Dariel: A Romance of Surrey

CHAPTER IX

STRANGE SENSATIONS

"Yours very faithfully." Oh, if that were only written in earnest, instead of cold convention! To have, faithfully mine, the most lovely, and perfect, entrancing, enslaving, poetical, celestial – tush, what word is there in our language? None of course; because there has never been anything like it until now. Gentleness, sweetness, gracefulness, purity, simplicity, warmth of heart, gratitude for even such a trifling service – all these were very fine things in their way; but away with them all, if they want to tell me why I love my darling! Because I cannot help it, is the only reason. It must be so, because it is so. Surely this is their own fair logic, and they must feel the force of it.

All this jumped with reason well, and was plainer than a pikestaff. But the path of true love still was crossed by one little bar, without a sign-post. In the name of the zodiac, where was Daghestan?

Man had not quite hatched board-schools yet; though already, under the tread of Progress, incubating of them. Having been only at a public school, and then for two years at Oxford, no opportunity had I found for hearing of Modern Geography. That such a thing existed, I could well believe, from the talk of undergraduates, whose lot it was to cram for competition of a lower kind. I had been a prefect at Winchester, and passed my little-go at Oxford, and might have gone in for honours there, though very likely not to get them. But in all this thoroughly sound education, I had never dreamed of Modern Geography. I could have told you, though it is all gone now, the name of every village in Peloponnese, and of every hill in Attica, and the shape of every bay and island, and a pestilent lot of them there was, from the Hellespont to Tænarus. But if you had asked me the names and number of the counties of England, and other wild questions of that sort, I should have answered, as a friend of mine did, who got an open scholarship at Oxford, and then went in for something in London, "There are about half a hundred, more or less; but Parliament is always changing them." And this man got the highest marks in the geography of that year; because the examiner was a Welshman, and therefore laid claim to Monmouth.

But wherever Daghestan might be, I felt sure of its being the noblest country (outside the British dominions) of all the sun could shine upon. Moreover, it sounded as if it had no little to do with the Garden of Eden. Ispahan, and Teheran, and other rhymes for caravan, had a gorgeous oriental sound, as of regions of romance, inhabited by Peris, and paved with gold and diamonds. And the glow that flickered through the wheat that day, as the mellow fountains danced before the blue half-moon of sickle, was warmer than an English sun can throw, and quickened with a brilliance of heavenly tints, such as Hope alone, the Iris of the heart, may cast.

"Farmer Jarge, here's nuts for you. What do you suppose I have found out now?"

This was that lazy fellow Tom, sprawling in the yellow stubble, with his back against a stook, and a pipe in his mouth, and a dog's-eared novel on his lap. We had knocked off work for half an hour in the middle of the day, just to get a bit to eat; and I was not best pleased with Erricker, because of the difference between the noble promise of the breakfast table, and the trumpery performance in the field.

"Get away," I said; "you can talk, and nothing else. All you have found out is where the beer-can is; you are not even worthy of your bread and cheese." However, I gave him some, and he began to munch.

"Won't you laugh, when I tell you about this? And it upsets all your theories that you are so wonderfully wise with. I must have heard you say a thousand times, that it is only a fool that ever falls in love."

"You never understand a thing that anybody says. There are limitations, and conditions, and a whole variety of circumstances, that may make all the difference; otherwise a man would be a fool to talk like that."

"Fool to do it? Or fool to talk about it? You seem to be getting a bit mixed, friend George. It's the stooping that has done it. By Jove! I couldn't stand that. Nature never meant me for a reaper, George. And you may thank the Lord that I did not cut your legs off. But what do you think 'Stocks and Stones' has done? And you can't call him a fool altogether. Head over heels, 'Stocks and Stones' has fallen in love with our Grace!"

"Our Grace, indeed! Have you a sister of that name? If you should happen to refer to my sister, I will thank you to call her 'Miss Cranleigh'! Is there anything this fellow does not meddle with?"

