Books: Maurice Guest

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But, with her, to resolve was to act; she was ill at ease under
enforced procrastination; and had often to fight against a burning
impatience, when circumstances delayed the immediate carrying out of
her will. In this case, however, she had voluntarily postponed
Maurice's return for twenty-four hours, when he might have been with
her in less than one: for, in her mind, there lurked the seductive
thought of a long, summer day, with an emotion at its close to which
she could look forward.

In the meantime, she was puzzled how to fill up the evening. After
all, she decided to go to the theatre, where she arrived in time to
hear the last two acts of AIDA. From a seat in the PARQUET, close to
the orchestra, she let the showy music play round her.
Afterwards, she walked home through the lilachaunted night, went to
bed, and at once fell asleep.

Next morning, she wakened early--that was the sole token of
disturbance, she could detect in herself. It was very still; there was
a faint twittering of birds, but the noises of the street had not yet
begun. She lay in the subdued yellow light of her room, with one arm
across her eyes.

Fresh from sleep, she understood certain things as never before. She
saw all that had happened of late--her slow recovery, her striving and
seeking, her growing friendship with Maurice--in a different light. On
this morning, too, she was able to answer one of the questions that
had puzzled her the night before. She saw that the relations in which
they had stood to each other, during the bygone months, would have
been impossible, had she really cared for him. She liked him, yes, had
always liked him; and, in addition, his patience and kindness had made
her deeply grateful to him. But that was all. Neither his hands, nor
his voice, nor his eyes, nor anything he did, had had the power to
touch her--SO to touch her, that her own hands and eyes would have met
his half-way; that the old familiar craving, which was partly fear and
partly attraction, would have made her callous to his welfare. Had
there been a breath of this, things would have come to a climax long
ago. Hot and eager as she was, she could not have lived on coolly at
his side--and, at this moment, she found it difficult to make up her
mind whether she admired Maurice or the reverse, for having been able
to carry his part through.

And yet, though no particle of personal feeling drew her to him, she,
too, had suffered, in her own way, during these weeks of morbid
tension, when he had been incapable either of advancing or retreating.
How great the strain had been, she recognised only in the instant when
he had spanned the breach, in clear, unmistakable words. If he had not
done it, she would have been forced to; for she could never find
herself to rights, for long, in half circumstances: if she were not to
grow bewildered, she had to see her road simple and straight before
her. His words to her after they had been on the river together--more,
perhaps, his bold yet timid kisses--had given her back strength and
assurance. She was no longer the miserable instrument on which he
tried his changes of mood; she was again the giver and the bestower,
since she held a heart and a heart's happiness in the hollow of her
hand.

What people would think and say was a matter of indifference
to her: besides, they practically believed the worst of her already.
No; she had nothing to lose and, it might be, much to gain. And after
all, it meant so little! The first time, perhaps; or if one cared too
much. But in this case, where she had herself well in hand, and where
there was no chance of the blind desire to kill self arising, which
had been her previous undoing; where the chief end aimed at was the
retention of a friend--here, it meant nothing at all.

The thought that she might possibly have scruples on his part to
combat, crossed her mind. She stretched her arm straight above her
head, then laid it across her eyes again. She would like him none the
less for these scruples, did they exist: now, she believed that, at
heart, she had really appreciated his reserve, his holding back, where
others would have been so ready to pounce in. For the first time, she
considered him in the light of a lover, and she saw him differently.
As if the mere contemplation of such a change brought her nearer to
him, she was stirred by a new sensation, which had him as its object.
And under the influence of this feeling, she told herself that perhaps
just in this gentler, kindlier love, which only sought her welfare,
true happiness lay. She strained to read the future. There would be
storms neither of joy nor of pain; but watchful sympathy, and the
fine, manly tenderness that shields and protects. Oh, what if after
all her passionate craving for happiness, it was here at her feet,
having come to her as good things often do, unexpected and unsought!

She could lie still no longer; she sprang up, with an alacrity that
had been wanting in her movements of late. And throughout the long
day, this impression, which was half a hope and half a belief was
present to her mind, making everything she did seem strangely festive.
She almost feared the moment when she would see him again, lest
anything he said should dissipate her hope.

