XXIII

And while her physical frame grew, and her moral being was strengthened, all these nine years from girlhood to womanhood, a colourless eye watched her⁠—the eye of Robert Godwin. There is something grim⁠—weird⁠—almost terrible in the thought that even this pure and beautiful creature could not exist without so opposite a nature stealthily regarding it.

Not the faintest suspicion that Robert Godwin cared for Felise, or indeed for any woman, ever occurred to anyone. The man was so absolutely concentrated, it precluded the very idea of his thinking of a second person.

Had Godwin’s concentration upon one fixed idea any influence in producing the hardness of his conduct towards those who happened to come under his sway? Rendering him more abstracted than he would otherwise have been, it closed his eyes to everything but his own will. Robert Godwin was hard enough; Robert Godwin riding and walking, and acting in bodily form while his mind was absent, became a mere figure of stone.

Imaginative persons are commonly reproached with gazing at the stars and overlooking the road at their feet. Here, by a singular reversal, was a man incapable of imagination, whose life was in the work of his hands, who saw nothing but mounds of chalk and pieces of timber where there were woods and hills, and yet he was more under the influence of a distant and unattainable object than the most veritable dreamer.

Each year as Felise grew, so grew his conviction that she was not for him. He held this question up close to his mind (closer and closer as he became mentally shorter of sight) and observed with more vivid perception her perfection and beauty.

This concentration in time produced a reflex action. He could not have her⁠—he was ready, like a tiger, to tear to pieces, anything or anyone she preferred, to oppose her, to cross her, and almost injure her.

As a lover he should, in accordance with all precedent, have sought to gratify her and render himself pleasant. By simple courtesy towards Mr. Goring he could have seen her continually, and had every opportunity of influencing her mind in his favour. On the contrary, he never omitted an opportunity of annoying Mr. Goring; he quarrelled with him about fences, attempted to cut off the supply of water to the trout-pond, and made himself disagreeable in every petty way possible.

His notice to Abner’s parents was intended as a sidelong thrust at Mr. Goring, who employed the young man as his assistant. He saw Felise fishing (or rather making a pretence of fishing) down the stream, and seized the opportunity of raking up an old dispute as to the right of taking trout, with the more eagerness because it afforded him a chance of personally abusing her uncle face to face.

There could scarcely have been a more remarkable instance of the reversal of the normal condition of the mind caused by suppressed passion. A lover would at least have said nothing; if possible he would have contrived means to enable her to enjoy fishing in the best reaches of the stream. Robert Godwin, whose mind was wholly occupied by Felise, fell into a fury, and denounced and threatened Mr. Goring in unmeasured terms.

The latter regarded him with something like curiosity instead of turning him out of doors. Another reason Mr. Goring did not wish to break off amenities with the steward was because he was the steward whom he had fought so often on public grounds. Now, if you personally quarrel with your enemy and order him off your premises, you lose half the value of your victory over him. He becomes distant⁠—no longer a man, but a mere figure. Mr. Goring opposed Robert Godwin, yet his house was at any time open to him as a neighbour. Nor, indeed, did Mr. Goring feel any vindictiveness against him; he looked upon him as a study.

While Robert Godwin was storming about Felise, in his heart he was abstracted from himself with hopeless love.

This reflex action of the mind led him to oppose the very creature who could have commanded his life. Such cases occasionally occur where parents who have doted upon their children destroy them in an hour of temporary distress lest those they loved so much should suffer. Something of this reflex action may be found in the suicide who sets a value upon the good things of the world⁠—upon money, power, place, credit⁠—a value so high, as they are at the moment beyond his reach, that he determines to extinguish himself in order that he may never possess them. A backward, reflex action of the mind is often dangerous to mental equilibrium.

Never before had Robert Godwin stood so near the woman who had his whole existence in her hands as at the moment when she was stroking Ruy and inquiring how he became possessed of the horse. Her presence, the touch of her dress, the faint warmth of her breath⁠—he felt her; it was almost an embrace. He had kept himself so much at a distance that the accidental touch of her dress was a caress. Having no imagination his love was not a sentiment; it was a reality of life, like the blood in his veins.

Ancient philosophers had a theory that the vital spirits were dispersed about the body, and flowed through it as the blood flowed. Perhaps there really is a germ of truth in this old idea; possibly there is a circulation⁠—a current of the electricity of life throughout the nerves. At that moment this current stopped in Robert Godwin⁠—his life stood still; his concentration, his abstraction was so intense that he was in a manner dead. His nervous force was withdrawn from his limbs and frame, and concentrated upon her.

He was not conscious of hearing what she asked him, although he answered correctly. He had no idea how he left, or how he came to be riding along the road. His duties for the rest of the day were performed in a faultless manner⁠—nothing omitted, nothing slurred; down to the last item everything was entered by the light of the candle on the cobwebbed washstand. But the dial of time had stood still for Robert Godwin. He did not know if it were day or night.

She had promised to come over to his house on the morrow.

Her dress had touched him; her breath had reached his cheek.

She was coming tomorrow⁠—after nine years she was coming tomorrow! Only to see a horse; but she was coming⁠—she would stand by him again.

There was no sentiment in this feeling; it was a matter of reality.

