Lady Good-for-Nothing: A Man's Portrait of a Woman by Arthur Quiller-Couch
Chapter IX.
THE PROSPECT.
This happened on a Thursday. On the following Wednesday, a while beforeday-break, he met her on horseback by the gate of Sabines, and they rodeforth side by side, ahead of the coach wherein Miss Quiney sat piledabout with baggage, clutching in one hand a copy of Baxter's _Saint'sEverlasting Rest_ and with the other the ring of a canary-cage. (It wasDicky's canary, and his first love-offering. Yesterday had been Ruth'sbirthday--her eighteenth--and under conduct of Manasseh he had visitedSabines to wish her "many happy returns" and to say good-bye.)
Sir Oliver would escort the travellers for twelve miles on their way, toa point where the inland road broke into cart-tracks, and the tracksdiverged across a country newly disafforested and strewn with jaggedstumps among which the heavy vehicle could by no means be hauled.Here Farmer Cordery was to be in waiting with his light tilt-coveredwagon.
They had started thus early because the season was hot and they desiredto traverse the open highway and the clearings and to reach the forestbefore the sun's rays grew ardent. Once past the elms of Sabines theirroad lay broad before them, easy to discern; for the moon, well in herthird quarter, rode high, with no trace of cloud or mist. So clear sheshone that in imagination one could reach up and run a finger along herhard bright edge; and under moon and stars a land-breeze, virginallycool, played on our two riders' cheeks. Ungloving and stretching fortha hand, Ruth felt the dew falling, as it had been falling ever sincesundown; and under that quiet lustration the world at her feet andaround her, unseen as yet, had been renewed, the bee-ravished flowersreplaced with blossoms ready to unfold, the turf revived, reclothed inyoung green, the atmosphere bathed, cleansed of exhausted scents, madeready for morning's "bridal of the earth and sky ":--
"_As a vesture shall he fold them up. . . . In them hath he set atabernacle for the sun; which cometh forth as a bridegroom out of hischamber, and rejoiceth as a giant to run his course_."
Darkling they rode, and in silence, as though by consent. Ruth hadnever travelled this high way before: it glimmered across a country ofwhich she knew nothing and could see nothing. But no shadow of fearcrossed her spirit. Her heart was hushed; yet it exulted, because herlord rode beside her.
They had ridden thus without speech for three or four miles, when herchestnut blundered, tripped, and was almost down.
"All right?" he asked, as she reined up and steadied the mare.
"Yes. . . . She gave me a small fright, though."
"What happened? It looked to me as if she came precious near crossingher feet. If she repeats that trick by daylight I'll cast her--as Iwould to-morrow, if I were sure."
"Is it so bad a trick?"
"It might break your neck. It would certainly bring her down and breakher knees."
"Oh!" Ruth shivered. "Do you mean that it would actually break them?"she asked in her ignorance.
He laughed. "Well, that's possible; but I meant the skin of the knee."
"That would heal, surely?"
He laughed again. "A horse is like a woman--" he began, but checkedhimself of a sudden. She waited for him to continue, and he went on,"It knocks everything off the price, you see. Some won't own a horsethat has once been down; and any knowledgeable man can tell, at aglance. It is the first thing he looks for."
She considered for a moment. "But if the mark had been a scratch only--and the scratch had healed--might she not be as good a horse as ever?"
"It would damage her price, none the less."
"But you are not a horse-dealer. Would _you_ value a horse by itsselling price?"
He laughed. "I am afraid," he owned, "that I should be ruled by othermen's opinions. Your connoisseur does not collect chipped chinaware.. . . There's the chance, too, that the mare, having once fallen, willthrow herself again by the same trick."
"And women are like horses," thought Ruth as they rode on. The nightwas paling about them, and she watched the rolling champaign as littleby little it took shape, emerging from the morning mist and passing frommonochrome into faint colours: for albeit the upper sky was clear asever, mist filled the hollows of the hills and rolled up their sideslike a smoke.
"Look!" commanded Sir Oliver, reining up and turning in his saddle.
He pointed with his horse-whip. Behind them, over a tree-clad hill, laya long purple cloud; and above it, while he pointed, the sun thrust itsedge as it were the rim of a golden paten. Ruth wheeled her mare about,to face the spectacle, and at that moment the cloud parted horizontallyas though a hand had ripped the veil across. A flood of gold pouredthrough the rent, dazzling her eyes.
The sun mounted and swam free: the upper portion of the veil floated offlike a wisp and drifted down the wind. Where the glory had shone, itlingered through tint after tint--rose, pale lemon, palest sea-green--and so passed into azure and became one with the rest of the heavens.
Sir Oliver withdrew his eyes and sought hers. "When I find the need offaith," he said, "I shall turn sun-worshipper."
"You have never found that need?" she asked slowly.
"Never," he confessed. "And you?"
