Victorian Short Stories: Stories of Courtship
dreamt of a shilling rod as happiness unattainable. I turned aside from
the road in accordance with directions, and walked towards the stream.
Holloa! someone before me, what a bore! The angler is hidden by an
elder-bush, but I can see the fly drop delicately, artistically on the
water. Fishing upstream, too! There is a bit of broken water there, and
the midges dance in myriads; a silver gleam, and the line spins out, and
the fly falls just in the right place. It is growing dusk, but the
fellow is an adept at quick, fine casting--I wonder what fly he has
on--why, he's going to try downstream now? I hurry forward, and as I
near him, I swerve to the left out of the way. S-s-s-s! a sudden sting
in the lobe of my ear. Hey! I cry as I find I am caught; the tail fly is
fast in it. A slight, grey-clad woman holding the rod lays it carefully
down and comes towards me through the gathering dusk. My first impulse
is to snap the gut and take to my heels, but I am held by something less
tangible but far more powerful than the grip of the Limerick hook in my
ear.
'I am very sorry!' she says in a voice that matched the evening, it was
so quiet and soft; 'but it was exceedingly stupid of you to come behind
like that.'
'I didn't think you threw such a long line; I thought I was safe,' I
stammered.
'Hold this!' she says, giving me a diminutive fly-book, out of which she
has taken a scissors. I obey meekly. She snips the gut.
'Have you a sharp knife? If I strip the hook you can push it through; it
is lucky it isn't in the cartilage.'
I suppose I am an awful idiot, but I only handed her the knife, and she
proceeded as calmly as if stripping a hook in a man's ear were an
everyday occurrence. Her gown is of some soft grey stuff, and her grey
leather belt is silver clasped. Her hands are soft and cool and steady,
but there is a rarely disturbing thrill in their gentle touch. The
thought flashed through my mind that I had just missed that, a woman's
voluntary tender touch, not a paid caress, all my life.
'Now you can push it through yourself. I hope it won't hurt much.'
Taking the hook, I push it through, and a drop of blood follows it.
'Oh!' she cries, but I assure her it is nothing, and stick the hook
surreptitiously in my coat sleeve. Then we both laugh, and I look at her
for the first time. She has a very white forehead, with little tendrils
of hair blowing round it under her grey cap, her eyes are grey. I didn't
see that then, I only saw they were steady, smiling eyes that matched
her mouth. Such a mouth, the most maddening mouth a man ever longed to
kiss, above a too-pointed chin, soft as a child's; indeed, the whole
face looks soft in the misty light.
'I am sorry I spoilt your sport!' I say.
'Oh, that don't matter, it's time to stop. I got two brace, one a
beauty.'
She is winding in her line, and I look in her basket; they _are_
beauties, one two-pounder, the rest running from a half to a pound.
'What fly?'
'Yellow dun took that one, but your assailant was a partridge spider.' I
sling her basket over my shoulder; she takes it as a matter of course,
and we retrace our steps. I feel curiously happy as we walk towards the
road; there is a novel delight in her nearness; the feel of woman works
subtly and strangely in me; the rustle of her skirt as it brushes the
black-heads in the meadow-grass, and the delicate perfume, partly
violets, partly herself, that comes to me with each of her movements is
a rare pleasure. I am hardly surprised when she turns into the garden of
the inn, I think I knew from the first that she would.
'Better bathe that ear of yours, and put a few drops of carbolic in the
water.' She takes the basket as she says it, and goes into the kitchen.
I hurry over this, and go into the little sitting-room. There is a tray
with a glass of milk and some oaten cakes upon the table. I am too
disturbed to sit down; I stand at the window and watch the bats flitter
in the gathering moonlight, and listen with quivering nerves for her
step--perhaps she will send for the tray, and not come after all. What a
fool I am to be disturbed by a grey-clad witch with a tantalizing mouth!
That comes of loafing about doing nothing. I mentally darn the old fool
who saved her money instead of spending it. Why the devil should I be
bothered? I don't want it anyhow. She comes in as I fume, and I forget
everything at her entrance. I push the armchair towards the table, and
she sinks quietly into it, pulling the tray nearer. She has a wedding
ring on, but somehow it never strikes me to wonder if she is married or
a widow or who she may be. I am content to watch her break her biscuits.
She has the prettiest hands, and a trick of separating her last fingers
when she takes hold of anything. They remind me of white orchids I saw
somewhere. She led me to talk; about Africa, I think. I liked to watch
her eyes glow deeply in the shadow and then catch light as she bent
forward to say something in her quick responsive way.
'Long ago when I was a girl,' she said once.
'Long ago?' I echo incredulously, 'surely not?'
'Ah, but yes, you haven't seen me in the daylight,' with a soft little
laugh. 'Do you know what the gipsies say? "Never judge a woman or a
ribbon by candle-light." They might have said moonlight equally well.'
She rises as she speaks, and I feel an overpowering wish to have her put
out her hand. But she does not, she only takes the work-basket and a
book, and says good night with an inclination of her little head.
I go over and stand next to her chair; I don't like to sit in it, but I
like to put my hand where her head leant, and fancy, if she were there,
how she would look up.
