Love and Mr. Lewisham Read online

  CHAPTER II.

  "AS THE WIND BLOWS."

  A flaw in that pentagram of a time-table, that pentagram by which thedemons of distraction were to be excluded from Mr. Lewisham's careerto Greatness, was the absence of a clause forbidding study out ofdoors. It was the day after the trivial window peeping of the lastchapter that this gap in the time-table became apparent, a day ifpossible more gracious and alluring than its predecessor, and athalf-past twelve, instead of returning from the school directly to hislodging, Mr. Lewisham escaped through the omission and made hisway--Horace in pocket--to the park gates and so to the avenue ofancient trees that encircles the broad Whortley domain. He dismissed asuspicion of his motive with perfect success. In the avenue--for thepath is but little frequented--one might expect to read undisturbed.The open air, the erect attitude, are surely better than sitting in astuffy, enervating bedroom. The open air is distinctly healthy, hardy,simple....

  The day was breezy, and there was a perpetual rustling, a going andcoming in the budding trees.

  The network of the beeches was full of golden sunlight, and all thelower branches were shot with horizontal dashes of new-born green.

  "_Tu, nisi ventis Debes ludibrium, cave_."

  was the appropriate matter of Mr. Lewisham's thoughts, and he wasmechanically trying to keep the book open in three places at once, atthe text, the notes, and the literal translation, while he turned upthe vocabulary for _ludibrium_, when his attention, wanderingdangerously near the top of the page, fell over the edge and escapedwith incredible swiftness down the avenue....

  A girl, wearing a straw hat adorned with white blossom, was advancingtowards him. Her occupation, too, was literary. Indeed, she was sobusy writing that evidently she did not perceive him.

  Unreasonable emotions descended upon Mr. Lewisham--emotions that areunaccountable on the mere hypothesis of a casual meeting. Somethingwas whispered; it sounded suspiciously like "It's her!" He advancedwith his fingers in his book, ready to retreat to its pages if shelooked up, and watched her over it. _Ludibrium_ passed out of hisuniverse. She was clearly unaware of his nearness, he thought, intentupon her writing, whatever that might be. He wondered what it mightbe. Her face, foreshortened by her downward regard, seemedinfantile. Her fluttering skirt was short, and showed her shoes andankles. He noted her graceful, easy steps. A figure of health andlightness it was, sunlit, and advancing towards him, something, as heafterwards recalled with a certain astonishment, quite outside theSchema.

  Nearer she came and nearer, her eyes still downcast. He was full ofvague, stupid promptings towards an uncalled-for intercourse. It wascurious she did not see him. He began to expect almost painfully themoment when she would look up, though what there was to expect--! Hethought of what she would see when she discovered him, and wonderedwhere the tassel of his cap might be hanging--it sometimes occludedone eye. It was of course quite impossible to put up a hand andinvestigate. He was near trembling with excitement. His paces, actswhich are usually automatic, became uncertain and difficult. One mighthave thought he had never passed a human being before. Still nearer,ten yards now, nine, eight. Would she go past without looking up?...

  Then their eyes met.

  She had hazel eyes, but Mr. Lewisham, being quite an amateur abouteyes, could find no words for them. She looked demurely into hisface. She seemed to find nothing there. She glanced away from himamong the trees, and passed, and nothing remained in front of him butan empty avenue, a sunlit, green-shot void.

  The incident was over.

  From far away the soughing of the breeze swept towards him, and in amoment all the twigs about him were quivering and rustling and theboughs creaking with a gust of wind. It seemed to urge him away fromher. The faded dead leaves that had once been green and young sprangup, raced one another, leapt, danced and pirouetted, and thensomething large struck him on the neck, stayed for a startling moment,and drove past him up the avenue.

  Something vividly white! A sheet of paper--the sheet upon which shehad been writing!

  For what seemed a long time he did not grasp the situation. He glancedover his shoulder and understood suddenly. His awkwardnessvanished. Horace in hand, he gave chase, and in ten paces had securedthe fugitive document. He turned towards her, flushed with triumph,the quarry in his hand. He had as he picked it up seen what waswritten, but the situation dominated him for the instant. He made astride towards her, and only then understood what he had seen. Linesof a measured length and capitals! Could it really be--? Hestopped. He looked again, eyebrows rising. He held it before him,staring now quite frankly. It had been written with a stylographicpen. Thus it ran:--

  "_Come! Sharp's the word._"

  And then again,

  "_Come! Sharp's the word._"

  And then,

  "_Come! Sharp's the word._"

  "_Come! Sharp's the word._"

  And so on all down the page, in a boyish hand uncommonly likeFrobisher ii.'s.

  Surely! "I say!" said Mr. Lewisham, struggling with, the new aspectand forgetting all his manners in his surprise.... He rememberedgiving the imposition quite well:--Frobisher ii. had repeated theexhortation just a little too loudly--had brought the thing uponhimself. To find her doing this jarred oddly upon certain vaguepreconceptions he had formed of her. Somehow it seemed as if she hadbetrayed him. That of course was only for the instant.

  She had come up with him now. "May I have my sheet of paper, please?"she said with a catching of her breath. She was a couple of inchesless in height than he. Do you observe her half-open lips? said MotherNature in a noiseless aside to Mr. Lewisham--a thing he afterwardsrecalled. In her eyes was a touch of apprehension.

  "I say," he said, with protest still uppermost, "you oughtn't to dothis."

  "Do what?"

  "This. Impositions. For my boys."

  She raised her eyebrows, then knitted them momentarily, and looked athim. "Are _you_ Mr. Lewisham?" she asked with an affectation of entireignorance and discovery.

  She knew him perfectly well, which was one reason why she was writingthe imposition, but pretending not to know gave her something to say.

  Mr. Lewisham nodded.

