VIII

Some ten or twelve days afterwards Felise started to bathe, telling Shaw to follow in a quarter of an hour with her towels. It was about eleven, and all the dew long since dry; the garden-path was hedged on either side with peonies, whose large flowers hung heavily. Open the folio-petals like the leaves of a book, and you will find the imperial purple of the heavens at sunset deep within the volume.

Beyond the peonies her skirt rustled on grass, grown high under apple-trees, and the shade of the apple-boughs crossed her shoulder as she walked. She saw her uncle, Mr. Goring, at a distance, busy at his bees. A swarm hung from an apple-bough, and, clad in his net, he was charming them into a hive. Gardening and beekeeping, planting trees, and all similar pleasure-work, is of no interest unless you do it yourself. He did everything himself, and knew every shoot, because he had himself pruned the branch.

Felise went on along a filbert-walk⁠—Goring’s own planting⁠—then out by a yew-hedge higher than her head, and past the sundial. On the northern side of the sundial, under a sycamore, with the tall yew-hedge in the rear, a seat was placed; it was Felise’s favourite resort, because there was a view of the distant hills, and in the afternoon of the sunset, from this place. He had planted the grounds so thickly with trees that this was almost the only spot where a view could be obtained.

Next she walked beside a hawthorn-hedge. Goring had made a gravel walk parallel with the hedge, which led through the meadow to a copse at hand. There was a narrow valley between two slopes covered with wood; a copse had always been there, but Goring planted the summit each side with beech, and dotted American scarlet oaks about, besides cutting green walks among the ash, where, on turning a corner, you came unexpectedly on a bed of flowers or strawberries.

So soon as she reached the copse and had put her hand on the wicket-gate she heard the rush of falling waters. For some reason it was not audible till the wicket was reached, thence at every step in the wood it increased in volume of sound. A little stream from the chalk hill ran through the wood; years and years ago it had been banked up, and a pool made, in which there were trout. The pool was large enough for a boathouse; by the boathouse was a special compartment constructed for Felise, for bathing purposes.

Here she had learnt to swim; Goring taught her. Surrounded by wooded hills, and absolutely private, there could not have been a choicer place for bathing. The sea was so near⁠—five miles is very little to country people⁠—and Felise displayed so wilful a resolution to go out upon it at all times and seasons, that Goring never felt safe till she could swim. Of course she beat her teacher. “Papa”⁠—he was only her uncle, though, as she had never known her parents, she called him papa⁠—was getting grey. She could beat him swimming⁠—three to one.

Felise moved more slowly in the ash-wood, listening to the rush of the water as it fell over the hatch of the pond. It rendered her thoughtful. Climbing up the embankment which held the water in, she sat down on the beam of the hatch. Behind her the water dropped in an arch, ten feet deep, into a gully nearly crossed by ferns, which perpetually nodded. The spray struck them and bent them down; they rose up and were struck down again; and so on all day and night.

Before her the pool stretched out, an acre or two, broad at this end and deep, and narrowing up to a point where the stream ran in. The wood came down close on three sides; on the fourth, at her left hand, was a narrow strip of sward. The boathouse, on the right, was in shadow, being overhung by beeches; all the rest of the mere in bright sunshine.

Felise put up her sunshade and listened to the rush of the cataract. Though it seemed to fill the ear, the notes of a blackbird in the wood were distinct above it; they pierced the diffused sound of the waterfall. A chaffinch perched close to her; there were some long-winged flies floating about; the finch darted out and took these almost from under her parasol.

She was thinking. She had been up to the downs, and had visited the beech-tree three times since. She looked for her mark cut in the bark, and found it had been completed. Someone had added the stroke which rendered it intelligible as an M. Who could have done that? Her first thought was that it was Martial; he had returned, seen what she had been doing, guessed, and finished it.

