[COPYRIGHT STORY.] Man and Maid: A Garden Idyll

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVII, Issue 22, 1 December 1906, Page 17

[COPYRIGHT STORY.] Man and Maid: A Garden Idyll

By

Justin Huntly McCarthy,

author of “If I Were a King,” Etc.

S the man was going out of the / I house into the garden, the maid I I was coining from the garden to w B the house. The man stood in

the space of the open French windows, with the eool gloom of the library behind him. The maid paused on the grass plot, irresolutely resolute, affecting surprise to sec the man, who was honestly surprised to see her, and honestly glad of it, and honestly sorry for it, all in a breath. She was all white, and he thought that the white butterflies fluttering near her, and the white pinks that filled the air with fragrance seemed a share of her bright essence. The grey sundial behind her accentuated her youth, the glowing lawns illuminated her beauty. Beyond and below the river gleamed, deserted by the nymph. "Hulloa,” he said vaguely, blinking a little, for the noontide light was strong after the cloistered quiet of the bookToom. “I thought there was nobody abont.” Once again he felt fiercely glad and fiercely sorry that he was wrong. ‘•There is nobody but I,” the girl answered glibly, then added, as an hurried afterthought, “And you.” Her blue eyes smiled on him with a kind of line malice in their smile that puzzled him. They were not very good friends, these two: their house-party acquaintance of eight days had not ripened from its initial crudity, which was all for the best, he assured himself with a sigh that seemed the requiem of a dream. “I don’t count,” he asserted. “I thought you were going on the river with the others.” “I thought you were going for a walk by yourself in pursuit of ideas.” “I changed my mind,” the man admitted. “Ideas seem too poor a game to chase to-day, and the garden seemed such a jolly place to 101 l in, all by oneself.” 'The girl puckered her pretty face into a grimace that made her look, he thought, like an adorable Japanese mask. But he preferred her when she showed smooth again. “I, too, changed my mind,” she said. “I, too, thought the garden would be a jolly place to 101 l in —all by oneself.” She emphasised the final words with such a pretty malignity that the man took her meaning like a pin prick, and was embarrassed. “I did not look to find a fairy in the garden; I was thinking only of humans.” She frowned a little at the insincerity of the phrase. “But if I infringe upon your kingdom 1 will retire to the Debateable Land behind the Laurel bushes, and you shall reign alone in your Arcadia.

He made as if be were really going towards the shrubbery, and as this was not at all what the girl wanted, she delayed him with a dainty gesture of command. Neither was it at all what the man wanted; it was a rare chance to find her alone, but he took it for granted that they were little less than enemies, and he wished to be considerate.

“No, no,”.she insisted, “Let us reigu here together like the two kings of Sparta', unless, of course, you would rather be by yourself.” She was all sugar-sweet this morning, and there was an appeal in her voice tnat was irresistible. He would accept the favour of fate, though he felt it

would end in a bicker. So he protested against a desire for loneliness vigorously, cramming his pipe into his pocket, an act of abnegation which the girl instantly stayed. “You may smoke as much as you please,” she said, “on one condition. I was going to get a book to read while 1 lay in the hammock. Now, you shall be my book, my talking book.” “You would find me a dull book,” he sneered. “There would not be a page in it to interest you from cover to cover. In the book of my memory there are no chapters devoted to the things girls care about.

This was the way he always talked, to her, or at her, since the beginning of their brief, unamieable acquaintanceship. She said nothing, but turned round and begun to walk slowly down the garden, and the man, obedient to her invitation, kept at her side. They walked in silence. Each was thinking of the whimsical companionship, thinking different tltOHgltts. He wished he could be civil and say silly things with an air, and then he longed to kick himself for desiring to trade in such follies. A few paces brought the pair to the sundial, and there the girl paused, and the man paused with her. She rested her elbows on the grey stone, dipped her chin into the prop of her palms, and looked gravely at her companion. “Why do you speak of girls as if all girls were alike? It would be silly to speak in that way of cats. There are good cats and bad cats, kind cats, cats for every classifying adjective. Well, you know, or you ought to know, that there are just as many kinds of girls as kinds of cats.” The man shook his head stubbornly. They were beginning to spar now as they had always sparred, they two,since chance and their hostess bad brought them together in that quiet corner of the world. “AH cats like milk, all cals like to run after string, all eats like to catch birds,” he went on insistently. “Also, all girls like sweets, all girls like dancing. all girls like flirtations, the whole catalogue of girlism. Some girls, of course, are plain, and have to limit, if not their likings, at least the gratification of them. Some girls are pretty —” he eyed her provokingly as he spoke—“and then, of course, they get their heart’s desire heaped up full measure.” She grinned at him with pretty impertinence. “You are very obstinate about it,” she said. “I suppose we must all seem very commonplace to you.” The speech sounded humble, but iie knew very well that it was not meant humbly, and he felt resentful with his intelligence for not finding something withering to say. But his wit was delinquent, and in his thoughts he was glad he was not so wholly at this maid’s mercy as, but for his better sense, he might have been. She tinned from the sundial, and he accompanied her in silence again, to where the hammock hung, swinging from tho trunks of neighbouring tree*. The girl switched herself into it very dexterously, rested her pretty head on its garish cushions, and surveyed with complacency the dainty feet in their high-heeled shoes, the slim ankles iu