"Mr. George Cranleigh, Mr. Jackson Stoneman aspires to the hand of Miss Grace Cranleigh, daughter of Sir Harold Cranleigh, Bart. Is that grand enough, Mr. Cranleigh? And if so, what do you think of it?"

What I thought of it was that there scarcely could have been a more unlucky complication than was likely now to be brought about by Tom's confounded discovery. It was not in his nature to hold his tongue; and if he should once let this knowledge escape him, in the presence of my father and mother, or worst of all in that of my sister, it would be all up with Stoneman's chance of marrying Grace Cranleigh. And as to binding Tom to secrecy, as well might one blow the kitchen bellows at a dandelion ball, and beg it not to part with a particle of its plumage. On the spur of the moment, I said more than facts would bear me out in, when they came up at leisure.

"Don't tell me, you stupid fellow. How many more mare's nests must come out of your eyes, before you see anything? But if you must take in such rubbish, just do this, Tom, will you? Keep your eyes wide open, my boy. You know how sharp you are, Tom. But not a word to any one, or it would spoil your game altogether. By the by, where is Daghestan, Tom? You are such a swell at geography."

"Daghestan! I seem to have heard of it, and yet I can't be certain. Persian, I think. No, that is Ispahan. Tut, tut, what a fool I am! – of course I know all about it. Why it's in the United States, a prime place for scalping and buffaloes."

"No, you old muff, that is Dakota. Quite another pair of shoes. I don't want to disturb the Governor, or I could find out in a moment. Never mind, it doesn't matter; and here we go to work again. Now what is the sweetest smell, do you think, in all the world of farming? Not a great over-powering scent, but a delicate freshness through the air."

"I should say the hay on an upland meadow, when it begins to make. Or perhaps a field of new bean-blossom. I never knew that till this year; but upon my word it was stunning."

"No, the most delicate of all scents is from the clover first laid bare among the wheat where it was sown. No blossom of course; but the fragrance of the leaf, among the glossy quills that sheltered it. But come along; if you can't swing hook without peril of manslaughter, you can bind, or you can set up stooks, or earn your keep some little. Why, Grace is worth a score of you! Poor Tom, is your finger bleeding? You must come harvesting in kid gloves."

"I will tell you what it is," said Tom, after keeping his place among the binders for about five minutes. "I am a thoroughgoing countryman, and I know a lot about farming; and you know how I can jump and run, and a good light weight with the gloves I am; but this job beats me altogether. 'Pay your footing, sir, pay your footing!' You'll have to pay for my headstone, George, if you keep me on much longer. How you can go on all day long – but I want you to do something for me, and by the Powers, I have earned it."

He wanted me to promise, in return for all his labours, to give up my plans for the evening, and present myself at dinner-time for the ceremony at the cottage. This, though a very simple business, must be done in the proper form; and then it would be my duty perhaps to offer to take a hand at whist, and be ready for the wearisome wrangle, which even well-bred people make of it. But I had nobler fish to fry.

"Tom, I can't do it. You like that sort of thing; and my mother is delighted with your sprightly little tales. Go and put your brave apparel on. Everybody admires you; and you love that."

He knew that he did. Why should he deny it? The happiness of mankind is pleasure, though it passes without our knowledge, because we never can stop to think of it, – as a man in a coach sees the hedges race by; and if it comes to that, where may you find true bliss so near at home, as in being pleased with your own good self? Our Tom had a happy time. Nothing long tormented him. He carried a lofty standard with him, and flopped its white folds joyously at little gnats and buzzing bees; and he never failed to come up to it, because that standard was himself. "What else could it be?" he says to me. "And that is why everybody likes me."

