Tussock Land; a Romance of New Zealand and the Commonwealth/Chapter 8
VIII
At the evening meal Aroha was one long ripple of soft raillery. She laughed at King’s horsemanship, mocked at his sullenness. He did not tell her of his fall.
On the table were home-made jams and new-made bread and new-churned butter. There was the inevitable mutton, the mutton that day after day appears on the tables of the settlers throughout the colonies. For, true colonials, in a land where rabbits swarmed like vermin, they would not vary their fare by touching rabbit-flesh. They would have as soon eaten rat.
Looking at Mrs Grey, as she poured out the ever-plentiful tea, King thought that never had she seemed so gracious, so benign. The picture of Roman matrons, of Roman goddesses, rose to his mind. And then his gaze fell on the daughter, and his thoughts grew murderous. The girl’s eyes this evening were lit with a new and a dangerous light; to her cheek the rush home through the chill air had brought a wondrous warmth; her figure, pliant as a supple-jack wand, seemed superbly conscious of its own splendid youth. She was so complete, so rounded, so whole! The boy’s confidence fainted before her. She was so cruel, so callous; she wanted nothing, not even love!
At eight o’clock he rose to go. It had been a miserable evening. He could not stand it longer. And his bruises were beginning to pain.
“To-morrow,” he said to Mrs Grey, his voice raised that the girl might not lose a syllable. To-morrow I am going back to Dunedin. I won’t see you again—at least not for an age. I want to thank you for all your kindness to me. I won’t forget it. And if ever I can return it in any little degree, I—"
Mrs Grey laughed with a good-natured tolerance of his youth. She liked the boy, and thought that her daughter was, to-night, altogether too hard on him. But she remembered one evening when she had been as callous to her lover. After all, men seemed to survive.
She pressed him to come again, and at his melancholy refusal she laughed tolerantly. Some day, perhaps, and the boy looked forlornly forward to that infinitely distant some day.
He put out his hand to say good-bye. The girl and her mother were standing together by the fireplace. Aroha put out her hand quickly. King ignored it, and took her mother’s hand. At least, though it seemed nothing to the girl, he would have the touch of her hand to remember last. Then he turned to her. She had gone silently out.
He went out, walking stupidly to the stable. So she would not allow him even the touch of her hand? How inconceivably cruel women could be! Well, it was all a part of her heartless nature. It had been his own fault; he would put her outside his life, forget her utterly.
As he opened the stable door a figure slipped out of the darkness to his side.
“Aroha!” he whispered in a glad surprise.
“Yes,” she said demurely, “I thought perhaps that you couldn’t find your bridle. You’re so stupid about horses, you know!”
He opened the stable door and drew her into the darkness of the stable.
“Now,” he said, and his voice was trembling with a great fear, “now, I want my answer.”
“But,” she exclaimed, uneasy in his rough grasp, “you didn’t catch me?”
“I’ve caught you now,” he said, in a stern triumph.
The girl’s heart went still. This was terrible, this rude outburst of passion. Oh, it wasn’t a fairy prince at all; it was only a man, a rude, passionate man. She was suddenly nauseated by the physical side of love.
“Stop!” she said hoarsely, and something in that intense repulsion, felt through all her body, prevailed on him. He set her free and the two stood apart. It was quite dark in the stable, yet each saw the other’s face, like a pale whiteness infinitely remote.
He could hear her breath coming quickly, hear her bosom irregularly rise and fall. He made an impatient stride to her and caught her hand. She pushed him away.
“No,” she whispered. “I am frightened; I don’t know. I have dreamed of love—of your loving me, King; and it was sweet to dream, but I did not know, I did not dream that it would be like this. Are men—all men—so rough, so masterful?”
“When they love as I love you,” he said hoarsely.
“Love!” she said. “You talk so glibly of love. But I—I don’t believe you!”
It came as a cry from the heart. It was the truth at last. She did not believe him; he was not sincere. It was all too easy, too impetuous to be love. Love meant service, sacrifice. So vaguely her heart had divined.
“King! King!” she said again, an infinite sorrow in her voice. “What is it that keeps us apart?”
“Nothing, nothing, Aroha!”
The girl steadied herself erect against the wall.
“Yes, there is something between us, something in us, in you and me. I cannot tell what it is; but, King, I know it is there.” Then, with a sudden quaver in her voice, “Oh, King, how I hate myself for what I am saying!”
He waited in the dark uncomprehendingly. At last he put out his hand gropingly. It touched another hand that had been as blindly outstretched! He drew her gently to him. She was passive to his will, heavy on his arm like a tired child. After all—the thought came gratefully to her—why should she struggle against her love for him? Of that her heart was eternally sure. Yet, if she surrendered to him now, it would be for life. She felt the vastness of the decision, its momentous results. But was this thin doubt insinuating itself into her brain worth the struggle, the barren resistance? She felt her womanhood surge up within her like an irresistible tide. She craved the woman’s guerdon; she cried out to be loved.
He loved her; he was saying it over and over again. She loved him. She lay against his breast, his arms strong about her, crushing her, crushing her.
A heavy, slouching step came toward the stable. A man was approaching, swinging a lantern. A shaft of light pierced the darkness of the stable, and before it a grotesque, gigantic shadow flickered. It was John.
A light pierced into Aroha’s heart. Strength— that was the difference between these two men. John was sincere; he loved her. He had never made protestation of it, yet she had it as a sweet certainty at the bottom of her heart. But King? She, the woman, was stronger than the man. She, the woman, would have to surrender her strength, submit to see herself mastered by his weakness. In the splendour of her personality she instinctively rejoiced; and all her being rebelled against such a sacrifice of herself. Yet it would be so sweet, so splendid, to give it all up, to sink her personality beneath the dominion of his, to surrender for ever to his overmastering love! But she was the stronger; he, the man, could never be the master. And, with the woman’s age-old craving, she passionately asked for a master.
They stood silent and motionless, each held together by a terror that John might find them there. But his step passed on. She drew herself quickly away from the boy.
He had no words left. He felt faint with the stress of his emotion. Mechanically he turned to his horse and put the saddle and bridle on. The antagonism of the girl seemed like a shield between him and her. He was dazed and blinded; he did not understand what it was that stood between them. He did not know how to attack it. He led his horse outside and mounted.
“Good-night, good-bye,” she said, lifting her face to his. “Afterwards, perhaps, when we are older, when we understand ourselves—”
He saw her face faintly pale under the star-light, like a wet, newly-opened flower. Impulsively, despairingly, he stooped for her lips. She wrested her hand from him and fled.
There was only darkness about him now.
Next morning as he passed on his way to the railway station, he looked back up the valley. High on the ridge was a girl on horseback. He caught the flash of waving white. On a sudden wild impulse he put his horse at the long slope and galloped towards that distant figure. The girl waved once and disappeared over the brow of the hill.
He had to ride hard to catch his train.