VIII
“I HAVE THEE BY THE HANDS
AND WILL NOT LET THEE GO”
That afternoon Dolly tied a handkerchief over her head and with Maggie’s help spring-cleaned the parlour, an operation which involved the brushing, clapping, and dusting of every separate volume on the shelves. She moved the furniture out into the hall, swept the floor with tea-leaves mixed with violets, and had everything tidy in time for tea at half-past five. A capable housewife was Dolly Fane. But after tea she left Maggie to wash up, under orders to be careful of the Worcester china which Lucian admired, and herself went out for a walk to rest herself.
Beyond the stream a hill rose steep and grassy, crossed by the hedge-rows and sentinel elms of a Kentish lane, still netted in autumn’s grey clematis, though violets blossomed thick below. Eglantine Lane was its local name; it was a lonely place, neglected by the parish council, and voluminously muddy. A satirical notice-board announced that the authorities would not be responsible for injuries sustained by persons using the unmetalled part of the road, and another sign at the top of the hill described it truthfully as Dangerous to Cyclists. Dolly, nevertheless, scaled it without loss of breath; she had been on her feet since six in the morning, but she knew no better how to feel tired than the unfortunate Hans how to shiver and shake. Near the top was a gate and a stile, and a view of a field which had broken out into a black small-pox of heaps that were presently to be strewn over the soil. Fish-manure: as Dolly had known a month ago at Fanes, any day when the wind was blowing from the east. These are the vernal scents of happy Kent.
Dolly climbed upon the post of the stile to look at the crops and congratulate herself that Bernard was a better farmer than his neighbours. Bernard worked with his men, and was to be seen in due season carting manure with the best of them; though, afterwards, Dolly forbade him the parlour and grudged him the house until he had bathed and changed. Example is better than precept, and Fane’s farm flourished while others declined; and Dolly, to whom Bernard was still the first man in the world, glowed with sympathetic triumph in watching his fruitful acres.
She presently witnessed a touching scene. At a stone’s-throw beyond the next bend stood a solitary cottage, and from the cottage came wandering a stray angel aged three, with blue eyes and golden curls and a brow of smutty pearl. The angel progressed erratically, chanting a ditty, and smiting the ground with a stick as tall as herself. So large a sceptre is awkward for handling, and it soon happened that it got between the angel’s fat legs and upset her in the mire. The ditty became an ululation. Dolly was trying to screw her recalcitrant sympathy up to the point of sympathizing when a fresh actor appeared. Round the corner spun a cyclist at full speed, who came within a hair of involving the angel and himself in one red ruin. A skilful rider, he skirted the edge of tragedy and passed safely by, but immediately jumped off his bicycle and went back to see what was wrong. He heard a perfectly unintelligible tale of woe, ruined his handkerchief by using it as a towel, consoled the angel with a penny, and sent her off with a kiss.
The last was too much for Dolly; she laughed.
“Ah! it’s you,” said Farquhar. He wheeled his bicycle to the bank and came and leaned against the gate. Something in his tone and his words, some threat in his manner (always the truthful index of his mood), prompted Dolly to say, in her chilliest tones:
“Are you going to stay?”
“I am.”
“Then I’ll go.”
She put one hand on the post to vault down. Farquhar took her wrists and forcibly stayed her. “No, you won’t; I want to talk to you.”
“Talk, then; I won’t answer you.”
“Will you answer if I let you go?”
Dolly thought for a minute and slowly answered, “Yes.”
“That’s right,” said Farquhar, releasing her. “I’ve been wanting to speak to you this month past. Why have you kept out of my way?”
“For the same reason that I’m speaking to you now: because I chose to.”
“Because you chose to—Dolly, I swear I never saw a woman to compare with you for beauty! Why don’t you ride? On horseback you’d be a queen.”
“I used to, but my horse got staked and had to be shot.”
“Were you on him?”
“I was; afterwards he was on me.”
“My God! I’m glad I didn’t see it.”
“I was not hurt; and why should it affect you if I had been?”
“Anything affects me that has to do with you. I’m in love with you; you know it.”
“How much?” inquired Dolly. He stood; she still sat on the gate, one foot swinging, and his face, thrown back to look up at her, fronted the sunset. Dolly felt like Fatima turning the little golden key, but she was at present mistress of the situation, and her spirits rose. “How much?” she said again.