CHAPTER X

UPON THE GROUND

Alas! to come down from those pleasant heights, if ever I did attain to them, to the turbulent dissatisfaction with oneself, and contempt of every creature in the world, save one, which lonely love engenders! Never had I seemed to myself so low, so awfully prosaic and unpicturesque, as when I was trying to make myself look decent that very evening. Since then I have learned that even pretty girls, who are roses to thistles in comparison with us, are never quite certain at their looking-glass that another touch might not improve them. And what did I behold? A square-built fellow, with a stubby yellow moustache, and a nose fit for the ring, – or to have a ring through it, – a great bulky forehead, like Ticknor's bull-dog, and cheeks like a roasted coffee-berry. The only thing decent was the eyes, firm and strong, of a steadfast blue, and the broad full chin that kept the lips from drooping in a tremble even now. Proud as I was of my Saxon breed, and English build and character, in the abasement of the moment I almost longed for a trace of the comely Norman traits. "As if any girl could love you!" I exclaimed, in parody of that handsome Tom's self-commune.

In for a penny, in for a pound. Without a trial, there's no denial. Handsome is that handsome does. Beauty is only skin-deep. And so on – I laboured to fetch myself up to the mark, but it was a very low one. The neap of the tide, or the low spring water, – which goes ever so much further out, – was ebbing away on the shores of self-esteem as I entered the glen of St. Winifred. Tom Erricker would have descended, as if the valley and its contents belonged to him. Heaviness of heart may sometimes visit even a healthy and robust young man, living the life intended for us, working in the open air all day, and sleeping on a hard palliasse at night. Heaviness and diffidence, and clownish hesitation, and fear of losing precious landmarks in a desert-dazzle. Surely it were better to turn back before they can have seen me, set the sheepish face to the quiet hill, and thank my stars that not one of them yet has turned into a comet.

Sadly was I perpending this, slower and slower at every step, while the shadows of the trees grew longer, and the voice of birds was lower, and the babble of the brook began to sink into the lisping of a cradled child, as the draught of the valley hushed it; and falling into harmony with all these signs, my breath was beginning to abate me, when along a trough of sliding mist like a trysting track for the dusk, appeared the form of my friend Kuban. Courage at once arose within me, and spirit of true patronage. To men and women I may be nought, but to him I am a hero. Lo, how he licks my hand, and whines, as if he had never seen my like, and would never believe it, if he did! He longs to roll upon his back, and offer himself a prostrate sacrifice. But he knows that I should be vexed at that, because it would not be safe for him. The labour of his great heart is to show me all his damages, and make me understand that, but for me, he could not display them. What with love, and what with fear, and the utter unsettlement of my mind, down I went on the grass beside him, and took him paw by paw, to feel how much of him was still existing.

Now if I had thought of it in the coldest blood – if there still were cold blood in me – there was nothing in the world I could have done so wise as this abasement. What says Ovid in the "Art of Love"? Many low things, I am afraid, that no Englishman would stoop to. But if that great Master arose anew, to give lessons to an age of milder passion, probably he would have said to me, "Water those wounds with your tears, my friend."

My eyes, being British, were dry as a bone; but upon them fell, as they looked up, the lustre of a very different pair, like bright stars extinguishing a glow-worm. And the glory of these was deepened by the suffusion of their sparkle with a tender mist of tears. No blush was lurking in the petal of the cheeks, no smile in the brilliant bud of lips; pity and gentle sorrow seemed to be the sole expression.

I dropped the dog's great legs, and rose, and with all the grace that in me lay – and that was very little – took off my hat, and made a bow, the former being of the bowler order, and the latter of the British.

"No, no. Please not to do that," she said, "it is so very grievous. Forgive me, if I am sad to look at. It always comes upon me so, when I behold things beautiful."

"But," I replied, being quite unable to consider myself of that number, even upon such authority, "it is I that should be shedding tears; it is I that behold things beautiful."

"It was of the dog I meant my words," – this was rather a settler for me, – "and the beautiful tokens he manifests of gratitude to the kind gentleman. And we have been desiring always; but the place we could not find. It is my father who will best speak, for he has great talent of languages. He was hoping greatly that you would come. I also have been troubling in my mind heavily, that we must appear so ungrateful. It is now ten days that have passed away. But we could not learn to what place to send; neither did we know the name of Mr. – but I will not spoil it, until you have told me how to pronounce."

