'Just as I am, without one plea;Save that Thy blood was shed for me'
'Just as I am, without one plea;Save that Thy blood was shed for me'
She paused, arrested by a little soft cough. Then with a strange look in her wide wistful eyes she sank to her knees and stretched out her hands blindly, "Merve--Merve--fach--Merve anwl y----" The rest was lost in the gurgle of the blood which poured from her mouth.
Aura was beside her in a moment. "Don't raise her--her head on my knee so--Call Martha--you, man--don't stand gaping--And you, woman, unfasten her dress--that is better."
It seemed an interminable time, though Martha was already up and dressed, ere Aura saw her running from the back; and all that time, the stain on Aura's white dress grew larger and larger.
"Lord sakes," muttered Martha. "A blood vessel! This comes of making free and she not fit--Parkinson"--for the parlour-maid had followed--"you run for your turpentine, without the bees'-wax, there's a dear--you sit as you be Miss H'Aura, and you there, what's your name, them icicles. We must stop it--if we can."
There was an ominous ring in the last words, and it was not long ere Aura's face blanched almost as white as the one upon her lap, as she realized that if the life blood was slacking, it was because the tide of life itself was ebbing.
This was death. She had never stood close to it before. Her young eyes looked fearfully through the hush of life to the unknown.
So the minutes sped. Alicia Edwards gave a sigh of satisfaction, for the bleeding had ceased, but Aura, feeling the faint death tremor which re-unites the vibration of life to the vibration of the star-shine, looked up, her fear gone in grave wonder.
"I think," she said softly, "she is dead."
"Go you into the house, my darlin', an' change that there poor dress, I'll manage now," choked Martha, ever ready with her tears.
Aura looked down with a faint shiver at the crimson stain. So that was the end of love.
It was not more than six hours ago that Aura had looked at Ned's iris, had sat in the dawn with Gwen's head in her lap, yet it seemed to the girl who had never seen death before, who had never before realised what Love meant, as if whole æons had passed over her head. In truth they had; for Love and Death make up Life, since Birth comes to us without remembrance.
The morning had passed by in dizzy haste. There had been much to do, and do quickly, so that her grandfather should not be disturbed by even knowing of the tragedy. This was the more easy of compass, seeing that since his last seizure he had not been coming downstairs till late. So, ere he appeared, there had been time for folk to come and go, time even for old Adam to rake over the gravel disturbed by so many feet. There was no trace, in fact, of what had happened when Aura passed by the spot on her way to the hills. Parkinson's persistent hysterics had been the most troublesome factor in the problem of concealment, but Martha had at last, losing patience, locked her away in one of the cottage bedrooms, and left her there with the callous remark, "She'll come round by herself, and if she don't, 'oo cares?"
Who, indeed, did care about anything? Martha and Adam went about their work as usual; her grandfather knew nothing; even Ted was away.
Aura felt terribly lonely for the first time in her life; the more so because it seemed to her as if part of her very self had rebelled against that other self which, for one-and-twenty years, had lived such a frank, clear life. For all those years she had carried no burden; but now Love and Death claimed to come with her. She could not separate them even in her thoughts. One seemed to her destruction of the body, the other destruction of the mind.
So when leisure became hers at last she took up the thread of life where it had been broken by the intrusion into it of Gwen's death, and started to climb the hills, as she would have done at dawn. It was her natural instinct always. Other girls might shut themselves up in their rooms to think, might sit with their feet on the fender and dream. She had to go out, to feel the fresh breeze on her face, before her mind would work at all.
As she sat on the rocky sheep shelter, whither her feet had taken her almost unconsciously, since it was her favourite outlook, the winter sun beat down on her fiercely, warming her through to the heart. She could feel her very veins pulsing; their rhythm seemed almost to sing in her ears.
How warm it was! but in the shadows behind the big boulders--ay! and in the tiny shade of each blade of grass, each twig of bracken, the frost still lingered white, for the air was freeezing.
Sunshine and frost! Fire and ice!
That was exactly what she felt like herself! She was half fire, half ice; for a fierce virginity of mind fought desperately against the intrusion of that glad new impulse of self-surrender she had felt when she saw Ned's iris.
That, she supposed, was Love; but what was that sort of love worth if it brought death with it to--to herself--to her mind?
She felt indescribably smirched and stained. As she glanced at the fresh white serge skirt she was wearing she seemed to see on it still that crimson blood. It was horrible! It would be there always for her, scarlet as sin, no matter how white as wool it seemed to others.
Poor Gwen! That was the end of it all. She had, no doubt, yielded to Love. Had she had any terror of it at first? Had she also felt the degradation of it?
