sound and took a step towards them.

“Get away, can't you!” reiterated the furious youth. “You've caused enough trouble here already. Look at her,—can't you see how ill she is? Get back—damn you!—unless you want to kill her.”

Ninsy certainly looked as though in another
moment
she were going to fall. She made a piteous little gesture, as if to ward off from Andersen the boy's savage words, but Philip caught her
passionately
round the waist.

“Get away!” he cried once more. She belongs to me now. You might have had her, you coward—you turncoat!—but you let her go for your newer prey. Oh, you're a fine gentleman, James Andersen, a fine faithful gentleman!
You
don't hold with strikes.
You
don't hold with workmen rising against masters.
You
hold with keeping in with those that are in power. Clear off—eavesdropper! Get back to Mistress John Goring and your nice brother! He's as pretty a gentleman as you are, with his dear Miss Gladys!”

Ninsy's feet staggered beneath her and she began to hang limp upon his arm. She opened her mouth to speak, but could only gasp helplessly. Her
wideopen
eyes—staring from her pallid face—never left Andersen for a moment. Of Philip she seemed
absolutely
unconscious. The stone-carver made another
step down the hill. His eyes, too, were fixed intently on the girl, and of his rival's angry speeches he seemed utterly oblivious.

“Get away!” the boy reiterated, beside himself with fury, supporting the drooping form of his
companion
as if its weight were nothing. “We've had enough of your shilly-shallying and trickery! We've had enough of your fine manners! A damned
cowardly
spy—that's what I call you, you well-behaved gentleman! Get back—can't you!”

The drooping girl uttered some incoherent words and made a helpless gesture with her hand. Andersen seemed to read her meaning in her eyes, for he paused abruptly in his approach and stretched out his arms.

“Good-bye, Ninsy!” he murmured in a low voice. He said no more, and turning on his heel, scrambled swiftly back over the crest of the ridge and
disappeared
from view.

Philip flung a parting taunt after him, and then, lifting the girl bodily off her feet, staggered down the slope to the cottage, holding her in his arms.

Meanwhile James Andersen walked swiftly across the stubble-field in the direction of Leo's Hill. At the pace he moved it only took him some brief minutes to reach the long stone wall that separates, in this quarter, the quarried levels of the promontory from the high arable lands which abut upon it.

He climbed over this barrier and strode blindly and recklessly forward among the slippery grassy paths that crossed one another along the edges of the deeper pits.

The stone-carver was approaching, though quite unconsciously, the scene of a very remarkable drama.
Some fifteen minutes before his approach, the two girls from Nevilton House had reached the
precipitous
edge of what was known in that locality as Cæsar's Quarry. Cæsar's Quarry was a large disused pit, deeper and more extensive than most of the old excavations on the Hill, and surrounded, on all but one side, by blank precipitous walls of
weatherstained
sandstone. These walls of smooth stone remained always dark and damp, whatever the
temperature
might be of the air above them; and the floor of the Quarry was composed of a soft verdant carpet of cool moist moss, interspersed by stray heaps of discoloured rubble, on which flourished, at this particular season of the year, masses of that sombre-foliaged weed known as wormwood.

On the northern side of Cæsar's Quarry rose a high narrow ridge of rock, divided, at uneven spaces, by deeply cut fissures or chasms, some broad and some narrow, but all overgrown to the very edge by short slippery grass. This ridge, known locally as Claudy's Leap, was a favourite venture-place of the more daring among the children of the neighbourhood, who would challenge one another to feats of courage and agility, along its perilous edge.