"Cranleigh, Cran-lee; as if it were spelled with a double e coming after the letter l," said I to her. While to my all abroad self I whispered, "May the kind powers teach her to spell it, by making it her own, while she looks like that."

For sometimes it is vain to think, and to talk is worse than lunacy. Her attitude and manner now, and her way of looking at me, – as if I were what she might come to like, but would rather know more about it, – and the touches of foreign style (which it is so sweet to domicile), and the exquisite music which her breath made, or it may have been her lips, with our stringy words – I am lost in my sentence, and care not how or why, any more than I cared how I was lost then, so long as it was in Dariel's eyes.

If Dariel's eyes will find me there, and send me down into her heart, what odds to me of the earth or heaven, the stars, the sun, or the moon itself – wherein I am qualified to walk with her?

Possibly that sweet Dariel saw, but could not comprehend my catastrophe. She drew back, as if from something strange, and utterly beyond her knowledge. Then she cast down those eyes, that were so upsetting me; and I felt that as yet I had no right to perceive the tint, as of heaven, before the earth has glimpsed the dawn, which awoke in welcome wonder on the wavering of her face. See it I did however, and a glow went through me.

Who can measure time when time acts thus? Kuban arose, as if his wounds were all a sham, or as if we at least were taking them in that light, and hating – as a good dog always does – to play second fiddle, turned his eyes from one to the other of the twain, in a manner so tragic that we both began to laugh. And when Dariel laughed, there could be nothing more divine, unless it were Dariel crying.

"Oh, how he does love you, Mr. Cran-lee!" she exclaimed with a little pout, pretending to be vexed. "What a wicked dog he is to depart from his mind so! Why, he always used to think that there was nobody like me."

"If he would only think that I am like you, or at any rate try to make you like me, what a blessed animal he would be!" This I said with pathos, and vainly looking at her.

"I am not very strong of the English language yet. It has so many words that are of turns incomprehensible. And when one thinks to have learned them all, behold they are quite different! To you I seem to speak it very, very far from native."

"To me you seem to speak it so that it is full of music, of soft clear sounds, and melody, that no English voice can make of it. It is like the nightingale I heard when first – I mean one summer evening long ago; only your voice is sweeter."

"Is it? Then I am glad, because my father hears it always. And he knows everything I think, before I have time to tell him. And he can speak the English well, – as well as those who were born in it. Seven different languages he can speak. Oh, how he is learned! To hear me talk is nothing – nothing – folly, trifles, nothing more than deficiency of wisdom, and yet of himself he thinks no more, perhaps not so much as you do."

"I think nothing of myself at all. How can I, when I am with you? Yet a great many different people think highly of me, and I do my best to deserve it." This was no vain word, although it is not like my usual manner to repeat it.

"I am glad of that," she answered simply, looking with kind approval at me; and I saw that her own clear nature led her to believe everything she heard. "That is the proper way for people, and as the good Lord intended. But how long we have been discoursing, without anything to be said, while the dusk of the night is approaching! It is my father beyond all doubt whom you have come by this long road to see. And he has been desiring for many days to obtain the privilege of seeing you; not only that he may return his thanks, but to learn that you did not receive a wound; for he says that the wound of a dog is very dangerous in this country."

"Yes, I did receive a wound, and a bad one rather," – how mean of me it was to speak like this! Although I was telling the simple truth, for there was a deep gash all down my left forearm. "But I would gladly receive a hundred wounds, for the sake of anything that you loved. For what am I? Who could find any good in me, compared with you, or even with Kuban?"

But this fine appeal to the tender emotions did not obtain any success that time. If the pity, so ignobly fished for, felt any tendency to move, it took good care not to show itself in the fountains watched by me.

"Mr. Cran-lee speaks much from his good-will to please. For there must be good in him, even to compare with Kuban, if a great many people think highly of him, and he does his best to deserve it. But is it not the best thing to hasten at once with this very bad wound to the one who can cure it? Let us waste no more time, but go at once to meet my father."