So, as she sat, more dreaming than thinking, a voice called her. She started to her feet, remembering in a flash that other man's voice which had called "Gwen" in that very place--the man whom she had called coward--whom she had smitten with the lily she held.
It was not an opportune moment for Ned Blackborough, who, having come over to Cwmfaernog with congratulations, had, after hearing from Martha of the tragedy, followed the girl straight to her favourite outlook with the sort of instinctive knowledge of what she would do, which he had always seemed to possess. At the present moment this was in itself an offence to Aura. What right had he to pry into her mind?
"What is wrong?" he asked, checked in his quick sympathy by the expression on her face. Another offence, since what right had he to know anything was wrong.
"Nothing," she answered curtly; "only I came here for quiet and it seems as if I am not to have it!"
He stared at her for a second; then, with a shrug of the shoulders, turned to go, thereby bringing to her a pang of remorse; since when had he not been courteous, not been kind?
His quick return, therefore, and the reckless obstinacy which showed on his face relieved her.
"A cat may look at a king, Miss Graham," he said coolly. "I came to say I was sorry. I am. And as I fail to see that your birthday has any monopoly over New Year's Day, I will wish you many happy returns of the latter. May your temper never grow worse."
She had to smile. The sudden outburst of truth was so like Ned when anything occurred to ruffle or disarrange the smooth covering of convention.
"Thank you," she replied quite frankly, feeling curiously at her ease; "I did not mean to be rude, but----"
"I know," he said simply, and paused. And she knew so well that he knew, that, though her lip quivered for a second she said no more. There was no need to say more.
It was so curious to have him sitting there beside her. Now that he had come all the trouble had gone; she was once more absolutely at her ease.
"And thanks also for the iris," she said after a pause, feeling glad to escape from the tragedies of life. "It is jolly; but I wish you hadn't dug the poor thing up."
"I did not dig it up," he replied coolly.
"You didn't--then how----"
"I wired to Covent Garden for another, and it came down in charge of such a superior person that I almost had to ask him to dine; so 'the most beautiful thing in the most beautiful place in the world' remains beside the sphinx as----" he paused.
"As what?" she asked.
He had come half-prepared to speak of his love, and there was about her face to-day a curious half-forlorn puzzled look which made him feel inclined to take her in his arms and kiss it away--"As a remembrance of you, naturally," he replied.
She sat down on the nearest stone feeling just a little dizzy, and clasping her hands across her knees stared out at the pale blue misty valley, and the pale blue winter sky beyond.
"But why should you want something to remember me by?" she said slowly. "I shall always remember you without anything."
Her freedom from conventional cloakings in speech was at all times a trifle disconcerting, and he felt inclined to reply "That is very kind of you," or make some other banal remark of the sort which might bring convention back. Then he cursed himself for a low beast, and followed her unconsciousness as closely as he could.
"Perhaps I wanted to remember the exact words you said," he suggested.
"But you do remember them," she answered aggrievedly; "that is what I complain of. You remember every little thing I say--and it is most uncomfortable. I cannot think why you should."
He took his fate in his hand. "Can't you--I can----. It is because I happen to love you."
She sat still for a second, then turned and looked at him with narrowing eyes. "I don't see what that has to do with it! You knew what I was thinking about the very first time we met, and you could not possibly have been in love with me then."
Her seriousness made him laugh outright. It was the most delicious piece of comedy to be sitting there talking of his love as if it did not belong to him, while his pulses--stay! were they bounding, or had they quieted down to a curious content?
"I am not so sure," he replied gravely. "There is such a thing, you are doubtless aware, as love at first sight."
"Not for sensible people, and I think we are sensible," she argued grudgingly. "I know, at any rate, that I was not in love with you for a long time afterwards."
The whole world seemed to spin round with Ned....
"Then you are--oh! my dear, my dear!" ...
"Please don't!" she cried, hastily drawing back from his outstretched hands; "I hate being touched. Besides that has nothing to do with what I want to find out. Why, from the very beginning, did you always understand? That can have nothing to do with love ... not, at least, with love like Gwen's"--the last sentence came thoughtfully in a lower key.
"But our love will be different, dear," he said almost solemnly. "If you will marry me, Aura, I will try to understand to the very end--so help me God."
She smiled at him brilliantly. "And you would--you couldn't help it! But that is no reason why we should marry. It seems to me we have mixed things up somehow. No! that is no reason at all."
"Perhaps not," he admitted, following her thought. "Then marry me for some other reason, my dear."
