The Return of the Soul | Page 8

never seen her future
home, had never even been in Cumberland before. She was full of
excitement and happiness, a veritable child in the ready and ardent
expression of her feelings. The station is several miles from the house,
and is on the edge of the sea. When the train pulled up at the wayside
platform the day drew towards sunset, and the flat levels of the beach
shone with a rich, liquid, amber light. In the distance the sea was
tossing and tumbling, whipped into foam by a fresh wind. The Isle of
Man lay far away, dark, mysterious, under a stack of bellying white
clouds, just beginning to be tinged with the faintest rose.
Margot found the scene beautiful, the wind life-giving, the flat
sand-banks, the shining levels, even the dry, spiky grass that fluttered
in the breeze, fascinating and refreshing.
"I feel near the heart of Nature in a place like this," she said, looking up
at a seagull that hovered over the little platform, crying to the wind on
which it hung.
The train stole off along the edge of the sands, till we could see only
the white streamer of its smoke trailing towards the sun. We turned
away from the sea, got into the carriage that was waiting for us, and set
our faces inland. The ocean was blotted out by the low grass and
heather-covered banks that divided the fields. Presently we plunged
into woods. The road descended sharply. A village, an abruptly
winding river sprang into sight.
We were on my land. We passed the inn, the Rainwood Arms, named
after my grandfather's family. The people whom we met stared
curiously and saluted in rustic fashion.
Margot was full of excitement and pleasure, and talked incessantly,
holding my hand tightly in hers and asking a thousand questions.
Passing through the village, we mounted a hill towards a thick grove of

trees.
"The house stands among them," I said, pointing.
She sprang up eagerly in the carriage to find it, but it was hidden.
We dashed through the gate into the momentary darkness of the drive,
emerged between great green lawns, and drew up before the big
doorway of the hall. I looked into her eyes, and said "Welcome!"
She only smiled in answer.
I would not let her enter the house immediately, but made her come
with me to the terrace above the river, to see the view over the
Cumbrian mountains and the moors of Eskdale.
The sky was very clear and pale, but over Styhead the clouds were
boiling up. The Screes that guard ebon Wastwater looked grim and sad.
Margot stood beside me on the terrace, but her chatter had been
succeeded by silence. And I, too, was silent for the moment, absorbed
in contemplation. But presently I turned to her, wishing to see how she
was impressed by her new domain.
She was not looking towards the river and the hills, but at the terrace
walk itself, the band of emerald turf that bordered it, the stone pots full
of flowers, the winding way that led into the shrubbery.
She was looking at these intently, and with a strangely puzzled, almost
startled expression.
"Hush! Don't speak to me for a moment," she said, as I opened my lips.
"Don't; I want to---- How odd this is!"
And she gazed up at the windows of the house, at the creepers that
climbed its walls, at the sloping roof and the irregular chimney-stacks.
Her lips were slightly parted, and her eyes were full of an inward
expression that told me she was struggling with forgetfulness and

desired recollection.
I was silent, wondering.
At last she said: "Ronald, I have never been in the North of England
before, never set foot in Cumberland; yet I seem to know this terrace
walk, those very flower-pots, the garden, the look of that roof, those
chimneys, even the slanting way in which that great creeper climbs. Is
it not--is it not very strange?"
She gazed up at me, and in her blue eyes there was an expression
almost of fear.
I smiled down on her. "It must be your fancy," I said.
"It does not seem so," she replied. "I feel as if I had been here before,
and often, or for a long time." She paused; then she said: "Do let me go
into the house. There ought to be a room there--a room--I seem almost
to see it. Come! Let us go in."
She took my hand and drew me towards the hall door. The servants
were carrying in the luggage, and there was a certain amount of
confusion and noise, but she did not seem to notice it. She was intent
on something; I could not tell what.
"Do show me the house,