Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor
and music,) is nothing at the well-spring but a bubble without reason.
Feeling many things, but thinking without much to guide me, over the
grass-plats laid between, I went up to Lorna. She in a shower of damask
roses, raised her eyes and looked at me. And even now, in those sweet
eyes, so deep with loving-kindness, and soft maiden dreamings, there
seemed to be a slight unwilling, half confessed withdrawal; overcome by
love and duty, yet a painful thing to see.
“Darling,” I said, “are your spirits good? Are you strong enough to-day,
to bear a tale of cruel sorrow; but which perhaps, when your tears are
shed, will leave you all the happier?”
“What can you mean?” she answered trembling, not having been very strong
of late, and now surprised at my manner; “are you come to give me up,
John?”
“Not very likely,” I replied; “neither do I hope such a thing would
leave you all the happier. Oh, Lorna, if you can think that so quickly
as you seem to have done, now you have every prospect and strong
temptation to it. You are far, far above me in the world, and I have no
right to claim you. Perhaps, when you have heard these tidings you will
say, 'John Ridd, begone; your life and mine are parted.'”
“Will I?” cried Lorna, with all the brightness of her playful ways
returning: “you very foolish and jealous John, how shall I punish you
for this? Am I to forsake every flower I have, and not even know that
the world goes round, while I look up at you, the whole day long and
say, 'John, I love, love, love you?'”
During these words she leaned upon me, half in gay imitation of what
I had so often made her do, and half in depth of earnestness, as the
thrice-repeated word grew stronger, and grew warmer, with and to her
heart. And as she looked up at the finish, saying, “you,” so musically,
I was much inclined to clasp her round; but remembering who she was,
forbore; at which she seemed surprised with me.
“Mistress Lorna,” I replied, with I know not what temptation, making
little of her caresses, though more than all my heart to me: “Mistress
Lorna, you must keep your rank and proper dignity. You must never look
at me with anything but pity now.”
“I shall look at you with pity, John,” said Lorna, trying to laugh it
off, yet not knowing what to make of me, “if you talk any more of this
nonsense, knowing me as you ought to do. I shall even begin to think
that you, and your friends, are weary of me, and of so long supporting
me; and are only seeking cause to send me back to my old misery. If it
be so, I will go. My life matters little to any one.” Here the great
bright tears arose; but the maiden was too proud to sob.
“Sweetest of all sweet loves,” I cried, for the sign of a tear defeated
me; “what possibility could make me ever give up Lorna?”
“Dearest of all dears,” she answered; “if you dearly love me, what
possibility could ever make me give you up, dear?”
Upon that there was no more forbearing, but I kissed and clasped her,
whether she were Countess, or whether Queen of England; mine she was, at
least in heart; and mine she should be wholly. And she being of the same
opinion, nothing was said between us.
“Now, Lorna,” said I, as she hung on my arm, willing to trust me
anywhere, “come to your little plant-house, and hear my moving story.”
“No story can move me much, dear,” she answered rather faintly, for any
excitement stayed with her; “since I know your strength of kindness,
scarcely any tale can move me, unless it be of yourself, love; or of my
poor mother.”
“It is of your poor mother, darling. Can you bear to hear it?” And yet I
wondered why she did not say as much of her father.
“Yes, I can bear anything. But although I cannot see her, and have long
forgotten, I could not bear to hear ill of her.”
“There is no ill to hear, sweet child, except of evil done to her.
Lorna, you are of an ill-starred race.”
“Better that than a wicked race,” she answered with her usual quickness,
leaping at conclusion; “tell me I am not a Doone, and I will--but I
cannot love you more.”
“You are not a Doone, my Lorna, for that, at least, I can answer; though
I know not what your name is.”
“And my father--your father--what I mean is--”
“Your father and mine never met one another. Your father was killed by
an accident in the Pyrenean mountains, and your mother by the Doones; or
at least they caused her death, and carried you away from her.”
All this, coming as in one breath upon the sensitive maiden, was more
than she could bear all at once; as any but a fool like me must of
course have known. She lay back on the garden bench, with her black hair
shed on the oaken bark, while her colour went and came and only by that,
and her quivering breath, could any one say that she lived and thought.
And yet she pressed my hand with hers, that I might tell her all of it.
CHAPTER LVI
JOHN BECOMES TOO POPULAR
No flower that I have ever seen, either in shifting of light and shade,
or in the pearly morning, may vie with a fair young woman's face when
tender thought and quick emotion vary, enrich, and beautify it. Thus my
Lorna hearkened softly, almost without word or gesture, yet with sighs
and glances telling, and the pressure of my hand, how each word was
moving her.
When at last my tale was done, she turned away, and wept bitterly for
the sad fate of her parents. But to my surprise she spoke not even a
word of wrath or rancour. She seemed to take it all as fate.
“Lorna, darling,” I said at length, for men are more impatient in trials
of time than women are, “do you not even wish to know what your proper
name is?”
“How can it matter to me, John?” she answered, with a depth of grief
which made me seem a trifler. “It can never matter now, when there are
none to share it.”