"Never as a need. I mean," she explained, "that though I alwaysdespised religion--yes, always, even before I came to hate it--I neverdoubted that some wisdom must be at watch and at work all around me,ordering the sun and stars, for instance, and separating right fromwrong. I just cannot understand how any one can do without a faith ofthat sort: it's as necessary as breath."
He shrugged his shoulders. "To me one Jehovah's as good as another, asunnecessary, and as incredible. I find it easier to believe that chaoshurtled around until it struck out some working balance; that the starslearned their places pretty much as men and women are learning theirsto-day. A painful process, I'll grant you, and damnably tedious; butthey came to it in the end, and so in the end, maybe, will poorimitative man. But," he broke off, "this faith of yours must havefailed you, once."
She shivered. "No; I made no claim on it, you see. Perhaps"--with alittle smile--"I did not think myself important enough. I only knowthat, whatever was right, those men were horribly wrong: for it _must_be wrong to be cruel. Then I woke up, and you were beside me--"
She would have added, "How could I doubt, then?" But her voice failedher, and she wheeled about that he might not see her tears.
He, too, turned his horse. They rode on for a few paces in silence.
"I wish," she said, recovering her voice--"I wish, for your sake, youcould have felt what I have been feeling since we left Sabines; the_goodness_ all about us, watching us out of the night and the stars."
She looked up; but the stars were gone, faded out into daylight. Hepushed his horse half a pace ahead, and glanced sideways at her face.Tears shone yet in her eyes, and his own, as he quickly averted them,fell on a tall mullein growing by the roadside. Big drops of dewadhered upon its woolly leaves and twinkled in the sunshine; and bycontrast he knew the colour of her eyes--that they were violet and ofthe night--their dew distilled out of such violet darkness as had beenthe quality of one or two Mediterranean nights that lingered among hismemories of the Grand Tour. More and more this girl surprised him withgraces foreign to this colonial soil, graces supposed by him to beclassical and lost, the appanage of goddesses.
Like a goddess now she lifted an arm and pointed west, as he had pointedeast. Ahead of them, to the right of the road, rose a tall hill, woodedat the base, broken at the summit by craggy terraces. Two large birdswheeled and hovered above it, high in the blue, fronting the sunlight.
"Eagles, by Jove!" cried Sir Oliver.
Ruth drew a breath and watched them. She had never before seen aneagle.
"Will they have their nest in the cliffs?" she asked.
"Perhaps. . . . No, more likely they come from Wachusett; more likelystill, from the mountains beyond. They are here seeking food."
"They do not appear to be seeking food," she said after a pause duringwhich she watched their ambits of flight circling and i
"Some act of homage to the sun," he suggested. "They have come down tothe sea to meet him--they look over the Atlantic from aloft there--andperform in his honour. Who knows?"
Across Ruth's inner vision there flashed a memory of Mr. Hichens,black-suited and bald, bending over his Hebrew Bible and expounding apassage of Job: "_Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and make hernest on high? She dwelleth and abideth on the rock, upon the crag ofthe rock, and the strong place_. . . ."
To herself she said: "If it be so, the eagle's faith is mine; my lord'salso, perchance, if he but knew it."
Aloud she asked, "Why are the noblest, birds and beasts, so few andsolitary?"
Sir Oliver laughed. "You may include man. The answer is the same, andsimple: the strong of the earth feed on the weak, and it takes all theweaklings to make blood for the few."
She mused; but when she spoke again it was not to dispute with him."You say they look over the sea from aloft there. Might we have sightof it from the top of the hill?"
"Perhaps. There is plenty of time to make sure before the coachovertakes us--though I warn you it will be risky."
"I am not afraid."
They cantered off gaily, plunged into the woods and breasted the slope,Sir Oliver leading and threading his way through the undergrowth.By-and-by they came to the bed of a torrent and followed it up, thehorses picking their steps upon the flat boulders between which thewater trickled. Some of these boulders were slimed and slippery, andtwice Sir Oliver reached out a hand and hauled the mare firmly on to herquarters.
The belt of crags did not run completely around the hill. At the backof it, after a scramble out of the gully, they came on a slope of goodturf, and so cantered easily to the summit.
Ruth gave a little cry of delight, and followed it up with a yet smallerone of disappointment. The country lay spread at her feet like a vastamphitheatre, ringed with wooded hills. Across the plain they encircleda river ran in loops, and from the crag at the edge of which she stood astreamlet emerged and took a brave leap down the hill to join it.
"But where is the sea?"
"That small hill yonder must hide it. You see it, with its line ofelms? If those trees were down, we should see the Atlantic for acertainty. If you like the spot otherwise, I will have them removed."
He said it seriously; but of course she took it for granted that hespoke in jest, albeit the jest puzzled her a little. Indeed when sheglanced up at him he was smiling, with his eyes on the distantlandscape.
"The mountain too," he added, "if the trees will not suffice. Thoughnot by faith, it shall be removed."