When he came, her eyes followed him searchingly. With an instinct that
was now morbidly sharpened, Maurice was aware of the change in her,
even before he saw her eyes. His own were one devouring question.

She made him sit down beside her.

"What is it, Louise? Tell me--quickly. Remember, I've been all day in
suspense," he said, as seconds passed and she did not speak.

"You got my note then?"

"What is it?--what did you mean?"

"Just a little patience, Maurice. You take one's breath away.
You want to know everything at once. I sent for you because--oh,
because . . . I want you to let us go on being friends."

"Is that all?" he cried, and his face fell. "When I have told you
again and again that's just what I can't do?"

She smiled. "I wish I had known you as a boy, Maurice--oh, but as quite
a young boy!" she said in such a changed voice that he glanced up in
surprise. Whether it was the look she bent on him, or her voice, or
her words, he did not know; but something emboldened him to do what he
had often done in fancy: he slid to his knees before her, and laid his
head on her lap. She began to smooth back his hair, and each time her
hand came forward, she let it rest for a moment.--She wondered how he
would look when he knew.

"You can't care for me, I know. But I would give my life to make you
happy."

"Why do you love me?" She experienced a new pleasure in postponing his
knowing, postponing it indefinitely.

"How can I say? All I know is how I love you--and how I have suffered."

"My poor Maurice," she said, in the same caressing way. "Yes, I shall
always call you poor.--For the love I could give you would be worthless
compared with yours."

"To me it would be everything.--If you only knew how I have longed for
you, and how I have struggled!"

He took enough of her dress to bury his face in. She sat back, and
looked over him into the growing dusk of the room: and, in the
alabaster of her face, nothing seemed to live except her black eyes,
with the half-rings of shadow.

Suddenly, with the unexpectedness that marked her movements when she
was very intent, she leant forward again, and, with her elbow on her
knee, her chin on her hand, said in a low voice: "Is it for ever?"

"For ever and ever."

"Say it's for ever." She still looked past him, but her lips had
parted, and her face wore the expression of a child's listening to
fairy-tales. At her own words, a vista seemed to open up before her,
and, at the other end, in blue haze, shone the great good that had
hitherto eluded her.

"I shall always love you," said the young man. "Nothing can make any
difference."

"For ever," she repeated. "They are pretty words."

Then her expression changed; she took his head between her
hands.

"Maurice . . . I'm older than you, and I know better than you, what
all this means. Believe me, I'm not worth your love. I'm only the
shadow of my old self. And you are still so young and so . . . so
untried. There's still time to turn back, and be wise."

He raised his head.

"What do you mean? Why are you saying these things? I shall always
love you. Life itself is nothing to me, without you. I want you . . .
only you."

He put his arms round her, and tried to draw her to him. But she held
back. At the expression of her face, he had a moment of acute
uncertainty, and would have loosened his hold. But now it was she who
knotted her hands round his neck, and gave him a long, penetrating
look. He was bewildered; he did not understand what it meant; but it
was something so strange that, again, he had the impulse to let her
go. She bent her head, and laid her face against his; cheek rested on
cheek. He took her face between his hands, and stared into her eyes,
as if to tear from them what was passing in her brain. Over both, in
the same breath, swept the warm, irresistible wave of self-surrender.
He caught her to him, roughly and awkwardly, in a desperate embrace,
which the kindly dusk veiled and redeemed.

XIII.

"Now you will not leave me, Maurice?"

"Never . . . while I live."

"And you . . ."

"No. Don't ask me yet. I can't tell you."

"Maurice!"

"Forgive me! Not yet. That after all you should care a little! After
all . . . that you should care so much!"

"And it is for ever?"

"For ever and ever . . . what do you take me for? But not here! Let us
go away--to some new place. We will make it our very own."

Their words came in haste, yet haltingly; were all but inaudible
whispers; went flying back and forwards, like brief cries for aid,
implying a peculiar sense of aloofness, of being cut adrift and thrown
on each other's mercy.

Louise raised her head.

"Yes, we will go away. But now, Maurice--at once!"

"Yes. To-night . . . to-morrow . . . when you like."