their openwork silk stockings, that showed themselves below the frills of her discreet petticoats. 'The man contemplated the girl for a moment, from head to feet, then stretched himself upon the ground beside and below the hammock, and proceeded leisurely to fill his pipe. The girl peeped down upon him whimsically.

“I hope you do not forget.” she said, “that you have promised to be my book, and that I want my book to combine amusement with instruction, as people say when they recommend books to children.” “Children seldom like those sort of books,” the man said, between the early puffs that fanned the tobacco to a glow. “Ah, but I shall only read the interesting bits in my book. It is to be the book of life, of your character. Mind, you must have no secret from me while you are my book, though I mean to ask the most impertinent questions.” “Are you so inquisitive?” he questioned. “Really, if you expect any awful revelations, you will be dismally disappointed.” “Question number one,” she began, indifferent to his protests. "Why do you show yourself so hostile to women? ’ “I do not think I am hostile to women,” he said gravely. "Have 1 been rude? If so, I beg your pardon.” “Oh, I don’t mind,” she laughed. “I was only curious. Question number two. Have you ever been in love?” He made a deprecatory gesture. “I suppose nobody conics to my time of life without, having known what is called being in love, some time or other.” “Did you like it ?” “No.” She gave a little start, and her eyes widened. “Question number three. Are you in love now?” He nodded. A thick cloud of smoke from the pipe floated between them for a moment. Veiling the face of each from the other. “Yes,” he said presently, as

the smoke cleared away, in conliiin.ition of his nod. “Question number four. What is sha like “That you mustn't ask. for 1 don’t mean to tell you.” “I want you to tell me. 1 want to know the kind of girl you would lie in love with.” “Did I say it was a girl? You know my opinion of girls.” “That is why 1 guess it is a girl. I suppose she doesn’t care for you.” “I suppose not.” “Don’t you know ?” He shook his head a«d sighed, perhaps because he had allowed his pipe to go out. “Do you mean to say that you are in love with a girl and that you haven’t been sufficiently interested to find out what she thinks of it, of you?" He began to light his pipe again as he answered her meditatively. "She would think me an idiot, and I shouldn't like her to do Hint somehow.” “No girl thinks a man an idiot for being in love with her.” “Oh yes, when the man is no longer young, as 1 am no longer young, when the man is a bookish fellow, as I am a bookish fellow; when the man is afraid of being disillusioned, as I am afraid of being disillusioned: all these are excellent reasons for making him hold his longue.” “Why are you afraid of being disillusioned ?” “I am a dreamer,” he said. “It is my business and my pleasure to dream dreams. 1 have dreamed u great many dreams about this girl, and they arc so pleasant and delicate that I don't want to wake up.” “I don’t believe there is any girl at all. 1 don’t lielieve you are in the least in love.” There is a girl, and I am in love with her. Haven’t we talked enough about me? Let’s talk about you for a change. Which of the cheerful youths that haunt

this Arcadia has the honour to interest your heart ?” She took no notice of has question. "Once for all,” she challenged, “I dare you to tell me the name of the girl.” Her voice was very eager; there was something in the sound of it seemed to spur the man to compliance. He spoke very quietly, and there was a melancholy in his voice. “If I had the heart to play the. fool and spoil the day, 1 would tell you I loved you.” “Will you play the fool to please me? I don't think it will spoil the day.” He lifted himself on his elbow, so that his face came a little nearer to hers, and looked steadily into her eyes. She gave him back his gaze as steadfastly. He lowered himself on to the turf again, and spoke slowly, his eyes still challenging her eyes. “I love'you,” he said. “I didn't mean to tell you, for if one has a sense of humour it is better to keep such thought to oneself. What could there be between us, you beautiful girl? But it is a pleasure to look at you and tell you, in your youth and beauty, straightly, that I love'you, just as 1 might say the words to a beautiful image in a shrine of dreams. ' But the worst of it is -that one may say '1 love you’ to the statue or the picture as long as one pleases, but when you breath it to the living loveliness there is an end of the business: it is good bye, then, good-bye.”

