Men, Women and Ghosts | Page 7

note the trees,?How white they were and sweet?And later, coming to her, her dear groom,?Her Lord, had lain beside her in the gloom
Of moon and shade, and whispered her to ease.
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Her little taper made the room seem vast,?Caverned and empty. And her beating heart?Rapped through the silence all about her cast?Like some loud, dreadful death-watch taking part?In this sad vigil. Slowly she undrest,?Put out the light and crept into her bed.
The linen sheets were fragrant, but so cold.?And brimming tears she shed,?Sobbing and quivering in her barren nest,?Her weeping lips into the pillow prest,
Her eyes sealed fast within its smothering fold.
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The morning brought her a more stoic mind,?And sunshine struck across the polished floor.?She wondered whether this day she should find?Gervase a-fishing, and so listen more,?Much more again, to all he had to tell.?And he was there, but waiting to begin
Until she came. They fished awhile, then went?To the old seat within?The cherry's shade. He pleased her very well?By his discourse. But ever he must dwell
Upon Sir Everard. Each incident
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Must be related and each term explained.?How troops were set in battle, how a siege?Was ordered and conducted. She complained?Because he bungled at the fall of Liege.?The curious names of parts of forts she knew,?And aired with conscious pride her ravelins,
And counterscarps, and lunes. The day drew on,?And his dead fish's fins?In the hot sunshine turned a mauve-green hue.?At last Gervase, guessing the hour, withdrew.
But she sat long in still oblivion.
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Then he would bring her books, and read to her?The poems of Dr. Donne, and the blue river?Would murmur through the reading, and a stir?Of birds and bees make the white petals shiver,?And one or two would flutter prone and lie?Spotting the smooth-clipped grass. The days went by
Threaded with talk and verses. Green leaves pushed?Through blossoms stubbornly.?Gervase, unconscious of dishonesty,?Fell into strong and watchful loving, free
He thought, since always would his lips be hushed.
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But lips do not stay silent at command,?And Gervase strove in vain to order his.?Luckily Eunice did not understand?That he but read himself aloud, for this?Their friendship would have snapped. She treated him?And spoilt him like a brother. It was now
"Gervase" and "Eunice" with them, and he dined?Whenever she'd allow,?In the oak parlour, underneath the dim?Old pictured Framptons, opposite her slim
Figure, so bright against the chair behind.
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Eunice was happier than she had been?For many days, and yet the hours were long.?All Gervase told to her but made her lean?More heavily upon the past. Among?Her hopes she lived, even when she was giving?Her morning orders, even when she twined
Nosegays to deck her parlours. With the thought?Of Everard, her mind?Solaced its solitude, and in her striving?To do as he would wish was all her living.
She welcomed Gervase for the news he brought.
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Black-hearts and white-hearts, bubbled with the sun,?Hid in their leaves and knocked against each other.?Eunice was standing, panting with her run?Up to the tool-house just to get another?Basket. All those which she had brought were filled,?And still Gervase pelted her from above.
The buckles of his shoes flashed higher and higher?Until his shoulders strove?Quite through the top. "Eunice, your spirit's filled?This tree. White-hearts!" He shook, and cherries spilled
And spat out from the leaves like falling fire.
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The wide, sun-winged June morning spread itself?Over the quiet garden. And they packed?Full twenty baskets with the fruit. "My shelf?Of cordials will be stored with what it lacked.?In future, none of us will drink strong ale,?But cherry-brandy." "Vastly good, I vow,"
And Gervase gave the tree another shake.?The cherries seemed to flow?Out of the sky in cloudfuls, like blown hail.?Swift Lady Eunice ran, her farthingale,
Unnoticed, tangling in a fallen rake.
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She gave a little cry and fell quite prone?In the long grass, and lay there very still.?Gervase leapt from the tree at her soft moan,?And kneeling over her, with clumsy skill?Unloosed her bodice, fanned her with his hat,?And his unguarded lips pronounced his heart.
"Eunice, my Dearest Girl, where are you hurt?"?His trembling fingers dart?Over her limbs seeking some wound. She strove?To answer, opened wide her eyes, above
Her knelt Sir Everard, with face alert.
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Her eyelids fell again at that sweet sight,?"My Love!" she murmured, "Dearest! Oh, my Dear!"?He took her in his arms and bore her right?And tenderly to the old seat, and "Here?I have you mine at last," she said, and swooned?Under his kisses. When she came once more
To sight of him, she smiled in comfort knowing?Herself laid as before?Close covered on his breast. And all her glowing?Youth answered him, and ever nearer growing
She twined him in her arms and soft festooned
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Herself about him like a flowering vine,?Drawing his lips to cling upon her own.?A ray of sunlight pierced the leaves to shine?Where her half-opened bodice let be shown?Her white throat fluttering to his soft caress,?Half-gasping with her gladness. And her pledge
She whispers, melting with delight. A twig?Snaps in the hornbeam hedge.?A cackling laugh tears through the