I woke next morning with a curious sense of pleasurable excitement. I
whistled from very lightness of heart as I dressed. When I got down I
found the landlady clearing away her breakfast things. I felt
disappointed and resolved to be down earlier in future. I didn't feel
inclined to try the minnow. I put them in a tub in the yard and tried to
read and listen for her step. I dined alone. The day dragged terribly. I
did not like to ask about her, I had a notion she might not like it. I
spent the evening on the river. I might have filled a good basket, but I
let the beggars rest. After all, I had caught fish enough to stock all
the rivers in Great Britain. There are other things than trout in the
world. I sit and smoke a pipe where she caught me last night. If I half
close my eyes I can see hers, and her mouth, in the smoke. That is one
of the curious charms of baccy, it helps to reproduce brain pictures.
After a bit, I think 'perhaps she has left'. I get quite feverish at the
thought and hasten back. I must ask. I look up at the window as I pass;
there is surely a gleam of white. I throw down my traps and hasten up.
She is leaning with her arms on the window-ledge staring out into the
gloom. I could swear I caught a suppressed sob as I entered. I cough,
and she turns quickly and bows slightly. A bonnet and gloves and lace
affair and a lot of papers are lying on the table. I am awfully afraid
she is going. I say--
'Please don't let me drive you away, it is so early yet. I half expected
to see you on the river.'
'Nothing so pleasant; I have been up in town (the tears have certainly
got into her voice) all day; it was so hot and dusty, I am tired out.'
The little servant brings in the lamp and a tray with a bottle of
lemonade.
'Mistress hasn't any lemons, 'm, will this do?'
'Yes,' she says wearily, she is shading her eyes with her hand;
'anything; I am fearfully thirsty.'
'Let me concoct you a drink instead. I have lemons and ice and things.
My man sent me down supplies today; I leave him in town. I am rather a
dab at drinks; I learnt it from the Yankees; about the only thing I did
learn from them I care to remember. Susan!' The little maid helps me to
get the materials, and _she_ watches me quietly. When I give it to her
she takes it with a smile (she _has_ been crying). That is an ample
thank you. She looks quite old. Something more than tiredness called up
those lines in her face.
* * * * *
Well, ten days passed, sometimes we met at breakfast, sometimes at
supper, sometimes we fished together or sat in the straggling orchard
and talked; she neither avoided me nor sought me. She is the most
charming mixture of child and woman I ever met. She is a dual creature.
Now I never met that in a man. When she is here without getting a letter
in the morning or going to town, she seems like a girl. She runs about
in her grey gown and little cap and laughs, and seems to throw off all
thought like an irresponsible child. She is eager to fish, or pick
gooseberries and eat them daintily, or sit under the trees and talk. But
when she goes to town--I notice she always goes when she gets a lawyer's
letter, there is no mistaking the envelope--she comes home tired and
haggard-looking, an old woman of thirty-five. I wonder why. It takes
her, even with her elasticity of temperament, nearly a day to get young
again. I hate her to go to town; it is extraordinary how I miss her; I
can't recall, when she is absent, her saying anything very wonderful,
but she converses all the time. She has a gracious way of filling the
place with herself, there is an entertaining quality in her very
presence. We had one rainy afternoon; she tied me some flies (I shan't
use any of them); I watched the lights in her hair as she moved, it is
quite golden in some places, and she has a tiny mole near her left ear
and another on her left wrist. On the eleventh day she got a letter but
she didn't go to town, she stayed up in her room all day; twenty times I
felt inclined to send her a line, but I had no excuse. I heard the
landlady say as I passed the kitchen window: 'Poor dear! I'm sorry to
lose her!' Lose her? I should think not. It has come to this with me
that I don't care to face any future without her; and yet I know nothing
about her, not even if she is a free woman. I shall find that out the
next time I see her. In the evening I catch a glimpse of her gown in the
orchard, and I follow her. We sit down near the river. Her left hand is
lying gloveless next to me in the grass.
'Do you think from what you have seen of me, that I would ask a question
out of any mere impertinent curiosity?'
She starts. 'No, I do not!'
I take up her hand and touch the ring. 'Tell me, does this bind you to
any one?'
I am conscious of a buzzing in my ears and a dancing blurr of water and
sky and trees, as I wait (it seems to me an hour) for her reply. I felt
the same sensation once before, when I got drawn into some rapids and
had an awfully narrow shave, but of that another time.
The voice is shaking.
'I am not legally bound to anyone, at least; but why do you ask?' she
looks me square in the face as she speaks, with a touch of haughtiness
I never saw in her before.
Perhaps the great relief I feel, the sense of joy at knowing she is
free, speaks out of my face, for hers flushes and she drops her eyes,
her lips tremble. I don't look at her again, but I can see her all the
same. After a while she says--
'I half intended to tell you something about myself this evening, now I
_must_. Let us go in. I shall come down to the sitting-room after your
supper.' She takes a long look at the river and the inn, as if fixing
the place in her memory; it strikes me with a chill that there is a
goodbye in her gaze. Her eyes rest on me a moment as they come back,
there is a sad look in their grey clearness. She swings her little grey
gloves in her hand as we walk back. I can hear her walking up and down
overhead; how tired she will be, and how slowly the time goes. I am
standing at one side of the window when she enters; she stands at the