Love Eternal, H. Rider Haggard [amazing books to read txt] 📗

stopping his breath and causing his knees to loosen. In a moment it was gone, to be replaced by another that was nearer and more natural. He was to be sent away for a year, and this meant that he would not see Isobel for a year. It would be a very long year in which he did not see Isobel. He had forgotten that when his father told him that he was to go to Switzerland. Now the fact was painfully present.

He came on up the long nave and Isobel, awakening, saw him.

"You are late," she said in a softer voice than was usual to her. "Well, I don't mind, for I have been dreaming. I think I went to sleep upon my feet. I dreamed," she added, pointing to the brass, "that I was that lady and--oh! all sorts of things. Well, she had her day no doubt, and I mean to have mine before I am as dead and forgotten as she is. Only I would like to be buried here. I'll be cremated and have my ashes put under that stone; they won't hurt her."

"Don't talk like that," he said with a little shiver, for her words jarred upon him.

"Why not? It is as well to face things. Look at all these monuments about us, and inscriptions, a lot of them to young people, though now it doesn't matter if they were old or young. Gone, every one of them and quite forgotten, though some were great folk in their time. Gone utterly and for always, nothing left, except perhaps descendants in a labourer's cottage here and there who never even heard of them."

"I don't believe it," he said almost passionately, I believe that they are living for ever and ever, perhaps as you and I, perhaps elsewhere."

"I wish I could," she answered, smiling, "for then my dream might have been true, and you might have been that knight whose brass is lost," and she pointed to an empty matrix alongside that of the great Plantagenet lady.

Godfrey glanced at the inscription which was left when the Cromwellians tore up the brass.

"He was her husband," he said, translating, "who died on the field of Crecy in 1346."

"Oh!" exclaimed Isobel, and was silent.

Meanwhile Godfrey, quite undisturbed, was spelling out the inscription beneath the figure of the knight's wife, and remarked presently:

"She seems to have died a year before him. Yes, just after marriage, the monkish Latin says, and--what is it? Oh! I see, '/in sanguine/,' that is, in blood, whatever that may mean. Perhaps she was murdered. I say, Isobel, I wish you would copy someone else's dress for your party."

"Nonsense," she answered. "I think its awfully interesting. I wonder what happened to her."

"I don't know. I can't remember anything in the old history, and it would be almost impossible to find out. There are no coats of arms, and what is more, no surname is given in either inscription. The one says, 'Pray for the soul of Edmundus, Knight, husband of Phillippa, and the other, 'Pray for the soul of Phillippa, Dame, wife of Edmundus.' It looks as though the surnames had been left out on purpose, perhaps because of some queer story about the pair which their relations wished to be forgotten."

"Then why do they say that one died in blood and the other on the field of Crecy?"

Godfrey shook his head because he did not know. Nor indeed was he ever able to find out. That secret was lost hundreds of years ago. Then the conversation died away and they got to their work.

At length the rubbing, as it is termed technically, was finished and the two prepared to depart out of the gloom of the great church which had gathered about them as the evening closed in. Solitary and small they looked in it surrounded by all those mementoes of the dead, enveloped as it were in the very atmosphere of death. Who has not felt that atmosphere standing alone at nightfall in one of our ancient English churches that embody in baptism, marriage and burial the hopes, the desires, and the fears of unnumbered generations?

For remember, that in a majority of instances, long before the Cross rose above these sites, they had been the sacred places of faith after faith. Sun-worshippers, Nature-worshippers, Druids, votaries of Jove and Venus, servants of Odin, Thor and Friga, early Christians who were half one thing and half another, all have here bowed their brows to earth in adoration of God as they understood Him, and in these hallowed spots lies mingled the dust of every one of them.

So Godfrey felt in that hour and the same influences impinged upon and affected even the girl's bold, denying soul. She acknowledged them to herself, and after a woman's way, turned and almost fiercely laid the blame upon her companion.

"You have infected me with your silly superstitions," she said, stamping her foot as they shut and locked the door of the church. "I feel afraid of something, I don't know what, and I was never afraid of anything before."

"What superstitions?" he asked, apologetically. "I don't remember mentioning any."

"There is no need for you to mention them, they ooze out of you. As though I could not read your mind! There's no need for you to talk to tell me what you are thinking of, death--and separations which are as bad, and unknown things to come, and all sorts of horrors."