  "Of all people! Then"--frankly--"you have just found me out."

  "I am afraid I have," said Lewisham. "I am afraid I _have_ found youout."

  They looked at one another for the next move. She decided to plead inextenuation.

  "Teddy Frobisher is my cousin. I know it's very wrong, but he seemedto have such a lot to do and to be in _such_ trouble. And I hadnothing to do. In fact, it was _I_ who offered...."

  She stopped and looked at him. She seemed to consider her remarkcomplete.

  That meeting of the eyes had an oddly disconcerting quality. He triedto keep to the business of the imposition. "You ought not to have donethat," he said, encountering her steadfastly.

  She looked down and then into his face again. "No," she said. "Isuppose I ought not to. I'm very sorry."

  Her looking down and up again produced another unreasonable effect. Itseemed to Lewisham that they were discussing something quite otherthan the topic of their conversation; a persuasion patently absurd andonly to be accounted for by the general disorder of his faculties. Hemade a serious attempt to keep his footing of reproof.

  "I should have detected the writing, you know."

  "Of course you would. It was very wrong of me to persuade him. But Idid--I assure you. He seemed in such trouble. And I thought--"

  She made another break, and there was a faint deepening of colour inher cheeks. Suddenly, stupidly, his own adolescent cheeks began toglow. It became necessary to banish that sense of a duplicate topicforthwith.

  "I can assure you," he said, now very earnestly, "I never give apunishment, never, unless it is merited. I make that a rule.I--er--_always_ make that a rule. I am very careful indeed."

  "I am really sorry," she interrupted with frank contrition. "It _was_silly of me."

  Lewisham felt unaccountably sorry she should h
ave to apologise, and hespoke at once with the idea of checking the reddening of his face. "Idon't think _that_," he said with a sort of belated alacrity. "Really,it was kind of you, you know--very kind of you indeed. And I knowthat--I can quite understand that--er--your kindness...."

  "Ran away with me. And now poor little Teddy will get into worsetrouble for letting me...."

  "Oh no," said Mr. Lewisham, perceiving an opportunity and trying notto smile his appreciation of what he was saying. "I had no business toread this as I picked it up--absolutely no business. Consequently...."

  "You won't take any notice of it? Really!"

  "Certainly not," said Mr. Lewisham.

  Her face lit with a smile, and Mr. Lewisham's relaxed in sympathy. "Itis nothing--it's the proper thing for me to do, you know."

  "But so many people won't do it. Schoolmasters are not usuallyso--chivalrous."

  He was chivalrous! The phrase acted like a spur. He obeyed a foolishimpulse.

  "If you like--" he said.

  "What?"

  "He needn't do this. The Impot., I mean. I'll let him off."

  "Really?"

  "I can."

  "It's awfully kind of you."

  "I don't mind," he said. "It's nothing much. If you really think ..."

  He was full of self-applause for this scandalous sacrifice of justice.

  "It's awfully kind of you," she said.

  "It's nothing, really," he explained, "nothing."

  "Most people wouldn't--"

  "I know."

  Pause.

  "It's all right," he said. "Really."

  He would have given worlds for something more to say, something wittyand original, but nothing came.

  The pause lengthened. She glanced over her shoulder down the vacantavenue. This interview--this momentous series of things unsaid wascoming to an end! She looked at him hesitatingly and smiled again. Sheheld out her hand. No doubt that was the proper thing to do. He tookit, searching a void, tumultuous mind in vain.

  "It's awfully kind of you," she said again as she did so.

  "It don't matter a bit," said Mr. Lewisham, and sought vainly for someother saying, some doorway remark into new topics. Her hand was cooland soft and firm, the most delightful thing to grasp, and thisobservation ousted all other things. He held it for a moment, butnothing would come.

  They discovered themselves hand in hand. They both laughed and felt"silly." They shook hands in the manner of quite intimate friends, andsnatched their hands away awkwardly. She turned, glanced timidly athim over her shoulder, and hesitated. "Good-bye," she said, and wassuddenly walking from him.

  He bowed to her receding back, made a seventeenth-century sweep withhis college cap, and then some hitherto unexplored regions of his mindflashed into revolt.

  Hardly had she gone six paces when he was at her side again.

  "I say," he said with a fearful sense of his temerity, and raising hismortar-board awkwardly as though he was passing a funeral. "But thatsheet of paper ..."

  "Yes," she said surprised--quite naturally.

  "May I have it?"

  "Why?"

  He felt a breathless pleasure, like that of sliding down a slope ofsnow. "I would like to have it."

  She smiled and raised her eyebrows, but his excitement was now toogreat for smiling. "Look here!" she said, and displayed the sheetcrumpled into a ball. She laughed--with a touch of effort.

  "I don't mind that," said Mr. Lewisham, laughing too. He captured thepaper by an insistent gesture and smoothed it out with fingers thattrembled.

  "You don't mind?" he said.

  "Mind what?"

  "If I keep it?"

  "Why should I?"

  Pause. Their eyes met again. There was an odd constraint about both ofthem, a palpitating interval of silence.

  "I really _must_ be going," she said suddenly, breaking the spell byan effort. She turned about and left him with the crumpled piece ofpaper in the fist that held the book, the other hand lifting themortar board in a dignified salute again.

  He watched her receding figure. His heart was beating with remarkablerapidity. How light, how living she seemed! Little round flakes ofsunlight raced down her as she went. She walked fast, then slowly,looking sideways once or twice, but not back, until she reached thepark gates. Then she looked towards him, a remote friendly littlefigure, made a gesture of farewell, and disappeared.

  His face was flushed and his eyes bright. Curiously enough, he was outof breath. He stared for a long time at the vacant end of theavenue. Then he turned his eyes to his trophy gripped against theclosed and forgotten Horace in his hand.