the next few days were to nigel like a piece of steep hill to a cart-horse. there was only one comfort—he felt no temptation to seek oblivion again as he had sought it at the bells. he turned surlily from the men he had looked to for alleviation—he knew they could not give it. all they could do was to cover his wounds with septic rags—they had no oil and wine for him.
so he put down his head, seeing nothing but the little patch of ground over which he moved, planted his feet firmly, and pulled from the shoulder. perhaps it was because he saw such a little of his way that he did not notice janey was doing pretty much the same thing—with the difference that she fretted more, like a horse with a bearing-rein, which cannot pull from the collar. side by side they were plunging up the hill of difficulty—and yet neither saw how the other strained.
len vaguely realised that something was wrong with janet, but he put it down to her anxiety about nigel. an atmosphere of reticence and misunderstanding had settled on sparrow hall, frankness had gone and effects were put down to the wrong causes. len tried to help janey by helping nigel. it struck him that his brother would be happier if he had less pottering work to do. so he took upon himself all the monotonous details of the yard, and asked nigel to see to the larger[pg 87] matters, which involved much tramping in the country round.
one day towards the end of october, len asked him to attend an auction at forest row. he went by train, but as the auction ended rather earlier than he expected, he decided to walk home.
it was a pale afternoon, smelling of rain. the sky was covered with soft mackerel clouds, dappled with light, and the distances were mysterious and tender. nigel had a special love for distances—for three years he had not been able to look further than a wall some thirty yards off, except when he lifted his eyes to that one far view prison could not rob him of, the sky. now the stretch of distant fields, the blur of distant woods, the gleam of distant windows in distant farms, even the distant gape of oxted chalk-pit among the surrey hills, filled him with an ineffable sense of quiet and liberty.
for this reason he walked home along the high road, ignoring the dusty cars—so that he might look on either side of him into distances, the shaded sleep of meadows in the east, the pine-bound brows of the forest in the west.
he did not feel that resentment at nature's indifference to human moods, which is a man's right and a token of his lordship. on the contrary, the beauty and happiness of the background to his travail gave him a vague sense of ultimate justice. the peace of the country against the restless misery of human life reminded him of those early italian pictures of the crucifixion—in which, behind all the hideous medi?val realism of the[pg 88] subject, lies a tranquil background of vineyard and cypress, lazily shining waters, dream cities on the hills. that was life—a crucifixion against a background of green fields.
he was roused from his meditations by being nearly knocked down by a big car. he sprang into the hedge, and cursed with his mouth full of dust. the dust drifted, and he saw some one else crouching in the hedge not a hundred feet away. it was a girl with her bicycle—somehow he felt no surprise when he saw that it was tony strife, the "girl-kid," again.
she was obviously in difficulties. one of her tyres was off, and her repairing outfit lay scattered by the roadside. she did not see him, but stooped over her work with a hot face. nigel did not think of greeting her—though their last encounter had impressed him far more than the first; she had even come once or twice into his dreams, standing with little ivy among fields of daisies, in that golden radiance which shines only in sleep.
he was passing, when suddenly she lifted her head, and recognition at once filled her eyes—
"oh, mr. smith!..."
her voice had in it both relief and entreaty. he stopped at once.
"what's happened?"
"i've punctured my tyre—and i can't mend it."
he knelt down beside her, and searched among the litter on the road.
"why, you haven't got any rubber!"
"that's just it. i haven't used my bicycle for[pg 89] so long that i never thought of looking to see if everything was there. what shall i do?"
"let me wheel it for you to a shop."
"there's nowhere nearer than forest row, and that's three miles away."
"are you in a great hurry?"
"yes—terrible. the others have gone up to fairwarp in the car for a picnic. there wasn't enough room for us all, so awdrey and i were to bicycle; then she said her skirt was too tight, so they squeezed her in, and i bicycled alone. it's quite close really, but i had this puncture, and they all passed me in the car, and never saw me, they were going so fast. i don't know how i can possibly be at fairwarp in time."
"no—nor do i. we can't mend your tyre without the stuff, and the nearest shop is two miles from here."
