И. Маевская - Лучшие истории о любви / Best love stories

He went up the lane which smelled of the night and young leaves. He opened the farm gate stealthily. All was dark in the house. He looked up at Megan’s window. It was open. Was she sleeping, or lying awake perhaps, disturbed – unhappy at his absence? An owl hooted while he stood there peering up, and the sound seemed to fill the whole night, so quiet was all else, save for the never-ending murmur of the stream running below the orchard. The cuckoos by day, and now the owls – how wonderfully they voiced this troubled ecstasy within him! And suddenly he saw her at her window, looking out. He moved a little from the yew tree, and whispered: “Megan!” She drew back, vanished, reappeared, leaning far down. He moved the chair, and noiselessly mounted it. By stretching up his arm he could just reach. Her hand held the huge key of the front door, and he clasped that burning hand with the cold key in it. He could just see her face, the glint of teeth between her lips, her hair. She was still dressed – poor child, sitting up for him, no doubt! “Pretty Megan!” Her hot, roughened fingers clung to his; her face had a strange, lost look. To have been able to reach it – even with his hand! The owl hooted, a scent of roses crept into his nostrils. Then one of the farm dogs barked; her grasp relaxed, she shrank back.

“Good-night, Megan!”

“Good-night, sir!”

She was gone! With a sigh he dropped back to earth, and sitting on that chair, took off his boots. For a long while he sat unmoving, his feet chilly in the dew, drunk on the memory of her lost, half-smiling face, and the clinging grip of her burning fingers, pressing the cold key into his hand.

He awoke feeling as if he had eaten heavily overnight, instead of having eaten nothing. And far off, unreal, seemed yesterday’s romance! Yet it was a golden morning. From his window he could see apple blossoms covering the orchard as with a rose and white quilt. He went down almost dreading to see Megan; and yet, when not she but Mrs. Narracombe brought in his breakfast, he felt upset and disappointed.

“So you went walking last night, Mr. Ashurst! Did ye have your supper anywheres?”

Ashurst shook his head.

“We kept it for you, but I suppose you were too busy in your brain to think of such a thing as that?”

Was she mocking him? If she knew! And at that moment he thought: ‘No, no; I’ll clear out. I won’t put myself in such a beastly false position.’

But, after breakfast, the longing to see Megan began and increased with every minute, together with fear lest something should have been said to her which had spoiled everything. And the love poem, whose manufacture had been so important and absorbing yesterday afternoon under the apple trees, now seemed so trivial that he tore it up. What had he known of love, till she seized his hand and kissed it! And now – what did he not know? But to write of it seemed mere insipidity! He went up to his bedroom to get a book, and his heart began to beat violently, for she was in there making the bed. He stood in the doorway watching; and suddenly, with turbulent joy, he saw her bend down and kiss his pillow, just at the hollow made by his head last night.

How let her know he had seen that pretty act of devotion? And yet, if she heard him slipping away, it would be even worse. She took the pillow up, dropped it, and turned round.

“Megan!”

She put her hands up to her cheeks, but her eyes seemed to look right into him. He had never before realised the depth and purity and touching faithfulness in those dew-bright eyes, and he stammered:

“It was sweet of you to wait up for me last night.”

She still said nothing, and he stammered on:

“I was wandering about on the moor; it was such a jolly night. I–I’ve just come up for a book.”

Then, the kiss he had seen her give the pillow afflicted him with sudden excitement, and he went up to her. Touching her eyes with his lips, he thought with queer excitement: ‘I’ve done it! Yesterday all was sudden – anyhow; but now – I’ve done it!’ The girl let her forehead rest against his lips, which moved downwards till they reached hers. That first real lover’s kiss – strange, wonderful, still almost innocent – in which heart did it make the most disturbance?

“Come to the big apple tree tonight, after they’ve gone to bed. Megan – promise!”

She whispered back: “I promise.”

Then, scared at her white face, scared at everything, he let her go, and went downstairs again. Yes! He had done it now! Accepted her love, declared his own! He went out to the green chair without a book; and there he sat staring vacantly before him, triumphant and remorseful, while under his nose and behind his back the work of the farm went on. How long he had been sitting in that curious state of vacancy he had no notion when he saw Joe standing a little behind him to the right. Joe had evidently come from hard work in the fields, and stood breathing loudly, his face coloured like a setting sun. His red lips were open, his blue eyes with their flaxen lashes stared fixedly at Ashurst, who said ironically:

“Well, Joe, anything I can do for you?”

“Yeas.”

“What, then?”

“Yu can go away from here. We don’t want you.”

Ashurst’s face, never too humble, assumed its most lordly look.

“Very good of you, but, do you know, I prefer the others should speak for themselves.”

The young man moved a pace or two nearer, and the scent of his honest heat afflicted Ashurst’s nostrils.

“What do you stay here for?”

“Because it pleases me.”

“It won’t please you when I’ve bashed your head in!”

“Indeed! When would you like to begin that?”

Joe answered only with the loudness of his breathing, but his eyes looked like those of a young and angry bull. Then a sort of spasm seemed to convulse his face.

“Megan doesn’t want you.”

A rush of jealousy, of contempt, and anger with this thick, loud-breathing rustic got the better of Ashurst’s self-possession; he jumped up, and pushed back his chair.

“You can go to the devil!”

And as he said those simple words, he saw Megan in the doorway with a tiny brown spaniel puppy in her arms. She came up to him quickly:

“Its eyes are blue!” she said.

Joe turned away; the back of his neck was literally crimson.

Ashurst put his finger to the mouth of the little brown creature in her arms. How cosy it looked against her!

“It’s fond of you already. Ah Megan, everything is fond of you.”

“What was Joe saying to you, please?”

“Telling me to go away, because you didn’t want me here.”

She stamped her foot; then looked up at Ashurst. At that adoring look he felt his nerves tremble.

“Tonight!” he said. “Don’t forget!”

“No.” And hugging the puppy’s little fat, brown body, she slipped back into the house.

Ashurst wandered down the lane. At the gate of the wild meadow he came on the lame man and his cows.

“Beautiful day, Jim!”

“Ah! It is brave weather for the grass. The ashes be later than the oaks this year. [77]‘When the oak before the ash – ”

Ashurst said idly: “Where were you standing when you saw the gipsy bogle, Jim?”

“It might be under that big apple tree, as you might say.”

“And you really do think it was there?”

The lame man answered cautiously:

“I shouldn’t like to say rightly that it was there. It was in my mind as it was there.”

“What do you make of it?”

The lame man lowered his voice.

“They say old master, Mr. Narracombe came of gipsy stock. But that’s talk. They’re wonderful people, you know, for claiming their own. Maybe they knew he was going, [78]and sent this fellow along for company. That’s what I’ve thought about it.”