The next morning, he set out to find a place. Three weeks of the term
had still to run, and he was to have played in an ABENDUNTERHALTUNG,
before the vacation. But, compared with the emotional upheaval he had
undergone, this long-anticipated event was of small consequence. To
Schwarz, he alleged a succession of nervous headaches, which
interfered with his work. His looks lent colour to the statement; and
though, as a rule, highly irritated by opposition to his plans,
Schwarz only grumbled in moderation. He would have let no one else off
so easily, and, at another time, the knowledge of this would have
rankled in Maurice, as affording a fresh proof of the master's
indifference towards him. As it was, he was thankful for the freedom
it secured him.

On the strength of a chance remark of Madeleine's, which he had
remembered, he found what he looked for, without difficulty. It could
not have been better: a rambling inn, with restaurant, set in a
clearing on the top of a wooded hill, with an open view over the
undulating plains.

That night, he wrote to Louise from the Rochlitzer Berg, painting the
nest he had found for them in glowing colours, and begging her
to come without delay. But the whole of the next day passed without a
word from her, and the next again, and not till the morning of the
third, did he receive a note, announcing her arrival for shortly after
midday. He took it with him to the woods, and lay at full length on
the moss.

Although he had been alone now for more than forty-eight hours--a July
quiet reigned over the place--he had not managed to think connectedly.
He was still dazed, disbelieving of what had happened. Again and again
he told himself that his dreams and hopes--which he had always pushed
forward into a vague and far-off future--had actually come to pass. She
was his, all his; she had given herself ungrudgingly: as soon as he
could make it possible, she would be his wife. But, in the meantime,
this was all he knew: his nearer vision was obstructed by the
stupefying thought of the weeks to come. She was to be there, beside
him, day after day, in a golden paradise of love. He could only think
of it with moist eyes; and he swore to himself that he would repay her
by being more infinitely careful of her than ever man before of the
woman he loved. But though he repeated this to himself, and believed
it, his feelings had unwittingly changed their pole. On his knees
before her, he had vowed that her happiness was the end of all his
pleading; now it was frankly happiness he sought, the happiness of
them both, but, first and foremost, happiness. And it could hardly
have been otherwise: the one unpremeditated mingling of their lives
had killed thought; he could only feel now, and, throughout these
days, he was conscious of each movement he made, as of a song sung
aloud. He wandered up and down the wooded paths, blind to everything
but the image of her face, which was always with him, and oftenest as
it had bent over him that last evening, with the strange new fire in
its eyes. Closing his own, he felt again her arms on his shoulders,
her lips meeting his, and, at such moments, it could happen that he
threw his arms round a tree, in an ungovernable rush of longing.
Beyond the moment when he should clasp her to him again, he could not
see: the future was as indistinct as were the Saxon plains, in the
haze of morning or evening.

He set out to meet her far too early in the day, and when he had
covered the couple of miles that lay between the inn on the hill and
the railway-station at the foot, he was obliged to loiter about the
sleepy little town for over an hour. But gradually the time ticked
away; the hands of his watch pointed to a quarter to two, and
presently he found himself on the shadeless, sandy station
which lay at the end of a long, sandy street, edged with two rows of
young and shadeless trees; found himself looking along the line of
rail that was to bring her to him. Would the signal never go up? He
began to feel, in spite of the strong July sunlight, that there was
something illusive about the whole thing. Or perhaps it was just this
harsh, crude light, without relieving shadows, which made his
surroundings seem unreal to him. However it was, the nearer the moment
came when he would see her again, the more improbable it seemed that
the train, which was even now overdue, should actually be carrying her
towards him--her to him! He would yet waken, with a shock. But then,
coming round a corner in the distance, at the side of a hill, he saw
the train. At first it appeared to remain stationary, then it
increased in size, approached, made a slight curve, and was a snaky
line; it vanished, and reappeared, leaving first a white trail of
cloud, then thick rounded puffs of cloud, until it was actually there,
a great black object, with a creak and a rattle.

He had planted himself at the extreme end of the platform, and the
carriages went past him. He hastened, almost running, along the train.
At the opposite end, a door was opened, the porter took out some bags,
and Louise stepped down, and turned to look for him. He was the only
person on the station, besides the two officials, and in passing she
had caught a glimpse of his face. If he looks like that, every one
will know, she thought to herself, and her first words, as he came
breathlessly up, were: "Maurice, you mustn't look so glad!"

