Insistently, through her memory, sounded the pipes o' Pan--the wild,
sweet, tremulous strain which had led her away from the road where she
had been splashed with the mud from Anthony Dexter's carriage wheels.
The man with the red feather in his hat had called her, and she had
come. Now he was digging in her garden, making the desolate place
clean, if not cheerful.
Conscious of an unfamiliar detachment, Miss Evelina settled herself to
think. The first hurt and the long pain which followed it, the blurred
agony of remembrance when she had come back to the empty house, then
the sharp, clean-cut stroke when she stood on the road, her eyes
downcast, and heard the wheels rush by, then clear and challenging, the
pipes o' Pan.
"'There is a divinity that shapes our ends,'" she thought, "'rough-hew
them how we may.'" Where had she heard that before? She remembered,
now--it was a favourite quotation of Anthony Dexter's.
Her lip curled scornfully. Was she never to be free from Anthony
Dexter? Was she always to be confronted with his cowardice, his
shirking, his spoken and written thoughts? Was she always to see his
face as she had seen it last, his great love for her shining in his
eyes for all the world to read? Was she to see forever his pearl
necklace, discoloured, snaky, and cold, as meaningless as the yellow
slip of paper that had come with it?
Where was the divinity that had shaped her course hither? Why had she
been driven back to the place of her crucifixion, to stand veiled in
the road while he drove by and splashed her with mud from his wheels?
Out in the garden, the Piper still strove with the weeds. He had the
place nearly half cleared now. The space on the other side of the
house was, as yet, untouched, and the trees and shrubbery all needed
trimming. The wall was broken in places, earth had drifted upon it,
and grass and weeds had taken root in the crevices.
Upon one side of the house, nearly all of the bare earth had been raked
clean. He was on the western slope, now, where the splendid poppies
had once grown. Pausing in his whistling, the Piper stooped and picked
up some small object. Miss Evelina cowered behind her shielding
shutters, for she guessed that he had found the empty vial which had
contained laudanum.
The Piper sniffed twice at the bottle. His scent was as keen as a
hunting dog's. Then he glanced quickly toward the house where Miss
Evelina, unveiled, shrank back into the farthest corner of an upper
room.
He walked to the gate, no longer whistling, and slowly, thoughtfully,
buried it deep in the rubbish. Could Miss Evelina have seen his face,
she would have marvelled at the tenderness which transfigured it and
wondered at the mist that veiled his eyes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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