The Dark Flower

Leaning out, and resting his chin on his hands, he drew the night air into his lungs. Honeysuckle, or was it the scent of lilies still? The stars all out, and lots of owls to-night – four at least. What would night be like without owls and stars? But that was it – you never could think what things would be like if they weren’t just what and where they were. You never knew what was coming, either; and yet, when it came, it seemed as if nothing else ever could have come. That was queer-you could do anything you liked until you’d done it, but when you HAD done it, then you knew, of course, that you must always have had to… What was that light, below and to the left? Whose room? Old Tingle’s – no, the little spare room – Sylvia’s! She must be awake, then! He leaned far out, and whispered in the voice she had said was still furry:

“Sylvia!”

The light flickered, he could just see her head appear, with hair all loose, and her face turning up to him. He could only half see, half imagine it, mysterious, blurry; and he whispered:

“Isn’t this jolly?”

The whisper travelled back:

“Awfully.”

“Aren’t you sleepy?”

“No; are you?”

“Not a bit. D’you hear the owls?”

“Rather.”

“Doesn’t it smell good?”

“Perfect. Can you see me?”

“Only just, not too much. Can you?”

“I can’t see your nose. Shall I get the candle?”

“No – that’d spoil it. What are you sitting on?”

“The window sill.”

“It doesn’t twist your neck, does it?”

“No – o – only a little bit.”

“Are you hungry?”

“Yes.”

“Wait half a shake. I’ll let down some chocolate in my big bath towel; it’ll swing along to you – reach out.”

A dim white arm reached out.

“Catch! I say, you won’t get cold?”

“Rather not.”

“It’s too jolly to sleep, isn’t it?”

“Mark!”

“Yes.”

“Which star is yours? Mine is the white one over the top branch of the big sycamore, from here.”

“Mine is that twinkling red one over the summer house. Sylvia!”

“Yes.”

“Catch!”

“Oh! I couldn’t – what was it?”

“Nothing.”

“No, but what WAS it?”

“Only my star. It’s caught in your hair.”

“Oh!”

“Listen!”

Silence, then, until her awed whisper:

“What?”

And his floating down, dying away:

“CAVE!”

What had stirred – some window opened? Cautiously he spied along the face of the dim house. There was no light anywhere, nor any shifting blur of white at her window below. All was dark, remote – still sweet with the scent of something jolly. And then he saw what that something was. All over the wall below his window white jessamine was in flower – stars, not only in the sky. Perhaps the sky was really a field of white flowers; and God walked there, and plucked the stars…

The next morning there was a letter on his plate when he came down to breakfast. He couldn’t open it with Sylvia on one side of him, and old Tingle on the other. Then with a sort of anger he did open it. He need not have been afraid. It was written so that anyone might have read; it told of a climb, of bad weather, said they were coming home. Was he relieved, disturbed, pleased at their coming back, or only uneasily ashamed? She had not got his second letter yet. He could feel old Tingle looking round at him with those queer sharp twinkling eyes of hers, and Sylvia regarding him quite frankly. And conscious that he was growing red, he said to himself: ‘I won’t!’ And did not. In three days they would be at Oxford. Would they come on here at once? Old Tingle was speaking. He heard Sylvia answer: “No, I don’t like ‘bopsies.’ They’re so hard!” It was their old name for high cheekbones. Sylvia certainly had none, her cheeks went softly up to her eyes.

“Do you, Mark?”

He said slowly:

“On some people.”

“People who have them are strong-willed, aren’t they?”

Was SHE – Anna – strong-willed? It came to him that he did not know at all what she was.

When breakfast was over and he had got away to his old greenhouse, he had a strange, unhappy time. He was a beast, he had not been thinking of her half enough! He took the letter out, and frowned at it horribly. Why could he not feel more? What was the matter with him? Why was he such a brute – not to be thinking of her day and night? For long he stood, disconsolate, in the little dark greenhouse among the images of his beasts, the letter in his hand.

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