"That's odd," he remarked, still without emotion, for he was used to these attacks from Isobel which, as he knew, when she was upset, always meant anything but what she said, "for as a matter of fact I was thinking of a separation. I am going away, Isobel, or rather, my father is sending me away."

He turned, and pointing to the stormy western sky where the day died in splendour, added simply in the poetic imagery that so often springs to the lips of youth:

"There sets our sun; at least it is the last we shall look upon together for a whole year. You go to London to-morrow, don't you? Before you come back I shall be gone."

"Gone! Why? Where? Oh! what's the use of asking? I knew something of the sort was coming. I felt it in that horrible old church. And after all, why should I mind? What does it matter if you go away for a year or ten years--except that you are the only friend I have--especially as no doubt you are glad to get out of this dreadful hole? Don't stand there looking at me like a moon-calf, whatever that may be, but tell me what you mean, or I'll, I'll----" and she stopped.

Then he told her--well, not quite everything, for he omitted his father's disparaging remarks about herself.

She listened in her intent fashion, and filled in the gaps without difficulty.

"I see," she said. "Your father thinks that I am corrupting you about religion, as though anybody could corrupt you when you have got an idea into your stupid head; at least, on those subjects. Oh! I hate him, worse even than I do my own, worse than you do yourself."

Godfrey, thinking aloud, began to quote the Fourth Commandment. She cut him short:

"Honour my father!" she said. "Why should we honour our fathers unless they are worthy of honour? What have we to thank them for?"

"Life," suggested Godfrey.

"Why? You believe that life comes from God, and so do I in a way. If so, what has a father to do with it who is just a father and no more? With mothers perhaps it is different, but you see I love my mother and he treats her like--like a dog, or worse," and her grey eyes filled with tears. "However, it is your father we are talking of, and there is no commandment telling me to honour /him/. I say I hate him and he hates me, and that's why he is sending you away. Well, I hope you won't find anyone to contaminate you in Switzerland."

"Oh! Isobel, Isobel," he broke out, "don't be so bitter, especially as it is of no use. Besides after all you have got everything that a girl can have--money and position and looks----"

"Looks!" she exclaimed, seizing on the last word, "when you know I am as ugly as a toad."

He stared at her.

"I don't know it; I think you beautiful."

"Wait till you see someone else and you will change your mind," she snapped, flushing.

"And you are going to come out," he went on hastily.

"Yes, at a fancy ball in this Plantagenet lady's dress, but I almost wish I was--to go out instead--like her."

"And I daresay you will soon be married," he blurted, losing his head for she bewildered him.

"Married! Oh! you idiot. Do you know what marriage means--to a woman? Married! I can bear no more of this. Goodbye," and turning she walked, or rather ran into the darkness, leaving him amazed and alone.

 

This was the last time that Godfrey spoke with Isobel for a long while. Next morning he received a note addressed in her clear and peculiar writing, which from the angular formation of the letters and their regularity, at a distance looked not unlike a sheet of figures.

It was short and ran:--

Dear Old Godfrey,--Don't be vexed with me because I was so cross this evening. Something in that old church upset me, and you know I have a dreadful temper. I didn't mean anything I said. I daresay it is a good thing you should go away and see the world instead of sticking in this horrid place. Leave your address with Mother Parsons, and I will write to you; but mind you answer my letters or I shan't write any more. Good-bye, old boy. Your affectionate Isobel. Who is always thinking of you.

P.S.--I'll get this to the Abbey with your milk. Can't leave it myself, as we are starting for town at half-past seven to-morrow morning to catch the early train.

 

CHAPTER IV(THE GARDEN IN THE SQUARE)

 

As it chanced Godfrey did see Isobel once more before he left England. It was arranged that he was to leave Charing Cross for Switzerland early on a certain Wednesday morning. Late on the Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Knight brought the lad to the Charing Cross Hotel. There, having taken his ticket and made all other necessary arrangements, he left him, returning himself to Essex by the evening train. Their farewell was somewhat disconcerting, at any rate to the mind of the youth.

His father retired with him to his room at the top of the hotel, and there administered a carefully prepared lecture which touched upon every point of the earnest Christian's duty, ending up with admonitions on the dangers of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and a strong caution against frivolous, unbelieving and evil-disposed persons, especially such as were young, good-looking and wore petticoats.

"Woman," said Mr. Knight, "is the great danger of man. She is the Devil's favourite bait, at least to some natures of which I fear yours is one, though that is strange, as I may say that on the whole I have always disliked the sex, and I married for other reasons than those which are supposed to be common. Woman,"