He had never really seen her till now, when, in a white dress, with
eyes and lips alight, she stood alone with him on the wayside
platform. To curb his first, impetuous gesture, Louise had stretched
out both her hands. He stood holding them, unable to take his eyes
from her face. At her movement to withdraw them, he stooped and kissed
them.

"Not look glad? Then you shouldn't have come."

They left her luggage to be sent up later in the day, and set out on
their walk. Going down the shadeless street, and through the town, she
was silent. At first, as they went, Maurice pointed out things that he
thought would interest her, and spoke as if he attached importance to
them. While, in reality, nothing mattered, now that she was beside
him. And gradually, he, too, lapsed into silence, walking by her side
across the square, and through the narrow streets, with the solemnly
festive feelings of a child on Sunday. They crossed the moat,
passed through the gates and courtyard of the old castle, and began to
ascend the steep path that was a short-cut to the woods. It was
exposed to the full glare of the sun, and, on reaching the sheltering
trees, Louise gave a sigh of relief, and stood still to take off her
hat.

"It's so hot. And I like best to be bareheaded."

"Yes, and now I can see you better. Is it really you, at last? I still
can't believe it.--That you should have come to me!"

"Yes, I'm real," she smiled, and thrust the pins through the crown of
the hat. "But very tired, Maurice. It was so hot, and the train was so
slow."

"Tired?--of course, you must be. Come, there's a seat just round this
corner. You shall rest there."

They sat, and he laid his arm along the back of the bench. With his
left hand he turned her face towards him. "I must see you. I expect
every minute to wake and find it's not true."

"And yet you haven't even told me you're glad to see me."

"Glad? No. Glad is only a word."

She leaned lightly against the protective pressure of his arm. On one
of her hands lying in her lap, a large spot of sunlight settled. He
stooped and put his lips to it. She touched his head.

"Were the days long without me?"

"Why didn't you come sooner?"

Not that he cared, or even cared to know, now that she was there. But
he wanted to hear her speak, to remember that he could now have her
voice in his ears, whenever he chose. But Louise was not disposed to
talk; the few words she said, fell unwillingly from her lips. The
stillness of the forest laid its spell upon them: each faint rustling
among the leaves was audible; not a living thing stirred except
themselves. The tall firs and beeches stretched infinitely upwards,
and the patches of light that lay here and there on the moss, made the
cool darkness seem darker.

When they walked on again, Maurice put his arm through hers, and, in.
this intimacy of touch, was conscious of every step she took. It made
him happy to suit his pace to hers, to draw her aside from a spreading
root or loose stone, and to feel her respond to his pressure. She
walked for the most part languidly, looking to the ground. But at a
thickly wooded turn of the path, where it was very dark, where the
sunlight seemed far away, and the pine-scent was more pungent than
elsewhere, she stopped, to drink in the spicy air with open lips and
nostrils.

"It's like wine. Maurice, I'm glad we came here--that you found
this place. Think of it, we might still be sitting indoors, with the
blinds drawn, knowing that the pavements were baking in the sun. While
here! . . . Oh, I shall be happy here!"

She was roused for a moment to a rapturous content with her
surroundings. She looked childishly happy and very young. Maurice
pressed her arm, without speaking: he was so foolishly happy that her
praise of the place affected him like praise of himself. Again, he had
a chastened feeling of exhilaration: as though an acme of satisfaction
had been reached, beyond which it was impossible to go.

On catching sight of the rambling wooden building, in the midst of the
clearing that had been made among the encroaching trees, Louise gave
another cry of pleasure, and before entering the house, went to the
edge of the terrace, and looked down on the plains. But upstairs, in
her room on the first storey, he made her rest in an arm-chair by the
window. He himself prepared the tea, proud to perform the first of the
trivial services which, from now on, were to be his. There was nothing
he would not do for her, and, as a beginning, he persuaded her to lie
down on the sofa and try to sleep.

Once outside again, he did not know how to kill time; and the
remainder of the afternoon seemed interminable. He endeavoured to
read, but could not take in the meaning of two consecutive sentences.
He was afraid to go far away, in case she should wake and miss him. So
he loitered about in the vicinity of the house, and returned every few
minutes, to see if her blind were not drawn up. Finally, he sat down
at one of the tables on the terrace, where he had her window in sight.
Towards six o'clock, his patience was exhausted; going upstairs, he
listened outside the door of her room. Not a sound. With infinite
precaution, he turned the handle, and looked in.

