Mark's nineteenth birthday rose in grey mist, slowly dropped its veil to the grass, and shone clear and glistening.He woke early.
From his window he could see nothing in the steep park but the soft blue-grey, balloon-shaped oaks suspended one above the other among the round-topped boulders.It was in early morning that he always got his strongest feeling of wanting to model things; then and after dark, when, for want of light, it was no use.This morning he had the craving badly, and the sense of not knowing how weighed down his spirit.His drawings, his models--they were all so bad, so fumbly.If only this had been his twenty-first birthday, and he had his money, and could do what he liked.He would not stay in England.He would be off to Athens, or Rome, or even to Paris, and work till he COULD do something.And in his holidays he would study animals and birds in wild countries where there were plenty of them, and you could watch them in their haunts.It was stupid having to stay in a place like Oxford; but at the thought of what Oxford meant, his roaming fancy, like a bird hypnotized by a hawk, fluttered, stayed suspended, and dived back to earth.And that feeling of wanting to make things suddenly left him.It was as though he had woken up, his real self; then--lost that self again.
Very quietly he made his way downstairs.The garden door was not shuttered, not even locked--it must have been forgotten overnight.
Last night! He had never thought he would feel like this when she came--so bewildered, and confused; drawn towards her, but by something held back.And he felt impatient, angry with himself, almost with her.Why could he not be just simply happy, as this morning was happy? He got his field-glasses and searched the meadow that led down to the river.Yes, there were several rabbits out.With the white marguerites and the dew cobwebs, it was all moon-flowery and white; and the rabbits being there made it perfect.He wanted one badly to model from, and for a moment was tempted to get his rook rifle--but what was the good of a dead rabbit--besides, they looked so happy! He put the glasses down and went towards his greenhouse to get a drawing block, thinking to sit on the wall and make a sort of Midsummer Night's Dream sketch of flowers and rabbits.Someone was there, bending down and doing something to his creatures.Who had the cheek? Why, it was Sylvia--in her dressing-gown! He grew hot, then cold, with anger.
He could not bear anyone in that holy place! It was hateful to have his things even looked at; and she--she seemed to be fingering them.He pulled the door open with a jerk, and said: "What are you doing?" He was indeed so stirred by righteous wrath that he hardly noticed the gasp she gave, and the collapse of her figure against the wall.She ran past him, and vanished without a word.He went up to his creatures and saw that she had placed on the head of each one of them a little sprig of jessamine flower.Why! It was idiotic! He could see nothing at first but the ludicrousness of flowers on the heads of his beasts! Then the desperation of this attempt to imagine something graceful, something that would give him pleasure touched him; for he saw now that this was a birthday decoration.From that it was only a second before he was horrified with himself.Poor little Sylvia! What a brute he was! She had plucked all that jessamine, hung out of her window and risked falling to get hold of it; and she had woken up early and come down in her dressing-gown just to do something that she thought he would like! Horrible--what he had done! Now, when it was too late, he saw, only too clearly, her startled white face and quivering lips, and the way she had shrunk against the wall.How pretty she had looked in her dressing-gown with her hair all about her, frightened like that! He would do anything now to make up to her for having been such a perfect beast! The feeling, always a little with him, that he must look after her--dating, no doubt, from days when he had protected her from the bulls that were not there; and the feeling of her being so sweet and decent to him always; and some other feeling too--all these suddenly reached poignant climax.He simply must make it up to her! He ran back into the house and stole upstairs.Outside her room he listened with all his might, but could hear nothing; then tapped softly with one nail, and, putting his mouth to the keyhole, whispered: "Sylvia!" Again and again he whispered her name.He even tried the handle, meaning to open the door an inch, but it was bolted.Once he thought he heard a noise like sobbing, and this made him still more wretched.At last he gave it up; she would not come, would not be consoled.He deserved it, he knew, but it was very hard.And dreadfully dispirited he went up to his room, took a bit of paper, and tried to write:
"DEAREST SYLVIA, "It was most awfully sweet of you to put your stars on my beasts.
It was just about the most sweet thing you could have done.I am an awful brute, but, of course, if I had only known what you were doing, I should have loved it.Do forgive me; I deserve it, Iknow--only it IS my birthday.
"Your sorrowful "MARK."
He took this down, slipped it under her door, tapped so that she might notice it, and stole away.It relieved his mind a little, and he went downstairs again.