"i'll have to go home, that's all. they'll be awfully sick about it—for i've got the nicest cakes on my carrier."
nigel laughed.
"then perhaps you have the advantage, after all. just think—you can eat them all yourself!"
"they're too many for one person. i say, won't you have some?"
"that would be a shame."
"oh no—do have some. i hate eating alone—and i'm awfully hungry."
she began to unstrap the parcel from her carrier.
"this is a dusty place for a picnic," said nigel, "let's go down the lane to brambletye, and eat them there."
[pg 90]
the idea and the words came almost together. he did not pause to think how funny it was that he should suddenly want to go for a picnic with a school-girl of sixteen. it seemed quite natural, somehow. however, he could not help being a little dismayed at his own boldness. this girl would freeze up at once if by any chance he betrayed who he really was. as for her people—but the thought of their scandalised faces was an incitement rather than otherwise.
"where's brambletye?" asked tony.
"don't you know it?—it's the ruin at the bottom of that lane. you must have passed it often."
"i've never been down the lane—only along the road in the car."
"and you live so near! why, i've often been to brambletye, and i live much further away than you."
"where do you live?"
this was a settler, to which nigel had laid himself open by his enthusiasm. he decided to face the situation boldly.
"i live over in surrey—at a place called fan's court."
"fan's court," she repeated vaguely. "i don't think i've heard of it."
"oh, it's a long way from you—beyond blindly heath—and only a little place. i'm not very well off, you know."
she glanced at his shabby clothes, and felt embarrassed, for she saw that he had noticed the glance.
he picked up the litter from the roadside, and began to wheel her bicycle down the hill.
[pg 91]
"i say," she breathed softly, "this is an adventure."
so it was—for both, in very different ways. for her it was an incursion into lawlessness. her father was tremendously particular, even her girl friends had to pass the censor before intimacy was allowed, and as for men—why, she had never really known a man in her life, and here she was, picnicing with one her parents had never seen! nigel was in exactly the opposite position—he was adventuring into law and respectability. he was with a girl, a school-girl, of the upper middle classes, to whom he was simply a rather poverty-stricken country gentleman—to whom his disgrace was unknown, who admitted him to her society on equal terms, ignorant of the barriers that divided them. he looked down at her as she walked by his side, her soft hair freckled with light, her eyes bright with her thrills—and a faint glow came into his cheeks, a faint flutter to his pulses, nothing fierce or mighty, but a great quiet surge that seemed to pass over him like the sea, and leave him stranded in simplicity.
they walked down the steep lane which led from the road, and wound for some yards at the back of brasses wood. here in a hollow stood the shell of a ruined manor, flanked by a moat. two ivy-smothered towers rose side by side, crowned by strange, pointed caps of stone; the walls were lumped with ivy, grown to an enormous density and stoutness. the place looked deserted. there was a small water-mill behind it, and a farm, but no one was about.
[pg 92]
nigel wheeled tony's bicycle in at the dismantled door. the roof was gone, and all the upper floors—the sky looked down freely at the grass hillocks which filled the inside of the ruins. there were one or two small rooms still partly ceiled, and these were full of farm implements and mangolds.
a tremulous peace brooded over brambletye. birds twittered in the ivy, the tall, capped turrets were outlined against a sky that flushed faintly in the heart of its grey, as the sunset crept up it from the hills. both nigel and tony were silent for a moment, standing there in the peace.
"fancy my never having been here before," said the girl at last. "how ripping it is!"
"i'm glad i brought you."
"it's strange," continued tony, as she unfastened the cakes from her bicycle, "that i haven't seen you before—before i met you at east grinstead, i mean."
"oh, i've been away, i've not lived at home for some time. you haven't been here long, have you?" he was anxious to shift the conversation from dangerous ground.
"we came to shovelstrode about three years ago. before that we lived near seaford. i go to school at seaford, you know."
school seemed a fairly safe topic.
"tell me about your school," he said, as they began to eat the cakes.
school was tony's paramount absorption, and no one else ever asked her to speak of it. indeed, on the rare occasions when she expanded of her[pg 93] own accord, her family would silence her with, "tony, we're sick of that eternal school of yours—one would think it was the whole world, and your home just a corner of it." that was in fact the relative positions of home and school in tony's mind. school was a world of kindred spirits, of things that mattered, home was a place of exile, to which three times a year one was bundled—and ignored. to her delight she realised that her new friend sympathised with her, and understood her feelings.
