Читать книгу The Road - Warwick Deeping - Страница 17

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In the meadows a tenuous mist clung about the pollards. A full moon was rising, tawny and huge above the trees of Stella Lacey, and pencilling upon the parkland slopes etchings of light and of shadow. The road was silent, and the water falling at the weir had the silence to itself.

Rachel stood for a moment on the bridge. She looked at the moon, at the high mysteries of Stella Lacey, at the veiled trees, at the water that fell and yet was ever the same. She turned and crossed the bridge, and saw the lane to Beech Farm full of the moonlight between the hush of its hedges. Up its centre ran a ribbon of bare soil where the hoofs of the farm horses trod, then two deep wheel-ruts, and outside these stretches of dewy grass. Both lane and river followed the valley, but the lane climbed gradually along the flank of the hill like a strand of pale light losing itself in the shadows of the woods.

Rachel followed the lane. A rabbit feeding in the turf, scurried from her feet. From one of the hedges a drift of perfume touched her face like a spirit hand, and she paused to breathe it in, but in a moment the elusive scent had vanished. She idled on, and coming to that open space where the Beech Farm gate closed the lane she saw the holly hedge of Yew End. A great beech tree threw a wide shadow here, but in the blackness of the holly hedge she saw that other gate, six white slats shining in the moonlight.

Why had she come here? But on such a night did one ask questions, or try to sort out the strands of wayward impulses? Life might be just such a tangle as one of those hedgerows, thorn, briar rose, honeysuckle, maple. A dog barked for a few seconds and was still. Was it that someone had been expected at the Mill House, someone whom suddenly she was avoiding with a little shudder of fastidiousness? Common clay.

She went to the farm gate, climbed it, and perched herself on the top rail. She found herself looking at the beech tree, and noticing how little burrs of moonlight stippled the dense foliage. She was conscious of its stillness, and of one streak of light slanting through and touching the ground. Her mood was not analytical; it was more a mirror in which were reflected the mysteries of this June night, reflections that were the responses of a child. A part of the holly hedge was in shadow, a part of it glistened. Close to the gate, bracken spread itself.

Old One Eye!

But she had ceased to think of him as Old One Eye. He was Mr. Nicholas Bonthorn, a man with a dying dog in his arms, and somehow more than man. He suggested a fairy tale. She could imagine him in a green coat and curiously peaked cap with little bells that shivered. He belonged here. He was not of the road or the shop. Fantastic? But more than that. He had touched her imagination.

She wondered. Her glances could not penetrate that hedge. She could not know that he was sitting there under the cherry tree with a black cat on his knees, and that he had heard her footsteps. His hearing was like a bird’s.

He heard other footsteps before they were audible to her. They belonged to some solid creature who was cautiously ascending the lane. Occasionally there was a break in the rhythm of the approach. The man stood still and listened. His pauses were purposeful.

Rachel swung a foot from side to side. She was watching the moon swimming above the valley. Her face had a vacant, pale serenity. She was visible to the man. She was not aware of his nearness or its significance until he spoke.

“Hallo! Star-gazing? What!”

She was startled. She sat poised for a moment, and then slid down off the gate, and stood with her back to it.

“What do you want?”

He was in the moonlight, and his figure threw a squat shadow.

“Guess, can’t you? I’ve done some guessing.”

She was silent, and her silence challenged him.

“Got a fit of the sentimentals! Marvellous!”

Bonthorn, rising from his chair and putting the black cat on the ground, seemed to hesitate between the white gate and the cottage. If these two were lovers he had no wish to be elected listener-in. Confound them! Why couldn’t they go elsewhere? And was every green backwater and cul-de-sac to become a corner for the embraces of the casual crowd on wheels? But the man’s voice had seemed familiar, and he hesitated.

He heard the girl say: “Why did you follow me up here?”

This time he recognized her voice, and was held by something sensitive and unsure in it.

“Curiosity, my dear. I suppose you sneaked up here to vamp the dog fellow.”

Bonthorn’s head went up. He waited. He was conscious of a startled suspense. Was she of the same crude flesh as that aggressive, confident cad?

Her answer came: “I’m here to look at the moon. I don’t want you here. I’m alone—with myself.”

That should have been final, but he heard Shelp’s voice, complacent and cozening, like the caress of a fat hand.

“Bit moody, kid? That’s all right. Come and sit on the gate and be sentimental.”

“O, don’t be an idiot.”

“Come on, Rachel, come on.”

Bonthorn moved towards the gate. He was hearing those two voices, and the suggestions of a struggle, something breathless and disturbing, and again he stood still. What business was it of his? But in him there was a little knot of anger. Just how serious were they, and how much was he a listening fool? Two blackbirds scuffling in a hedge, but one of them cried out, and the note had the poignancy of fear. The two voices contended like birds.

“Let go——”

“Come on, kid; you know you want it just as much as I do.”

“O, get away——”

“Don’t be a little fool. Everybody does it these days.”

“You beast.”

Bonthorn went to the white gate in the holly hedge, and stood there in the shadow. He was less surprised by the sudden flare of his fierceness than by the unexpectedness of the words that came into his head. He uttered them.

“Christ is risen.”