The Raft
She placed her cool fingers about his wrist and bent her head nearer.
Her voice was low, and caressing--the voice of one who breaks bad news
gently. “I know. You told her that you loved her.---- Why didn't you
come to me sooner?”
She was looking sorry for him. “Why sooner?” he questioned.
“Because she's gone away.”
It was almost as though she had told him that Cherry had died. “Away?
Where to?”
“I don't know. Lorie didn't say; he took her. Perhaps, to the convent.
Poor little girl, you--you frightened her, Peter.”
He was all amazement. What a contrast there was between these two!
The boy so inexperienced and crestfallen; the golden woman so wise and
quiet. “Yes, _you_, Peter. You're so natural and uncivilized. You were
too sudden with her. You told her that you loved her just as a child
would--directly you felt it. You wanted to kiss her without waste of
time. You galloped too fast, Peter; you tried to take all the fences
at one stride.” Her voice grew more tender; she folded her hands in her
lap, looking away from him, straight before her. “You're--you're the
sort of lover we older women dream of when the hour's gone by. The men
who come to us are too cautious; they watch for the lines in our faces.
They've learnt to play safe. But you, with your glorious youth----! And
she didn't recognize it--didn't know what you were offering.” The blue
eyes came back slowly to his face. She ended, “And so, she's gone away.”
Peter felt unhappy and yet comforted. She had envied him something of
which he had been ashamed--the unavoidable indiscretion of his lack of
age. She had called it glorious; she hadn't thought it foolish. “But
what must I do? Will she--will she come back again? Will she understand,
one day, the way you do?”
She answered evasively. “One day! We women all understand one day.”
He repeated his question, “But what must I do?”
She put her arm about his shoulder. “Wait. It's all that either of us
can do.”
Why did she include herself? The room was very silent. In its patient
preparedness, it must have spent years in waiting. The garden outside
seemed to listen, tiptoe. The door was white, as if little used. The
sunlight on the lawn crept slowly. Everything watched; yet nothing was
wideawake. For whom were they all expectant? _Always there is one who
allows, and one who loves_. Was that the explanation?
Above the open volume of cloistered consolation, with its disillusioned
counsels of timid patience, the Faun Man smiled from his silver frame.
Peter had always thought----.
So, after all, was it the Faun Man who had delayed?
And Cherry loved him! Had that anything to do with it? He crushed the
suspicion down--and yet it survived.
“And you don't know----. You couldn't tell me where to write?”
The golden woman shook her head. “Who can say? You don't know much
about love, Peter. It's a continual hoping for something which never
happens--or which, when it happens, is something different. People say
it's a state of heart--it's really a state of mind. I think--and you'll
hate me for saying it--I think true love is always on one side and is
always disappointed. Did you ever hear about the green tree and the bird
in the morn? You didn't?
“A bird in the morn
To a green tree was calling:
'Come over. Come over.
Night's vanished. Day's born.
And I'm weary--I want you, green tree, for my lover;
Through clouds I am falling,
A-flutter, a-flutter.
I'm lonely,
Here only.
And heard your leaves mutter.
Night's vanished. Day's born.
So run out and fold me, green tree, in the morn.'
“The bird in the morn
Heard a distant tree sighing:
I cannot come over--
Night's vanished. Day's born.
I am rooted. But haste, oh sweet bird, to your lover;
So freely you're flying,
A-flutter, a-flutter.
Sink hither,
Not thither.
Hark how my leaves mutter,
Night's vanished. Love's born.'
The bird flew--ah, whither? The tree was forlorn.”
She stroked his hand. “In true love,” she said, “there's always one who
could but won't, and one who would but cannot.”
“Not always,” he denied. He spoke confidently, remembering his mother
and father.
“How certain you are!” She watched him mockingly. “Ah, you know of an
exception! Believe me, Peter, winged birds and rooted trees are by far
the more common.”
She made him feel that she shared his dilemma--that she reckoned
herself, with him, among the trees which are rooted. The bond of
sympathy was established.
“We,” she whispered, “you and I, Peter, we must wait for our winged
birds to visit us. We can't go to them, however we try.”
She sprang up with a quick change of expression; in a flash she was
radiant. “My Loo-ard, but we needn't be tragic.”
Running to the window, she flung it wide. “Look out there. The sun, the
river, the grass--they're happy. What do they care? It's our hearts that
are unhappy. We won't have any hearts, Peter.”
He crossed the room to her. With the freedom of a sister, she put her
arm about him, leaning so that her hair just touched his face. She
seemed to be excusing her action. “You're only a boy. How old shall we
say. Just fourteen, perhaps. Why, little Peter, you're too young to
be in love.---- Do you remember the saying, that every load has two
handles: one by which it can be carried; one by which it cannot? You
and I are going to find the handle by which it can be carried--is that
a bargain? I'll show you the handle--it's not to take yourself or anyone
too seriously. You're making a face, Peter, as though I'd given you
nasty medicine. You were determined to be most awfully wretched over
Cherry, weren't you? Well, you mustn't. Wait half a second.”