"you know, mr. smith, how beastly it is to be in a place where every one gets hold of the wrong end of what you say—where you don't seem to fit in, somehow."
"i do know—it's—it's exactly the same with me."
"don't they like you being at home?"
"rather!—they like it better than i deserve. but i don't fit in."
"and you've nowhere else to go?"
"i don't want to go anywhere else."
tony looked mystified.
his eyes were shining straight into hers, and they seemed to be asking her something, pleading, beseeching. she found a strange feeling invading her, a feeling that had sometimes surged up in her heart when she saw a dying animal, or a bird fluttering against cage-bars. but this time there was a new intensity in it, and a stifling sense of pain. she suddenly put out her hand and laid it on his—then drew it shyly away.
the sky had flushed to a fiery purple behind[pg 94] the turrets of brambletye. a mysterious glow trembled on the ivy. the birds were twittering restlessly, and every now and then a robin uttered his harsh signal note. nigel rose to his feet.
"you mustn't be late home, or your parents will get anxious."
"we've had such a ripping picnic—better than if i'd gone to fairwarp."
"i've been dull company for you, i'm afraid."
"oh, no—indeed not! i've so enjoyed talking to you about school."
nigel smiled at her.
"perhaps we can meet and talk about school another day."
"yes—i expect we can. i'm generally alone, you see."
"haven't you any friends?"
"i've heaps at school—but they all seem so far away."
he was wheeling her bicycle up the lane, and the sun, struggling through the clouds at last, flung long shadows before them. in summer the lanes are often ugly, white and bare, but in autumn they share the beauty of the fields. this lane, delicately slimed with sussex mud, wound a soft gleaming brown between the hedges, except where the rain-filled ruts were crimson with the sky.
"it's only four miles to shovelstrode," said nigel. "i'll wheel your bicycle to wilderwick corner—you won't mind going the rest of the way alone, will you?—it's not more than a hundred yards, and i shall have to go down wilderwick[pg 95] hill and make a bolt across country if i'm to be home in time."
"i hope i haven't kept you."
"oh, no—i've enjoyed every moment of it."
"so have i. that man furlonger did me a good turn after all."
"what do you mean?" he asked sharply.
"well, if it hadn't been for him, i'd never have met you."
"furlonger...."
"yes—he was the man who was bothering me at east grinstead station, at least my people say it must have been. he came out of prison that day, you know."
"oh...."
"have you heard of him?"
"yes. i—i know him slightly."
"he's a dreadful man, isn't he?"
nigel licked his lips.
"yes—he's a rotter. but he—he has his good points—all men have."
"i don't see how a man like furlonger can. he seems bad all around. i wonder you care to know him."
"i don't care—i can't help it."
"i suppose you knew him before he went to gaol."
"yes—and unluckily i can't drop him now."
"i should."
nigel stared at her, and suddenly felt angry.
"why, you hard-hearted little girl?"
"he's bad all through—father says so."
[pg 96]
"your father doesn't know him. i do, and i say he has his good points."
"are you very fond of him?"
"no—i'm not."
"then why do you stick up for him so? you're quite angry."
"no—no, i'm not angry. but i hate to hear you speaking so harshly and—ignorantly."
"i have my ideals," said tony, with a primitive attempt at loftiness. "a woman should have clearly defined ideals on morals and things."
nigel could not suppress a smile.
"certainly—but it's no good having ideals unless you're able to forgive the people who don't come up to 'em. perhaps it isn't their fault—perhaps it's yours."
"mine! what are you talking about? are you trying to make out that i'm to blame for a man like furlonger going to gaol?"
"no—of course not. but suppose that man furlonger stood before you now, and asked you to help him, and be his friend, and give him a hand out of the mud—what would you do?"
she was a little taken aback by his eagerness. she hesitated a moment.
"i'd tell him to go to a clergyman——"
"oh!" said nigel blankly.
