CHAPTER LIII

I wrote that night to Katherine, but she did not reply to my letter, and I had no heart to send a second. Two days passed, during which I did not go near Derryaghy, but took to gardening, and when Gerald came down on the second afternoon I offered this as my excuse for not going with him. The fact was that I felt uncomfortable in his society, not knowing how much he knew. He had witnessed my discomfiture on the night Katherine had cut me, and of course he must have questioned her afterwards.

During these days I made one or two attempts to come to a more cordial relation with my father; yet it seemed to me that he suspected the genuineness of my timid advances, and at all events his unresponsiveness discouraged me from repeating them.

On the evening of the third day, having nothing else to do, I strolled listlessly in the direction of the field occupied by the booths of the steam-circus proprietors. It was recognizable from afar by a luminous cloud that hung above it like a curtain of fire against the night. The wind was blowing from that direction, and, as I advanced, my ears were filled with the rough music blared out by a couple of steam-organs, a music broken every now and again by short convulsive shrieks as of demoniac laughter. Swings, shooting-galleries, throwing-competitions――all were in the full energy of life when I approached; but the chief centres of attraction were the two hobby-horse machines, brightly painted and flashing with mirrors and gilding. I mingled in the outer ring of spectators about the larger of these two wheeling monsters, and stood gazing at it, as it turned round swiftly and rhythmically to the throbbing din of brazen pipes. White puffs of steam shot up against the black sky in the coloured glare of naphtha lamps. Girls with flushed, excited faces, tossed hair and shining eyes, leaned sideways from the horses’ backs, laughed, swayed in a kind of innocent abandon toward their accompanying sweethearts. Arms were round waists, the pops of guns mingled with the blare of the music, the shrieks of the steam-whistle, the shrillness of feminine voices. Standing there, in lonely contemplation of all this Dionysian revelry, I felt as hopelessly out of touch with it, as if I had wandered thither from another planet. Suddenly I felt a hand laid lightly on my arm, and looking round saw the laughing face of Annie Breen.

She asked me if I had seen their Willie, but without waiting for an answer went on to chatter about all the people who were here to-night. A whole crowd had come over from Castlewellan; and there were a lot of excursionists from Belfast, who had missed the last train, and nobody knew where they were going to sleep, for there wasn’t a room to be had in the hotels. Wasn’t it fun? They would have to stay out all night; and if it rained wouldn’t it be awful?

“There’s room for two there,” she cried, “those white horses. Ellen Gibson and Brian Seery are getting off.”

I made a half-hearted movement forward, but in my lack of enthusiasm was ousted by a more eager couple whose eyes had been as quick as Annie’s. There was no hint of reproach, however, in the smile the girl turned on me.

“We’ll get them next time, and I’d just as soon watch, any way. Wouldn’t you?”

“There’s Willie over there,” I suggested. “Perhaps you would like――――”

But she interrupted me. “I don’t care about the horses. Only maybe I’m keeping you: maybe you’re waiting for somebody?”

“No,” I answered, hurriedly.

“Let’s go round the tents then. Will you?”

We moved over to the one which appeared to have attracted the largest crowd. In the foreground, just beyond the barrier, was a long counter or table covered with cheap ornaments, artificial jewelry, and boxes of unhealthy-looking cigars; and behind this, set in tiers against the canvas back of the tent itself, were three rows of grotesque, painted, wooden busts, waiting to be knocked down. Surrounded by a group of encouraging spectators, George Edge was stolidly bombarding these figures with a good deal of success, though what he intended to do with his prizes it was difficult to imagine. We stood and watched him, and every now and again a loud smack was instantly followed by the disappearance of one of the dolls.

“Have a throw you,” said Annie. “Go on. I’m sure you can do it better than him.”

