Men, Women and Ghosts | Page 9

knotted branches, and a dank?Mist hid the house, mouldy it smelt and rank
With sodden wood, and still unfalling rain.
XLV
Eunice paced up and down. No joy she took?At meeting Gervase, but the custom grown?Still held her. He was late. She sudden shook,?And caught at her stopped heart. Her eyes had shown?Sir Everard emerging from the mist.?His uniform was travel-stained and torn,
His jackboots muddy, and his eager stride?Jangled his spurs. A thorn?Entangled, trailed behind him. To the tryst?He hastened. Eunice shuddered, ran -- a twist
Round a sharp turning and she fled to hide.
XLVI
But he had seen her as she swiftly ran,?A flash of white against the river's grey.?"Eunice," he called. "My Darling. Eunice. Can?You hear me? It is Everard. All day?I have been riding like the very devil?To reach you sooner. Are you startled, Dear?"
He broke into a run and followed her,?And caught her, faint with fear,?Cowering and trembling as though she some evil?Spirit were seeing. "What means this uncivil
Greeting, Dear Heart?" He saw her senses blur.
XLVII
Swaying and catching at the seat, she tried?To speak, but only gurgled in her throat.?At last, straining to hold herself, she cried?To him for pity, and her strange words smote?A coldness through him, for she begged Gervase?To leave her, 'twas too much a second time.
Gervase must go, always Gervase, her mind?Repeated like a rhyme?This name he did not know. In sad amaze?He watched her, and that hunted, fearful gaze,
So unremembering and so unkind.
XLVIII
Softly he spoke to her, patiently dealt?With what he feared her madness. By and by?He pierced her understanding. Then he knelt?Upon the seat, and took her hands: "Now try?To think a minute I am come, my Dear,?Unharmed and back on furlough. Are you glad
To have your lover home again? To me,?Pickthorn has never had?A greater pleasantness. Could you not bear?To come and sit awhile beside me here?
A stone between us surely should not be."
XLIX
She smiled a little wan and ravelled smile,?Then came to him and on his shoulder laid?Her head, and they two rested there awhile,?Each taking comfort. Not a word was said.?But when he put his hand upon her breast?And felt her beating heart, and with his lips
Sought solace for her and himself. She started?As one sharp lashed with whips,?And pushed him from her, moaning, his dumb quest?Denied and shuddered from. And he, distrest,
Loosened his wife, and long they sat there, parted.
L
Eunice was very quiet all that day,?A little dazed, and yet she seemed content.?At candle-time, he asked if she would play?Upon her harpsichord, at once she went?And tinkled airs from Lully's `Carnival'?And `Bacchus', newly brought away from France.
Then jaunted through a lively rigadoon?To please him with a dance?By Purcell, for he said that surely all?Good Englishmen had pride in national
Accomplishment. But tiring of it soon
LI
He whispered her that if she had forgiven?His startling her that afternoon, the clock?Marked early bed-time. Surely it was Heaven?He entered when she opened to his knock.?The hours rustled in the trailing wind?Over the chimney. Close they lay and knew
Only that they were wedded. At his touch?Anxiety she threw?Away like a shed garment, and inclined?Herself to cherish him, her happy mind
Quivering, unthinking, loving overmuch.
LII
Eunice lay long awake in the cool night?After her husband slept. She gazed with joy?Into the shadows, painting them with bright?Pictures of all her future life's employ.?Twin gems they were, set to a single jewel,?Each shining with the other. Soft she turned
And felt his breath upon her hair, and prayed?Her happiness was earned.?Past Earls of Crowe should give their blood for fuel?To light this Frampton's hearth-fire. By no cruel
Affrightings would she ever be dismayed.
LIII
When Everard, next day, asked her in joke?What name it was that she had called him by,?She told him of Gervase, and as she spoke?She hardly realized it was a lie.?Her vision she related, but she hid?The fondness into which she had been led.
Sir Everard just laughed and pinched her ear,?And quite out of her head?The matter drifted. Then Sir Everard chid?Himself for laziness, and off he rid
To see his men and count his farming-gear.
LIV
At supper he seemed overspread with gloom,?But gave no reason why, he only asked?More questions of Gervase, and round the room?He walked with restless strides. At last he tasked?Her with a greater feeling for this man?Than she had given. Eunice quick denied
The slightest interest other than a friend?Might claim. But he replied?He thought she underrated. Then a ban?He put on talk and music. He'd a plan
To work at, draining swamps at Pickthorn End.
LV
Next morning Eunice found her Lord still changed,?Hard and unkind, with bursts of anger. Pride?Kept him from speaking out. His probings ranged?All round his torment. Lady Eunice tried?To sooth him. So a week went by, and then?His anguish flooded over; with clenched hands
Striving to stem his words, he told her plain?Tony had seen them, "brands?Burning in Hell," the man had said. Again?Eunice described her vision, and