She was lying just as he had left her, fast asleep. Her head was a
little on one side; her left hand was under her cheek, her right lay
palm upwards on the rug that covered her. Maurice sat down in the
arm-chair.

At first, he looked furtively, afraid of disturbing her; then more
openly, in the hope that she would waken. Sitting thus, and thinking
over the miracle that had happened to him, he now sought to find
something in her face for him alone, which had previously not been
there. But his thoughts wandered as he gazed. How he loved it!--this
face of hers. He was invariably worked on afresh by the
blackness of the lustreless hair; by the pale, imperious mouth; by the
dead white pallor of the skin, which shaded to a dusky cream in the
curves of neck and throat, and in the lines beneath the eyes was of a
bluish brown. Now the lashes lay in these encircling rings. Without
doubt, it was the eyes that supplied life to the face: only when they
were open, and the lips parted over the strong teeth, was it possible
to realise how intense a vitality was latent in her. But his love
would wipe out the last trace of this wan tiredness. He would be
infinitely careful of her: he would shield her from the impulsiveness
of her own nature; she should never have cause to regret what she had
done. And the affection that bound them would day by day grow
stronger. All his work, all his thoughts, should belong to her alone;
she would be his beloved wife; and through him she would learn what
love really was.

He rose and stood over her, longing to share his feelings with her.
But she remained sunk in her placid sleep, and as he stood, he became
conscious of a different sensation. He had never seen her face--except
convulsed by weeping--when it was not under full control. Was it
because he had stared so long at it, or was it really changed in
sleep? There was something about it, at this moment, which he could
not explain: it almost looked less fine. The mouth was not so proudly
reticent as he had believed it to be; there was even a want of
restraint about it; and the chin had fallen. He did not care to see it
like this: it made him uneasy. He stooped and touched her hand. She
started up, and could not remember where she was. She put both hands
to her forehead. "Maurice!--what is it? Have I been asleep long?"

He held his watch before her eyes. With a cry she sprang to her feet.
Then she sent him downstairs.

They were the only guests. They had supper alone in a longish room, at
a little table spread with a coloured cloth. The window was open
behind them, and the branches of the trees outside hung into the room.
In honour of the occasion, Maurice ordered wine, and they remained
sitting, after they had finished supper, listening to the rustling and
swishing of the trees. The only drawback to the young man's happiness
was the pertinacious curiosity of the girl who waited on them. She
lingered after she had served them, and stared so hard that Maurice
turned at length and asked her what the matter was.

The girl coloured to the roots of her hair.

"Ach, Fraulein is so pretty," she answered naivly, in her
broad Saxon dialect.

Both laughed, and Louise asked her name, and if she always lived
there. Thus encouraged, Amalie, a buxom, thickset person, with a
number of flaxen plaits, came forward and began to talk. Her eyes were
fixed on Louise, and she only occasionally glanced from her to the
young man.

"It's nice to have a sweetheart," she said suddenly.

Louise laughed again and coloured. "Haven't you got one, Amalie?"

Amalie shook her head, and launched out into a tale of faithlessness
and desertion. "Yes, if I were as pretty as you, Fraulein, it would be
a different thing," she ended, with a hearty sigh.

Maurice clattered up from the table. "All right, Amalie, that'll do."

They went out of doors, and strolled about in the twilight. He had
intended to show her some of the pretty nooks in the neighbourhood of
the house. But she was not as affable with him as she had been with
Amalie; she walked at his side with an air of preoccupied
indifference.

When they sat down on a seat, on the side of the hill, the moon had
risen. It was almost at the full, and a few gently sailing scraps of
cloud, which crossed it, made it seem to be coming towards them. The
plains beneath were veiled in haze; detached sounds mounted from them:
the prolonged barking of a dog, the drone of an approaching train.
Round about them, the air was heavy with the scent of the sun-warmed
pines. Maurice had taken her hand and sat holding it: it was the one
thing that existed for him. All else was vague and unreal: only their
two hearts beat in all the universe. But there was no interchange
between them of binding words or endearments, such as pass between
most lovers.