An obliging lady handed me three wooden balls, about the size of tennis balls, in exchange for two pence; but in absence of mind I came within an ace of sending the first of these at the head of the proprietor himself, which just then bobbed up close to the dolls, and in features, colouring, and expression, startlingly resembled them. At my third shot I was successful, and Annie chose a gold and turquoise cross. We passed on to the next booth, leaving George still pegging away, with a perseverance that must have cost him about half-a-crown already. Annie herself now won a walking-stick, by throwing a wooden ring over it, and this trophy was presented to me.

“Let’s get out of the glare for a minute,” she said unexpectedly. “It’s that hot with all the lights and things I can’t hardly breathe.”

We passed behind the tents, and a few steps brought us into shadow, and a few steps more to a bank under a hawthorn-hedge, where we sat down. I had nothing to say to her, and, as it did not seem to matter to Annie whether we talked or not, I pursued my own thoughts. She leaned up against me confidingly, but I was hardly more conscious of her presence than of the bank upon which I sat. I was thinking, and presently I put a question to her, put it perfectly seriously. “Suppose, Annie,” I began very deliberately,――“suppose you were friends with somebody――somebody like me, say. Suppose you knew he was very fond of you, and, one day, when you were alone together, without asking you if he might, he put his arms round you and kissed you――would you be very angry with him, so angry that you would never speak to him nor look at him again?”

I kept my eyes fixed upon the ground as I awaited her reply, and I awaited it with some anxiety. It seemed to me a long while coming. All at once I felt two warm lips pressed against my cheek. I was so taken aback by the unexpected nature of this answer that I’m afraid I drew away from it. I understood that poor Annie had seen in my question only a somewhat timid method of courtship. It was distinctly awkward. She leaned her head sentimentally on my shoulder, and we sat in this absurd position for several minutes, while I had time to reflect on the hopeless inconsistency of feminine nature. As soon as I could, without hurting her feelings, I got up. “We must try the hobby-horses now,” I said, with feeble sprightliness, seizing on the only pretext I could think of to escape from a disagreeable situation.

Annie rose too, but with no great alacrity: in fact, she remarked that she was sick of the hobby-horses. I pretended not to believe her. We went back to the spot where she had first spoken to me, and, when the machine came to a standstill, secured two riderless steeds. Mine was on the outside and Annie’s of course next to it, but we were no sooner in possession of them than I became aware of Katherine and Gerald among the spectators quite close to us. I looked the other way, and I felt my face grow crimson. It seemed to me that the engine-man would never set us in motion. Already we appeared to have been waiting for an eternity. Annie was laughing and chattering, and I answered at random, though, indeed, to the kind of remarks she was making, any sort of answer served. Had she, too, seen the Dales? for her vivacity had suddenly become much more noisy and familiar, with something about it that smacked rather of town than of country? I noticed that all the other riders were obviously in couples, and that most of the youths were supporting their partners in a strikingly gallant fashion. Annie had already given me permission to follow their example by telling me half a dozen times she was sure she’d fall off. I didn’t care very much whether she did or not. At last, with a shrill and frivolous scream, the huge construction began to revolve slowly, and our horses to move up and down on their polished brass rods. We swept by within a yard or two of Katherine and Gerald, but I looked straight before me, my face burning. I would have liked to pretend that I was there for a solitary ride, quite independent of Annie, but her manner made any such hypocrisy perfectly futile. Round we came a second time, and a third, gathering velocity at every moment. Annie had taken off her hat and put it on my horse’s head, and her skirts streamed out behind, and flapped against my right leg.

“Peter!”