"Why is it good-t>ye?” the girl asked calmly. “I should have thought such a statement a beginning rather than an end.”

“Not if one had better have left it unsaid. For one can revisit one's shrine, one’s idol, as often as one pleases; the changeless image never blames. But the man who haunts the presence of a woman who has denied his love cuts, to my mind, a very ridiculous figure.” “You assume that the woman denies

him?” The man stiffened himself a little, and the note of his voice was mockery. , "When a man has made a fool of himself, fair lady, if he is a wise fool, he has reckoned the cost of his folly. My plan was to get away front here without telling you in so many stupid words, what, perhaps, God knows, you may have guessed already. Then 1 might, swinging down the spirals of life, have said to myself, ‘she doesn't know from me what I know for me, and all is well.’ But this summer morning got into my head. I suppose, and our unexpected meeting. 1 have played the extravagant Romeo to an astonished Juliet, and ray only hope is that you will forgive and forget, like a good little girl, till I take the train to-morrow.” . ... . "If you call me Juliet, my. Lord,” said the girl, parodying I’olonius, “I am afraid that I was by no means astonished. And I have nothing to forgive and nothing that I want to forget. ’ He sat up and stared at her with a frown, shaking liis head disapprovingly. "You arc a naughty Juliet,” he said, "for, by all the Gods, 1 was dismally in earnest,-.and I don t think I ean stand being teased about it.” There was quite a silence between them, during which the June sun seemed to grow hotter, the sky. bluer, the grass greener, with the intensity of a dream. The man was telling himself it was time to wake up; the girl was telling herself it was time to waken her companion. “I wonder,” she began, with a hesitancy. strange in her, "if you will forgive me if.l tell you of something very wrong that 1 meant to do this morning.” “I think I ean promise that,” he answered, with a brisk, false cheerfulness. Wha-t was your purpose?” "I meant,” she said softly, "to make you do what you have done. ’ —■ “You meant to make me tell you that I loved you? Then you knew?” « ; i “Perhaps. I meant to try, anyway. You made me so mad with your superior air. and your little cynicisms, and your high and mighty aloofness. Of course, you are very clever, and I was ready to like you at first, but you irritated me with your attitude, and’ I felt sure that you were not as indifferent to me as you pretended to be. So 1 determined to find out. That is why I stayed away from the river, that is why I trapped you to sit here by my hammock. I meant to make you confess —and then —” “And then?” “That's the worst part of it. I meant to make you confess and then laugh at you. to deny you, as you said.” “Do yeti think it was a straight game?” he questioned drily, and the girl •hook her head.

“No. But the question is, can you forgive what 1 meant to do, for, you see, I am not laughing at all, and, indeed, 1 do not deny you.” He sprang to his feet and eaught hold of her wrists, steadying her and the hammoek as he looked down on .her troubled, faintly smiling face. “I love you,” he said. “Can you give inc your love?” “I believe 1 ean,” . she answered, and then added swiftly, “but are you afraid of being disillusioned?” y He caught her in his arms and kissed her, and she made no attempt at resistance, for she was amazingly helpless lying there in the hammock. The world was very young, the world was very lonely. Time paused in his swathe to whet his scythe, and the sun stood still, as it, or its consort moon, always do for lovers. As they walked a little later across tire grasses hand in hand, both the captives of an unfamiliar sentimentality, their hostess came out of the twilight of the library into the fervour of the sunlight. The man made for on instant as if he would withdraw his hand from the companionable clasp, but the girl retained his fingers firmly. As they walked thus linked, their attitude was that of ostentatious confession on the man’s part, ostentatious assertion on the part of the maid. "Dear people,” said their hostess, laughing and pretending to be aghast, though indeed she was surprised out of all whooping. “What is the meaning of this?” The man made to speak, but the man was naturally slow, and the maid forestalled him. “If means,” she said, smiling sweetly, "that I have promised to disillusion biro.”