There was no getting out of this; and I said to myself that Miss Dariel was not quite so soft after all. What had she told me about herself? Nothing. How much about her father? Very little. And here was I being towed off to him, when I wanted to talk with her, study her, make way with her, find out whether there was any other villain in pursuit of her marvellous attractions, – in a word, make my best love to her.

But this was the very thing she would not have at present; and I felt like a man tumbling out of a tree, through making too lofty a grab at the fruit. So I fell into the opposite extreme of manner, to make it come home to her that I was hurt. This was another mistake; because, as I came to understand long afterwards, the feminine part of mankind is never struck all of a heap, as we are. If you will only think twice, you will see that it never could be expected. For drop as we may – and the ladies too often call upon us now to drop it – the sense that is inborn in us, of a purer and higher birth in them, which they kept and exalted by modesty – even if at their own demand we let fall every atom of that, and endeavour to regard them as bipeds on a wheel, with limbs rounder than our own, – I say that we ought to try still to regard them as better than ourselves, though they will not have it so. And what could say more for their modesty?

I looked at Dariel, and saw that she was not thinking of me at all, except as a matter of business. And fearing to have gone too far, I tried to behave in every way as a well-conducted stranger. This put her into a friendly state of mind, and even more than that. For it was now her place to be hospitable; and I displayed such bashfulness, that believing her father to be the greatest man on earth, she concluded that I was terribly afraid of him.

"You must not be uneasy about meeting him;" she spoke in a voice as gentle as the whisper of the wind in May, when it tempts a young lamb to say "Ba!" "I assure you, Mr. Cran-lee, although he can be very stern with persons at all wicked, to those who are upright and good, he is a great deal less austere and rigid than even I am. And I am afraid that you have discovered much harshness in my character, for you appear to dread a walk with me."

I had fallen behind as we approached the door, partly to show my humility, and partly to admire the grace and true perfection of her slender figure in motion. English girls may have lovely figures, but none of them can walk like that.

"No," I said after some delay, to make her turn her head again, and repeat that look of penitence; "you have been as kind as I could expect, perhaps more kind than the ladies of your country are to a mere stranger."

If ever I deserved a good hearty kick, and too often that has been my merit, here was a solid occasion for it. She stopped and spread both hands to me, and looked at me with her clear chin raised, and trembling lips, and soft dark eyes, whose radiant depths appeared to thrill with tender sorrow and self-reproach. What eyes to tell the tale of love, to the happy man who shall inspire it!

No dawn was there now of any warmth, but light alone, the light of kindliness and good-will, and the tranquil beams of gratitude. What more could I expect as yet, though myself in such a hurry?

"What a beautiful place! I had no idea that it would be like this."

I spoke as we stood within the wall, for the maiden now seemed timid. "Why, I must have lost my wits altogether, when I was here the other day, for I do not remember a bit of this. What a wonderful man your father is! What taste, and skill, and knowledge! But it must have taken him many years to bring it into this condition. It was nothing but a pile of ruins, inside an old ruinous wall, at the time when I used to come home from Winton. And how beautifully it is laid out! I should like to know who planned it. Why you must have quite a number of men to keep it in such order. It is almost like a dream to me. But how rude I must appear to you! Though really if the light were good, I could sit here for an hour together and like to look at nothing else but all this perfect loveliness."

She had come quite close to me as I spoke, with a bright smile of pleasure on her face, – for I warmed my description knowingly, – and as I said perfect loveliness, I think she knew where I found it. For she turned away, as if to look at the distance I was praising; and being in rapid chase of ever so trifling a thing to encourage me, after the many mistakes I had made, I tried with the greatest delight to believe that she did that to rob me of a conscientious blush. But the wonder of all these zig-zag ways, when a straight solid man tumbles into them, is that they tussle him to and fro, a hundred times as much as they upset a slippery fellow whose practice is to slide in and out at pleasure. "Oh, for the wits of Tom Erricker now!" was the only thought of things outside, that came to me in this crisis. Then again in a moment I scorned that wish. For a strong heart from its depth despises surface gloss and frothy scum.