The lunch would be eaten in the cool upland air, while the beasts stood near at hand, placidly grazing. Against a sky of incredible blueness the Peak would gleam as though powdered with crystal—Teide, mighty mountain of snow with the heart of fire and the brow of crystal. Down the winding tracks would come goats with their herds, the tinkle of goat-bells breaking the stillness. And as all such things have seemed wonderful to lovers throughout the ages, even so now they seemed very wonderful to Mary and Stephen.
There were days when, leaving the uplands for the vale, they would ride past the big banana plantations and the glowing acres of ripe tomatoes. Geraniums and agaves would be growing side by side in the black volcanic dust of the roadway. From the stretching Valley of Orotava they would see the rugged line of the mountains. The mountains would look blue, like the African nights, all save Teide, clothed in her crystalline whiteness.
And now while they sat together in the garden at evening, there would sometimes come beggars, singing; ragged fellows who played deftly on their guitars and sang songs whose old melodies hailed from Spain, but whose words sprang straight from the heart of the island:
“A-a-a-y! Before I saw thee I was at peace,
But now I am tormented because I have seen thee.
Take away mine eyes oh, enemy! Oh, belovèd!
Take away mine eyes, for they have turned me to fire.
My blood is as the fire in the heart of Teide.
A-a-a-y! Before I saw thee I was at peace.”
The strange minor music with its restless rhythms, possessed a very potent enchantment, so that the heart beat faster to hear it, and the mind grew mazed with forbidden thoughts, and the soul grew heavy with the infinite sadness of fulfilled desire; but the body knew only the urge towards a complete fulfilment. … “A-a-a-a-y! Before I saw thee I was at peace.”
They would not understand the soft Spanish words, and yet as they sat there they could but divine their meaning, for love is no slave of mere language. Mary would want Stephen to take her in her arms, so must rest her cheek against Stephen’s shoulder, as though they two had a right to such music, had a right to their share in the love songs of the world. But Stephen would always move away quickly.
“Let’s go in,” she would mutter; and her voice would sound rough, for that bright sword of youth would have leapt out between them.
V
There came days when they purposely avoided each other, trying to find peace in separation. Stephen would go for long rides alone, leaving Mary to idle about the villa; and when she got back Mary would not speak, but would wander away by herself to the garden. For Stephen had grown almost harsh at times, possessed as she now was by something like terror, since it seemed to her that what she must say to this creature she loved would come as a deathblow, that all youth and all joy would be slain in Mary.
Tormented in body and mind and spirit, she would push the girl away from her roughly: “Leave me alone, I can’t bear any more!”
“Stephen—I don’t understand. Do you hate me?”
“Hate you? Of course you don’t understand—only, I tell you I simply can’t bear it.”
They would stare at each other pale-faced and shaken.
The long nights became even harder to endure, for now they would feel so terribly divided. Their days would be heavy with misunderstandings, their nights filled with doubts, apprehensions and longings. They would often have parted as enemies, and therein would lie the great loneliness of it.
As time went on they grew deeply despondent, their despondency robbing the sun of its brightness, robbing the little goat-bells of their music, robbing the dark of its luminous glory. The songs of the beggars who sang in the garden at the hour when the santa noche smelt sweetest, those songs would seem full of a cruel jibing: “A-a-a-y! Before I saw thee I was at peace, but now I am tormented because I have seen thee.”
Thus were all things becoming less good in their sight, less perfect because of their own frustration.
VI
But Mary Llewellyn was no coward and no weakling, and one night, at long last, pride came to her rescue. She said: “I want to speak to you, Stephen.”
“Not now, it’s so late—tomorrow morning.”
“No, now.” And she followed Stephen into her bedroom.
For a moment they avoided each other’s eyes, then Mary began to talk rather fast: “I can’t stay. It’s all been a heartbreaking mistake. I thought you wanted me because you cared. I thought—oh, I don’t know what I thought—but I won’t accept your charity, Stephen, not now that you’ve grown to hate me like this—I’m going back home to England. I forced myself on you, I asked you to take me. I must have been mad; you just took me out of pity; you thought that I was ill and you felt sorry for me. Well, now I’m not ill and not mad any more, and I’m going. Every time I come near you you shrink or push me away as though I repelled you. But I want us to part quickly because. …” Her voice broke: “because it torments me to be always with you and to feel that you’ve literally grown to hate me. I can’t stand it; I’d rather not see you, Stephen.”
Stephen stared at her, white and aghast. Then all in a moment the restraint of years was shattered as though by some mighty convulsion. She remembered nothing, was conscious