Her half-seconds were half-hours to other people. When she reappeared,
she was clad girlishly in a white dress, which hung above her ankles. At
her breast was a yellow rose. Her golden hair was wrapped in bands about
her head. There swung from her hand a broad river-hat. Peter thought
that, if the Faun Man could see her now, he wouldn't wait much longer.
But it was contradictory--this that she had told him; he had always
supposed that it was she who had kept the Faun Man waiting. For himself
he was wishing that she were Cherry.
Before the mirror, over the empty fireplace, she stooped to adjust her
hat. Her arms curved up to her shining head, the loose sleeves falling
back from them; they looked like handles of ivory on a gold-rimmed
goblet. The motive of the attitude was lost on Peter; he only took in
the general effect. Her eyes, watching him from the glass, saw that.
He was thinking how naïve she was to have taken thirty minutes over
dressing, and then to pretend that she had hurried by coming down with
her hat in her hand.
“Ready,” she said. “Do you like me in this dress? If you don't, I'll
change it.”
“If I took you at your word----. But would you really? I'm almost
tempted to put you to the test.”
“I would really,” she said.
“I do like you.” He spoke with boyish downrightness. “You know jolly
well that you look splendid in anything.”
She pretended to be abashed and hurried into the garden, singing just
above her breath,
“I like you in satin,
I like you in fluff.”
She seemed to forget the words and hummed; but, as she came to the end
of the air, she crouched her chin against her shoulder, looking back at
him naughtily,
“I love you and like you
In--oh, anything at all.”
They walked by the muffled river; trees were reflected so clearly on its
surface that it was easy to mistake illusion for reality. Everything was
asleep or listless in the summer sun. They came to a point where they
ferried across. They entered Kew Gardens and sauntered into the Palace
for coolness. They didn't care where their feet led them; all the while
they talked--about life, love, men and women, but really, under the
disguise of words, about Cherry and the Faun Man. In her company he had
found a sudden relief from suspense.
She was so smiling, so generous, and at times so anxious to be reckless,
like a clever child saying slant-eyed things of which the meaning
was half-guessed. He was elated to be seen with her; she was rare and
beautiful.
Toward evening he turned back from the land of stately trees and
grass-pavements to the clamor of the perturbed and narrow city. The
river was a thread of gold; the sun foundered red in a crimson sea of
cloud. The thread of gold broadened as bridges grew more frequent; black
wharfs took the place of meadows and sat huddled along the banks like
homeless beggars. But it was the majesty, not the meanness of London,
that impressed him. His eyes were on the horizon, where the lace-work
tower of Westminster shot up, sculptured and ethereal, and still further
beyond where, above herded roofs, the dome of St. Paul's protruded like
a woman's breast.
He landed at Westminster Bridge and ran up the steps. What a different
world! How many hours was it since he had been there? He had recovered
his sense of life's magic.
The tethered man in the ticket-office eyed him gloomily. “Still in a
hurry,” he thought, “and with all the years of life before him. Ugh!”
That afternoon was the pattern of many that followed. He came from
London to Kew, simply and solely that he might speak about Cherry, and
always with the hope that he might gain some news of her. Subtly the
golden woman would lead the conversation round to herself. It was only
at parting that he would discover this. Once he said, laughingly, “Why,
we've spent all our time in talking about you!” Then he stopped, for
he saw that he had not pleased her. “Next time it shall be all about
Cherry,” he told himself; but it wasn't.
He had never had a woman consult him before about her dress and the
styles of doing her hair. The golden woman did; she made him tell her
just what he preferred. When he met her, she came to express a part of
his personality.
In the intimacy which grew up between them, the small reserves of pride
and reticence were broken down. They spoke their minds aloud.
“I'm getting old, Peter,” she would say. But this was only on the days
when she looked youngest.
If he had no money, he would tell her; then, she would either pay or
they would make their pleasures inexpensive. He regarded her as a sister
older than himself.
“What shall I call you?” he asked her. “Haven't you noticed that I have
no name for you?”
She slipped her arm into his. “The golden woman. I like that. It's
you--it has the touch of poetry.”
“I gave you that name,” he said, “the moment I saw you--years ago, at
the Happy Cottage.”
She opened her eyes wide, pretending to be offended. “Years ago! How
cruel! Years ago to you; but to me not so long ago--four years, wasn't
it? Why do you say things that make me feel ancient?”
“When you're beautiful----.” He got no farther; his tongue stumbled
at compliments. He was going to have said that, when you were very
beautiful, years didn't matter.
She caught at his words. “Then you think I'm beautiful?”
“Think, indeed!”
“As beautiful as Cherry?”
He avoided answering, saying instead, “See how everyone turns to look
after you.”
She fell silent, only to return to the topic long after he had forgotten
it. “Yes, they look after me and go away. That isn't like having someone
with you always.”
She could make him feel very unhappy--more unhappy than anyone he had