“You want the whole fool’s catalogue? Hear, then: you’re heaven and earth and hell, sun and darkness, flower and dove and angel, light of my soul, fire in my veins—no! I’ll be hanged if those trashy similes will serve! I’ll tell you what you’re like: quick-lime in the eyes, vitriol on the naked flesh. See there!”—he pushed his sleeve up (Dolly, though her nerves were tolerably steady, uttered an exclamation)—“see those scars? I’ll tell you what they are—ants. I’ve been tied up to be eaten alive by them. You put it to yourself what that’s like. Well, I’d stand that all over again sooner than have you refuse me.”
That he was sincere and spoke the truth Dolly could not doubt, and he made her sick; she turned away her face. Farquhar dropped from passion to passionate entreaty, his voice sank to a murmur, he captured her hand and pressed it to his cold cheek. “Dolly, Dolly, give yourself to me, and I’ll make you love me; I swear it. You’re my only one, my own; I’d not snap my fingers to win a queen. I’ve never so much as kissed a woman before. You’ll never have a man say that to you again and tell the truth. And I’ll never change; don’t you make any error about that. What I say to-day I’ll say again in fifty years, when you’re old and ugly. Only come to me, Dolly; do come to me. Dolly, Dolly!” He was covering her palm with kisses; his lips were hot, though he was shivering, or rather shuddering. “If you’ll only come, I’ll make you love me,” he said, lifting his face; and the surprising strength of his passion made Dolly own that the boast was likely to prove true. She was moved. Bluebeard’s chamber was worth exploring; but she did not want to stay there.
“Well, I don’t love you, Mr. Farquhar,” she said, calmly. “I hate the way you talk, and I mean to be my own mistress awhile yet.”
“I’ll say no word that could hurt a child.”
“What’s the use of that? Your thoughts are all wrong.”
“I’ll keep my thoughts in as I keep my tongue.”
“No,” said Dolly, with mounting spirit.
Farquhar bent his head against her knee and breathed hard. When he looked up he was haggard. He was suffering there before her eyes, but hardily.
“I’ll not take that answer as final,” said he.
“It’s not meant to be. I want time to think.”
“Do you? I’ll have you yet.”
“Don’t be so sure. I’d far rather marry Mr. de Saumarez.”
“Has that miserable little etiolated pensioner of mine dared to come after you?”
“Don’t speak of my friend so, if you please.”
“Would you like me to go and beg his pardon? I’d do it, if you told me.”
Only the thought of Lucian’s disgust kept Dolly back from taking him at his word. “I like Mr. de Saumarez, and I don’t think I like you at all. But you can give me the position I want, and he can’t. I want time to think it over. Come to me three months hence, and I’ll tell you my decision.”
“Do you like love at second-hand? De Saumarez has carried his sweetheart’s letter against his heart for nine years, and she wasn’t you.”
“I’d like his love at tenth-hand better than yours,” said Dolly, with spirit.
Farquhar laughed grimly. “And there you’re wrong, my dear. I love you pretty decently well, though I’ll admit there’s a bit of the devil in me. You want me to wait three months? All right; only I warn you that my position and, consequently, your ambition’ll suffer.”
“Why?”
“Do you expect me to reel out platitudes in Parliament while you’re playing the deuce with me? Not much! And if I hold my tongue this session, I may as well take the Chiltern Hundreds.”
“Nonsense,” said Dolly, a trifle cross. “You could do it if you tried. Of course, if you lose your position you won’t be so eligible.”
“Hard lines; you put me on the rack and punish me for being disabled. But I’ll have you yet, in spite of yourself.”
“You may,” retorted Dolly, “or, on the other hand, you mayn’t.”
“I shall.”
“Peut-être. Please to move, Mr. Farquhar, I want to get down.”
“Wait a moment. A kiss first, if you please.”
“I will not! Take your arm away.”
“No,” said Farquhar, evenly. “I’m going to have one.”
“I’ll never give it you.”
“I’ll take it, then.”
“Do you think this is the way to make me have you?”
“I do; a woman’s never mistress of herself till she’s been mastered by a man.”
“Don’t apply your aphorisms to me, if you please; I’m not like the women you know.”
“Aren’t you? That’s where you make a mistake, my girl; women never know themselves.”
“I know myself well enough to be sure I’m not going to kiss you.”