It was Katherine’s voice. She had called my name. It came to me through the night, and an indescribable emotion shook me. I could not have spoken: my eyes were blinded with tears: and again the huge machine swept round. But in the place where Katherine and Gerald had been I could no longer see them. Where were they gone? The organ belched its coarse music, the steam throbbed, the whistle hooted, we rushed on faster and faster. Where were they? She had called me. Perhaps they had gone home. I could not wait any longer, but slipped from my horse’s back. Annie screamed; the man who was going round collecting the fares while the ride was in progress made a grab at me; but I jumped――jumped and fell headlong, rolling over and knocking all the breath out of my body, though luckily not breaking any bones. Instantly there was commotion. A crowd gathered about me, and everybody seemed to think I had either gone mad or been seized with a fit. I scrambled to my feet as soon as I had pumped a little wind into myself, and, without waiting to brush the dust from my clothes, without answering any of the questions that poured in upon me from all sides, pushed my way through the people, who appeared inclined to detain me by force, and hurried, as fast as my still rather breathless condition would allow, in pursuit of Katherine and Gerald. Alas, I could see no sign of them. They had vanished as completely and mysteriously as Persephone on that summer morning in the meadows. I clambered through the hedge out on to the road, but there was no one there. I ran on till I reached the turning, but there was no one there either, and I knew I had missed them, for the road here lay straight and bare in both directions. I stood still by the sea-wall. I could not go back. The glare and din were now become impossible, to say nothing of Annie, whom I had flouted in so unscrupulous a fashion.

I took my old path over the golf-links till I reached the hollow where I always came when I wanted to be quite alone. I flung myself down on the soft, white, powdery sand, among the thin gray grasses, in the pallid starlight. My heart was surging with emotions, at once happy and desolating. I could not understand what had occurred; only I heard again and again the sound of my name, as it had come to me in that loved voice through the night.

I lay there for a long time. I was crying, I think, but I did not know I was crying, though I kept wiping my tears away. I was unconscious of everything around me, I was blind and deaf, and it was only when I felt a hand on my shoulder that I looked up, startled, and saw Katherine bending over me.

“Peter, what is the matter? Is it my fault?”

Her voice was all gentleness; in her face a beautiful tenderness; but I could not speak.

“It is nothing,” I stammered out at last. “Only I thought――you were never going to speak to me again, and――”

“I was horrid. I can’t think now why I was so horrid. Forget about it, Peter dear, won’t you? Tell me you will.”

“It was my fault,” I muttered. “It was all my fault.”

“Never mind whose fault it was. Let us forget about it.”

“I can’t forget,” I said. “It was my fault.”

“But why――when I want you to? Can’t you forget, even if you know I love you?”

I scrambled to my feet and stood facing her. “Do you really?” I faltered. “Don’t say it if――if it is not true.”

“It is true.”

“How is it true?” I asked. “How much? Do you love me as much as you love Gerald?”

She hesitated, and it seemed to me that it was because she feared to wound me. “Yes,” she said at last, in a low voice. There was something that touched me, through all my longing and pain, in her desire to be perfectly honest. “Better than Gerald. Better than anybody,” she pursued, doubtfully, “better than anybody, I think, except mother.”

I sighed; I could not help it.

She looked at me sadly. “Why aren’t you content, Peter? Why do you always want more than I can give, when I have given you so much?”

“And Owen?” I asked, though I was ashamed of myself for doing so.

“I like Owen very much. I think he is very nice, but that is all. And now tell me you are content. I must go, and I shan’t be happy unless I know _you_ are.”

“I am happy,” I lied most dismally. I saw indeed that it was all hopeless, and that she would never understand.

“I will see you to-morrow. I can’t stay now; Gerald is waiting for me over at the Club House.”

“Where were you when I looked for you?” I asked. “I heard you call my name, and I jumped off, but when I went to look for you, you were gone.”

“Miss Dick was with us, and she wanted to go home; but we went round the other way――not by the sea. We had to go all the way back with Miss Dick, but I got Gerald to come out again, for I thought, I don’t know why, I might find you here. And I’m very glad I came. I couldn’t go on any longer without making it up. But I mustn’t really wait now. I told Gerald I should only be five minutes. Good-night, Peter. Come to-morrow morning.”

“Good-night.”

She was gone, and I was left alone to whatever felicity I might be able to discover.