“Poor little soul!” was all I said in a tone of purest pity; and to my
surprise she turned upon me, caught me in her arms, and loved me as she
had never done before.
“Dearest, I have you,” she cried; “you, and only you, love. Having you I
want no other. All my life is one with yours. Oh, John, how can I treat
you so?”
Blushing through the wet of weeping, and the gloom of pondering, yet she
would not hide her eyes, but folded me, and dwelled on me.
“I cannot believe,” in the pride of my joy, I whispered into one little
ear, “that you could ever so love me, beauty, as to give up the world
for me.”
“Would you give up your farm for me, John?” cried Lorna, leaping back
and looking, with her wondrous power of light at me; “would you give up
your mother, your sisters, your home, and all that you have in the world
and every hope of your life, John?”
“Of course I would. Without two thoughts. You know it; you know it,
Lorna.”
“It is true that I do,” she answered in a tone of deepest sadness; “and
it is this power of your love which has made me love you so. No good can
come of it, no good. God's face is set against selfishness.”
As she spoke in that low tone I gazed at the clear lines of her face
(where every curve was perfect) not with love and wonder only, but with
a strange new sense of awe.
“Darling,” I said, “come nearer to me. Give me surety against that. For
God's sake never frighten me with the thought that He would part us.”
“Does it then so frighten you?” she whispered, coming close to me; “I
know it, dear; I have known it long; but it never frightens me. It makes
me sad, and very lonely, till I can remember.”
“'Till you can remember what?” I asked, with a long, deep shudder; for we
are so superstitious.
“Until I do remember, love, that you will soon come back to me, and be
my own for ever. This is what I always think of, this is what I hope
for.”
Although her eyes were so glorious, and beaming with eternity, this
distant sort of beatitude was not much to my liking. I wanted to have
my love on earth; and my dear wife in my own home; and children in good
time, if God should please to send us any. And then I would be to them,
exactly what my father was to me. And beside all this, I doubted much
about being fit for heaven; where no ploughs are, and no cattle, unless
sacrificed bulls went thither.
Therefore I said, “Now kiss me, Lorna; and don't talk any nonsense.” And
the darling came and did it; being kindly obedient, as the other world
often makes us.
“You sweet love,” I said at this, being slave to her soft obedience; “do
you suppose I should be content to leave you until Elysium?”
“How on earth can I tell, dear John, what you will be content with?”
“You, and only you,” said I; “the whole of it lies in a syllable. Now
you know my entire want; and want must be my comfort.”
“But surely if I have money, sir, and birth, and rank, and all sorts of
grandeur, you would never dare to think of me.”
She drew herself up with an air of pride, as she gravely pronounced
these words, and gave me a scornful glance, or tried; and turned away
as if to enter some grand coach or palace; while I was so amazed and
grieved in my raw simplicity especially after the way in which she had
first received my news, so loving and warm-hearted, that I never said a
word, but stared and thought, “How does she mean it?”
She saw the pain upon my forehead, and the wonder in my eyes, and
leaving coach and palace too, back she flew to me in a moment, as simple
as simplest milkmaid.
“Oh, you fearful stupid, John, you inexpressibly stupid, John,” she
cried with both arms round my neck, and her lips upon my forehead; “you
have called yourself thick-headed, John, and I never would believe it.
But now I do with all my heart. Will you never know what I am, love?”
“No, Lorna, that I never shall. I can understand my mother well, and one
at least of my sisters, and both the Snowe girls very easily, but you I
never understand; only love you all the more for it.”
“Then never try to understand me, if the result is that, dear John. And
yet I am the very simplest of all foolish simple creatures. Nay, I am
wrong; therein I yield the palm to you, my dear. To think that I can
act so! No wonder they want me in London, as an ornament for the stage,
John.”
Now in after days, when I heard of Lorna as the richest, and noblest,
and loveliest lady to be found in London, I often remembered that little
scene, and recalled every word and gesture, wondering what lay under it.
Even now, while it was quite impossible once to doubt those clear deep
eyes, and the bright lips trembling so; nevertheless I felt how much
the world would have to do with it; and that the best and truest people
cannot shake themselves quite free. However, for the moment, I was very
proud and showed it.
And herein differs fact from fancy, things as they befall us from things
as we would have them, human ends from human hopes; that the first are
moved by a thousand and the last on two wheels only, which (being named)
are desire and fear. Hope of course is nothing more than desire with a
telescope, magnifying distant matters, overlooking near ones; opening
one eye on the objects, closing the other to all objections. And if hope
be the future tense of desire, the future of fear is religion--at least
with too many of us.
Whether I am right or wrong in these small moralities, one thing is sure
enough, to wit, that hope is the fastest traveller, at any rate, in the
time of youth. And so I hoped that Lorna might be proved of blameless
family, and honourable rank and fortune; and yet none the less for that,
love me and belong to me. So I led her into the house, and she fell into
my mother's arms; and I left them to have a good cry of it, with Annie
ready to help them.
If Master Stickles should not mend enough to gain his speech a little,