Helbeck of Bannisdale, vol 2 | Page 9

have found her a fly and a driver.
But these thoughts only rose to be shuddered away. All her rational being was for the moment clouded. The presence of her cousin had suddenly aroused in her so strong a disgust, so hot a misery, that flight from him was all she thought of. On the sands, at the inn, in a carriage, he would still have been there, within reach of her, or beside her. The very dream of it made her crouch more closely behind the pile of planks.
The moon is at her height; across the bay, mountains and lower hills rise towards her, "ambitious" for that silver hallowing she sheds upon shore and bay. The night is one sigh of softness. The rivers glide glistening to the sea. Even the shining roofs of the little station and the white line of the road have beauty, mingle in the common spell. But on Laura it does not work. She is in the hall at Bannisdale--on the Marsland platform--in the woodland roads through which Mr. Helbeck has driven home.
No!--by now he is in his study. She sees the crucifix, the books, the little altar. There he sits--he is thinking, perhaps, of the girl who is out in the night with her drunken cousin, the girl whom he has warned, protected, thought for in a hundred ways--who had planned this day out of mere wilfulness--who cannot possibly have made any honest mistake as to times and trains.
She wrings her hands. Oh! but Polly must have explained, must have convinced him that owing to a prig's self-confidence they were all equally foolish, equally misled. Unless Hubert--? But then, how is she at fault? In imagination she says it all through Polly's lips. The words glow hot and piteous, carrying her soul with them. But that face in the oak chair does not change.
Yet in flashes the mind works clearly; it rises and rebukes this surging pain that breaks upon it like waves upon a reef. Folly! If a girl's name were indeed at the mercy of such chances, why should one care--take any trouble? Would such a ravening world be worth respecting, worth the fearing?
It is her very innocence and ignorance that rack her. Why should there be these mysterious suspicions and penalties in the world? Her mind holds nothing that can answer. But she trembles none the less.
How strange that she should tremble! Two months before, would the same adventure have affected her at all? Why, she would have laughed it down; would have walked, singing perhaps, across the sands with Hubert.
Some secret cause has weakened the will--paralysed all the old daring. Will he never even scold or argue with her again? Nothing but a cold tolerance--bare civility and protection for Augustina's sake? But never the old rare kindness--never! He has been much away, and she has been secretly bitter, ready to revenge herself by some caprice, like a crossed child! But the days of return--the hours of expectation, of recollection!
Her heart opens to her own reading--like some great flower that bursts its sheath. But such pain--oh, such pain! She presses her little fingers on her breast, trying to drive back this humiliating truth that is escaping her, tearing its way to the light.
How is it that contempt and war can change like this? She seems to have been fighting against something that all the time had majesty, had charm--that bore within itself the forces that tame a woman. In all ages the woman falls before the ascetic--before the man who can do without her. The intellect may rebel; but beneath its revolt the heart yields. Oh! to be guided, loved, crushed if need be, by the mystic, whose first thought can never be for you--who puts his own soul, and a hundred torturing claims upon it, before your lips, your eyes! Strange passion of it!--it rushes through the girl's nature in one blending storm of longing and despair....
... What sound was that?
She raised her head. A call came from the sands--a distant call, floating through the night. Another--and another! She stood up--she sprang on the heap of planks, straining her eyes. Yes--surely she saw a figure on that wide expanse of sand, moving quickly, moving away? And one after another the cries rose, waking dim echoes from the shore.
It was Hubert, no doubt--Hubert in pursuit, and calling to her, lest she should come unawares upon the danger spots that marked the sands.
She stood and watched the moving speck till it was lost in a band of shadow. Then she saw it no more, and the cries ceased.
Would he be at Bannisdale before she was? She dashed away her tears, and smiled. Ah! Let him seek her there!--let him herald her. Light broke upon her; she began to rise from her misery.
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