He might again feel her breath; he might hear her dress rustle beside him. He would again meet the gaze of the deep, dreamy, grey eyes.

Yet it was not Felise; it was Robert Godwin all the time. His feelings were of himself; concentration became ten times more concentrated.

Robert Godwin did not inquire into the possibilities of the incident; but, despite his self-depreciation and conviction that he could never be anything to her, hope sprang in his secret heart.

Great indeed is the commotion hope arouses when it has been absent many years. Nine years had passed without hope⁠—now hope returned.

The man could not rest. He worked with his hands the night through. He mended the gate; he arranged the ancient lumber in the attic; he was out to the carters at sunrise, relieved to have someone to drive.

Hope! This was why he could not rest⁠—why he dug by the light of the lantern in the garden, as if searching for hidden treasure at midnight.

Felise, uneasy about Martial, had not ceased to think of Ruy; Martial must really be in difficulties to part with him. Her passion was completed by this thought. In real affection, if the loved one is in trouble, oil is poured upon the flame.

Mr. Goring could not tell her anything about Bernard’s difficulties. He knew in a general way that he was not wealthy, and that was all. Abner, the gardener, brought in all the gossip of the village, but had not mentioned this.

Felise questioned Mary Shaw⁠—these village girls are such terrible gossips; but Shaw knew nothing, except that Mr. Barnard was very good-looking. The hussy did not add that once or twice lately she had had some conversation with that young gentleman. She omitted, too, to say that he had crossed her plump hand with a piece of silver, in gypsy style, for telling him secrets; also that she had received a kiss with equanimity in the dusk of a summer evening.

Felise was still dwelling upon Martial’s trouble, when in the morning she took half a dozen apples from the storeroom, and started over to see Ruy. Mr. Goring was choice in apples. His trees were famous; he had all kinds, some that would keep till the autumn came twice.

As she went out Felise noticed several women of the hamlet standing in a group in the private roadway, each carrying a bucket. They were talking and gesticulating; they curtsied, but Felise did not stay to talk with them.

Farther along the path she met four or five more, also carrying buckets; one of these being Shaw’s mother, presumed upon that connection to stand in front of Felise, and begin abusing Mr. Robert Godwin.

What was the matter now? asked Felise, full of her own thoughts and not in the mood to listen to grievances.

Matter enough⁠—Godwin had railed in and padlocked the hamlet spring, and they could not get at it. True, the stream ran past the hamlet, but it was very shallow; and, till a dipping-place was constructed, it was not easy to get water from it unless they went half a mile to the first pool. Half a mile is a long way to stagger under a yoke in hot summer weather.

The railings round the spring had been in process of erection for a fortnight; they were high, and not to be climbed. But the carpenters were either in ignorance themselves, or had been bribed to conceal the truth, for it had been given out that these railings were only erected to prevent cattle from soiling the pure water. There would be a wicket-gate for the folk.

At the last moment, instead of a gate the opening was nailed up, and the spring completely enclosed. A placard was posted announcing that the spring was private, and warning all whom it might concern that damage to the fencing would be visited with the utmost rigour of the law⁠—Mr. Robert Godwin’s latest movement in the interest of his employer. If usage was established, the property might suffer at some future time.

Like a flock of sheep who cannot get through a gateway, the village women crowded round outside the high railings through which they could see the spring, set down their buckets, and fell to abuse.

By-and-by a man came along; and, after deliberately inspecting the railings, shaking them to see if they were sound, and spelling through the placard, he advised them to go to Mr. Goring⁠—the general refuge in difficulty.

Away they went accordingly to Mr. Goring, who at once threw open his gates, and told all to help themselves from the pump, which was supplied with good water from the same source as the spring.

He then put on his coat, being usually in his snowy shirtsleeves in summer, had the pony harnessed, and drove away into the town to consult with his lawyer as to the legality of this encroachment.

Robert Godwin’s real object in enclosing the spring was known only to himself⁠—it was to spite and annoy Felise’s nearest friend. The path to the spring was so short it could scarcely be said to trespass on the Squire’s property⁠—that was only the pretence. Well he knew that nothing would so excite Mr. Goring’s indignation as so wanton a piece of tyranny. That Goring would at once take an axe and proceed to hew down the railings was what he fully hoped and expected. Such an act would involve Felise’s friend in endless litigation⁠—such was the trap he had set.

But Mr. Goring did not fall into it. A man of a reflective mind, he had heard of these posts and railings, and soon began to question the motive alleged for their erection. Measures for the convenience and good of others, like protecting water from contamination, were not in accordance with the recent history of the Cornleigh estate. He suspected what afterwards happened. His indignation was none the less; but he was cool, and he did not seize his axe and rush to destroy the obstruction. It was best to go about the work calmly and legally; even with a good cause, and right on our side, violence often recoils upon the striker.

Martial⁠—Martial⁠—the thought of Martial compelled Felise to shut her eyes to these things. If Robert Godwin had been the cruellest tyrant since the world began, she must have gone that morning to see Martial’s horse, and if possible to learn more about his former owner.

“I want to see your horse again,” said Felise, almost immediately she arrived.

Robert led Ruy out for her inspection down to the garden, where his hoofs trampled the sward of the path.