“But I don’t see how you could help noticing her. She’s not like any of the other village girls.”
“Well, she’s pretty, I know. But I’ve never given her a thought.” His mind turned to his sister and he broke out: “It’s a damned shame! It’s horrible! Meg can never marry you after this!”
Maurice sat up and said desperately: “Meggie must never know. She never will know. You must help me!”
“How the devil can I help you?”
“Elvira will go away. She has relations who will take her in, if she has money to provide for her and the child till she can get work…. Renny, you must see Elvira for me…. I can’t see her again…. She makes terrible scenes…. It isn’t safe…. We’ll be caught…. Everything will come out.”
“Do you think —” Renny spoke passionately — “that I can bear the thought of you marrying my sister — after this?”
“What difference will it make if she never knows? I’ll be faithful to her. I swear I will! I’ll never look at another woman! Surely you have heard enough talk in your family to know that this sort of thing sometimes happens. Men forget themselves.” He spoke as an experienced man to a boy.
Renny muttered — “You should not have forgotten yourself.”
“I don’t need you to tell me that! I’ve been driven almost mad by remorse. I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since she told me about the baby.”
“Did she threaten to tell your people?”
“No, but everyone in the village will talk. You know what they are for gossip. Our families will be bound to hear of it. Elvira’s aunt will be after me for help. In fact, she has been. I’ve given her money — all I could lay my hands on — to shut her up.”
“How did this affair begin?”
“Elvira used to come into our woods to pick blackberries. I used to be about with my gun. I spoke to her and once I helped her to fill her pail. There was something mysterious about her. But I never loved her for a minute, mind you. I’ve never stopped loving Meg. Meg would have a year’s engagement. She would scarcely let me kiss her. But every time I looked at Elvira I could see she wanted me to kiss her. Then one day last August I forgot myself. I took her in my arms…. I was lost then. It was just like a wild dream.”
Renny said — “Yes? What was she like?”
“She was passionate and strange. She almost frightened me. I made up my mind I’d never see her again…. But — the very next time I went into the wood — she was there.”
Renny’s face hardened. “Why didn’t you keep out of the wood?”
“I was a fool. But I wanted to be alone to think things over.”
“Are you sure you didn’t want to meet her again?”
Maurice flushed under Renny’s eyes.
“I don’t know. Perhaps I did. I was a fool. But I can tell you, I’ve paid for it!”
“I think you’re just beginning to pay for it.”
“By God! You’re hard! I thought you were my friend. I thought you’d help me.”
“I’m wondering if I want my sister to marry you now.”
“I swear I’ll be faithful to her for the rest of my life! Any man is likely to make one slip. It will disappoint your people terribly. It will break my parents’ hearts — if this comes between Meg and me. Lord, what I’ve been through! Meg buying her trousseau, and Elvira clasping me about the knees and begging me to marry her! It’s too much! I can’t bear it!”
He threw himself on the grass and groaned.
Renny was moved to compassion.
“Look here,” he said, putting his hand on Maurice’s shoulder, “buck up! We’ll do something about it. I’ll see Elvira and we’ll get her out of here at once. Have you the money for her?”
“Yes. My father has given me a cheque for my wedding expenses. I’ll have to take some out of that.”
“Does that mean you will cut down on Meggie’s pleasures on your wedding trip?” Renny regarded him suspiciously.
“Lord, no. I can always get money.”
“H’m — you’re a lucky devil.”
“Will you see Elvira tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“She must leave soon — before it’s too late.”
“When is the arrival expected?”
“I don’t quite know. In about a month, I think.”
“Well, aren’t people talking?”
“She doesn’t show her condition.”
“She may be bluffing you.”
“No. I’m sure of it.”
“Are you sure the child will be yours?”
“I think it is.”
“Well, as Gran says, this is a pretty to-do. I wonder how the old lady would take it.”
Maurice replied eagerly. “She would be on my side. You can depend on that, Renny! She is a woman of the world. My parents have lived narrow lives. They’re puritanical. Your people are different. They see things comparatively.”
Renny made a guarded, nervous movement. “They wouldn’t see this comparatively,” he said. “They’d see it as an insult to Meg. I don’t believe they’d want her to marry you.”
“I think you’re quite wrong. But no one need ever know, if you’ll help me.”
“Oh, I’ll help you, as far as that goes! When I can I see Elvira?”
“I will arrange that. God, what a load you’ve taken off my mind!”
He stretched out his hand and clasped Renny’s.
A chill rose from the river and a tenuous wreath of mist indicated its meanderings. The crinkled surface of the water took on an olive tinge, while the tops of the willows were still gilded by the sun. A kingfisher swooped and rose with a small fish in its beak.
Then, from beyond a willowed curve of the river, two swans appeared, sailing in midstream, with closely folded wings and arched necks. They were a pair that Renny’s father had brought from England. The experiment had been tried several times, but these were the first that had thriven and made the river their own. Now, in an attitude of innocent scorn, they sailed past the two youths, their snowy whiteness reflected in the darkening water, a long silver ripple springing from either side of their calm breasts.
III
Elvira
That evening Renny could not get the thought of Elvira out of his head. After he had taken Vera Lacey home and had left her puzzled by his abstractedness, he followed the road to the village and turned into the poor street where the girl and her aunt lived. He knew that the aunt was a dressmaker who had appeared, from nowhere it seemed, about five years ago. Elvira had been a thin-legged little girl then, with hair that stuck out in a dark halo about her pale face. She had liked horses, he knew, for he remembered her hanging about the gates of the paddocks at Jalna, watching the activities there. He faintly remembered showing off in front of her on the back of a wayward colt because he liked the way Elvira stood, with her head thrown back and her hands clasped against her breast, as though her excitement were more than she could bear. He did not think he had had more than a glimpse of her in the past two years. It was strange, he reflected, that Maurice should have had this intercourse with her — Maurice, who had never looked at any girl but Meggie; Maurice, who had always been