This was what had actually taken place; but first thoughts are not always accepted. If he had done it, then her secret was out. Could it be called a secret after that interview? Her cheeks burned; she had so desired he should know, yet now she supposed he did know, she recoiled. For a moment only, however. If he had guessed and had completed the letter, then she was only too glad.

But had he? He had tried so hard to get away from her. He did not take the least interest in her. Possibly he thought her bold⁠—troublesomely bold; then he would not be likely to have returned to the spot where she had been a weariness to him. It must have been some shepherd lad whiling away the slow hours in the shadow of the beech who had carved the last stroke of the letter.

Yet she did not know. Heart said one thing: thought another. Heart said, “He did it; he is not quite indifferent to me; he has been here; he knows⁠—he understands.” Thought said, “He is entirely indifferent; my face, my form does not please him; why should he come back? Oh no! this was the work of a shepherd lad.” Yet she did not know. But if he had returned once, perhaps he would come again; so she went to the place three times, waited for an hour or two, and saw nothing of him. Of course not; he did not care. He never gave her a thought.

Yet she did not know. He might have revisited the spot at some other time of the day. So the battledore and shuttlecock of argument and suggestion continued in her mind. But the fact was indisputable that she did not see him; nor did he call to see her.

If he really understood her⁠—if he cared to understand her⁠—surely he would have called. Though their families were not on visiting terms, a gentleman can generally make some pretence if he wishes to call. He had not been⁠—he had not even ridden by, for she had been in the garden, and watching the road half the time. He did not want to come. Therefore it was not he who had completed the letter on the tree.

He did not care about her. She picked up a small stone and pitched it at a lazy trout idling at the surface of the still water. The fish shot away into the depths instantly; but her thoughts did not go away into oblivion.

He did not care for her. But he must care for her; she must make him care. It was impossible to influence him unless she could see him, speak to him, convey her heart to him, not only by words, but by those innumerable little ways which speak louder.

The weeks would lengthen into months, the months into years, and still perhaps he would not come; he would never care for her unless she could converse with him. Influence depends wholly on personal contact. No magic is known by which one person can attract another if outside the sphere of personal communication. Unseen, unspoken, how affect?

She began to feel the immeasurable weight of separation which has slowly ground so many weary hearts to the very dust of desolation.

She realized for the first time in her life the powerlessness of women. They cannot stir, they cannot move in the matters that concern them most dearly; they are helpless; at the mercy of the petty events called circumstance. If by any happy chance circumstance threw her into Martial’s society, in time he might love her. By chance only. How many years till that chance happened? Possibly enough it might never occur at all.

Time would go on. He would see fresh faces⁠—faces that pleased him better⁠—he would be wiled away by some other woman, fortunate in the fate of circumstance. A thousand little incidents might drift him farther away than he was now. She could not interfere. Strong and resolute as she was, what could she do?

Felise instinctively glanced all round her; she looked at the wood; at the path down the embankment; the nodding ferns; at the beeches far up on the summit each side; across at the willow-grown streamlet. She felt suddenly alone. She was by herself, not merely in the physical sense of no other person being near, but alone morally. Recognising that she could not command the society she desired, forced her to feel absolutely solitary. A crowd would have made no difference, she would have felt the same.

She could wait? Yes, like “Mariana in the moated grange,” in the sunshine, in the evening, in the morning, still with the same burden on her lips, “He cometh not.”

Hundreds, shall we not say rather thousands, do so wait. I saw a face, a woman’s face, at a window today, as I was strolling past a residence the style of which betokened wealth. Upon that face waiting had set its seal unmistakably. She was waiting⁠—she had been waiting years. No end to waiting. Such faces are common enough. Woman’s life seems to be nothing but waiting, sometimes.

She had unconsciously placed her elbow on her knee, and leant her face on her hand; the very thought of waiting bowed her down into an attitude of pensive regret.

How bitter it is to be a woman sometimes! On the other hand, no one triumphs like a woman when she does triumph. Caesar’s spoils and car rolling through applauding Rome, are but gewgaws to the triumph of a woman.