“Very possibly you aren’t; that’s not the point, though I should like you to. I’m going to kiss you.”
“Let me go!”
“One kiss, Dolly.”
“Let me go!” Dolly repeated, struggling against him. She would have had a chance with any other man, for she was strong and supple and desperate; but Noel Farquhar’s arms closed round her like a snake’s constricting folds. Though the cottage was within earshot, Dolly would have died sooner than call for help. She went on fighting, and when he drew her down she turned her face away. Uselessly: Farquhar’s hand was laid against her cheek, and he bent her face to his. They looked into each other’s eyes: Dolly’s all rebellion, his all fire; and then he kissed her.
Once only; he had sufficient self-control to let her go when he had kept his word. Dolly pulled out her handkerchief to brush it away. If she had had a knife she would have used it against him; yet behind her anger there was an unwilling respect. That immense strength which she could not defy, the strength of will as well as the strength of body, had left its impression. Farquhar was right in thinking that he had stamped his claims upon her memory. It was better that she should say, as she did, “I hate you from the bottom of my heart,” than that she should part from him in a mood of calm and confident triumph.
“Well, I love you,” he answered her, simply. “There; I beg your pardon. You’ll not forgive me, of course, but—well, there are times when I wonder if I’m mad.”
“You’ve made that excuse before; try something fresh.”
“Did I? It’s the truth. Dolly, you—” He put up his hand over his eyes. “Sheer madness; or say I’m drunk. Dolly, what—what eyes you’ve got!”
That was the last she heard from him that night. They parted, he taking a footpath to The Lilacs. He forgot his bicycle, and Dolly, seeing it, wheeled it down to Fanes to the safe custody of the tool-shed, not without some pride in an affection which could make a man oblivious of a very handsome, free-wheeled, Bowden-braked, acetylene-lamped, silver-plated, thirty-guinea Singer. At that hour Lucian’s chances were poor.
“Where have you been?” was Bernard’s greeting when she came into the parlour. “Merton’s been here, and left a note for you.”
“Did you see him in those slippers?” exclaimed Dolly, pointing at the purple cross-stitched pansies which spread their blossoms over Bernard’s instep. Bernard looked at them himself.
“They’re all right; they haven’t got any holes,” he said.
“I’m sure gentlemen don’t wear such things. In the evening they wear—they wear pumps.”
“They may wear pumps or they may wear buckets,” Bernard responded. “I guess I don’t much care. Old Merton wears slippers, for I’ve seen ’em on him. You open the letter and see what Mrs. Merton says—if she writes so that you can understand her, that is.”
Dolly perused the note, written in a random, spidery fashion upon hand-made paper. “She wants us to dine there on Thursday,” she said, tapping her lips with the paper in a thoughtful manner.
“Thursday? I shall be at Swanborough market.”
“Dinner means eight o’clock in the evening; you’ll be home then.”
“Oh, I forgot,” said Bernard. “Shall you accept?”
Dolly did not reply, but continued to tap her lips. Mrs. Merton had been at the pains of mentioning her other invited guests. Presently Dolly said, “Bernard.”
“Well.”
“I’ve had two offers of marriage to-day.”
“I’m glad Farquhar’s come up to the scratch. I didn’t want to have to thrash him. But who’s the other?”
“Lucian de Saumarez.”
“Him!” exclaimed Bernard. “Dolly, I’d take him; I like him.”
“Oh, I know, I know; so do I. But he hasn’t a penny.”
“He’d take you about and show you things.”
“Quite so; out of a third-class window. I don’t care for that.”
“You aren’t going to have that Farquhar chap?”
“I’ve not quite made up my mind.”
“Well, you’ll be a fool if you choose him,” said Bernard, returning to the Daily Telegraph; and human nature is so constituted that at that moment Dolly would have accepted Farquhar on the spot, had he been present.
The clock struck nine. Dolly got up, extended her arms above her head, and yawned. “Oh, I am sleepy,” she said. “Good-night, Bernard.”
“’D-night,” answered Bernard, deep in the finance news.
Dolly moved towards the door; then, a certain thought crossing her mind, she came to Bernard’s chair and bent her beautiful head.
“Give me a kiss, Bernie.”
Somewhat surprised, Bernard complied.
“Do you like kissing me, Bernard?”
“M’yes. I don’t mind it. Why?”
“Ah!” said Dolly, and lighted her candle for bed.