She shook her head. "There is only one reason for marriage," she said, with a wisdom born of the untrammelled teaching of Nature, "and if I were to marry you--I should be afraid--yes, Ned! I will tell you the truth because you are certain to understand--I should be afraid of loving you too much. I--I don't want to love like that."
He sat bewildered, his passion dying at the hands of truth. Then he muttered, half to himself, feeling with a rush of shame how far he was from her, how little he really understood her innocence of evil, "Heaven knows why you should--I am a miserable beast--but----. Oh! I hope to God you would, my dear--I hope to God you would!"
"Why?" she asked calmly, and he had no answer ready. So he harked back after a while to a lower level.
"That is the most original reason for refusing a man I ever heard," he said whimsically. "Have you any others of the same sort?"
She responded instantly to his mood. "Plenty!" she replied cheerfully. "To begin with, you are far too rich. I am only just beginning to realise how I should hate to have money--besides it is wrong, you know."
"I don't know," he said dryly; "but it is quite easy to divest oneself of money. I never find the slightest difficulty in getting rid of it--so don't let that stand in your way."
It was her turn to laugh--a soft, little laugh with a hint of reproof in it.
"I don't expect you do. Ted is always saying you are reckless. Then there is grandfather; you know he doesn't like you half so much as he likes Ted----"
"The deuce he doesn't!" assented Ned, his sudden pang of jealousy softened by his sense of the comic; "but you are surely not going to marry Ted in order to please your grandfather?"
She looked at him disapprovingly, "I might marry some one worse; Ted is a dear."
He felt exasperated. "Yes! he is an uncommonly good fellow; but--you don't happen to love him. And you do--at least I think you do"--he felt that certainty might overpower his self-control--"love me."
She took no notice of this, but went on argumentatively.
"Then I don't think I like marriage in your rank of life. With a poor man, and lots of work and trouble and children, it would be very interesting; but--look at Lady Smith-Biggs! I don't know what Sir Joseph is like, of course, but she looks as if she led a dull life."
"Very!" assented Ned, back to smiles once more. "But I wouldn't, if I were you, take Lady Smith-Biggs' as a test case; there are plenty of marriages----" he paused, feeling it would be difficult with Aura's standard to adduce many examples; but then he was prepared to chuck everything, and go forth with sandal shoon into the wilderness if need be. Yes! she was right. It was hardly marriage that he wanted after all.
So for a time they sat and looked out over the pale blue mists behind which the hills loomed large, seeming to lose themselves in the pale blue sky.
"There must be something better," said the girl at last. "Oh, Ned! there is something better!"
"Better than love," he echoed; "perhaps than some loves; not better than mine!"
"Don't people always say that? Perhapshesaid it to Gwen----"
"Child!" he said swiftly, "don't think of that--that was not love."
"And it was not marriage either," she replied softly; "but what you mean has nothing to do with what is called love, with what is called marriage--that is what I mean too."
He shook his head. "That is too fine for me, Aura! I want you. I am not satisfied without you."
He was so close to her that he could lay his hand on hers.
"S--sh!" she said swiftly, laying her other hand on his so as to detain it. "Listen!"
Just below them, in a sheltered corrie, grew a great holly-tree covered with berries that glowed scarlet against the distant blue. On its topmost twig, with flaming breast yellowed by the exceeding brilliance of those blood-red berries, a robin had settled itself to sing. And it sang.
Of what? Of the berries beneath its feet? Of its distant mate? Or out of the gladness of its heart of life because of the Beginning it did not remember, of the End it did not know?
Who can say? but it sang. And as it sang those two sat hand in hand, forgetful even of what humanity calls love. Forgetful of all things except that they also were dreaming the Dream of Life.
"Did I not say so?" she cried exultantly when the song had ceased. "Did I not tell you there was something better? You had forgotten me and I had forgotten you, yet we were happy."
"Because we were hand-clasped," he answered swiftly, "because I touched you, and you touched me."
She drew her hands away and a flush came to her face.
"But don't you feel afraid--as I do? Don't you want to keep what you love apart--to keep it safe--even from yourself?"
Did he not? Was it not only this which kept him back from taking her in his arms and kissing her to the knowledge of what a man's love must be.
"Yes!" he said unsteadily, constrained to truth by hers. "But there is a love which does not stain. I'll give it you--if I can."
She looked at him with a vain regret in her eyes. "You couldn't if we were married, and I couldn't anyhow. Ah no, Ned! It would spoil it all."
"Spoil what?" he asked roughly, for he began to feel himself worsted for the time.
"The something better," she replied gaily, "let us wait for that. I really don't want to marry you, Ned. I should hate it. I knew that when I saw your iris."
"Then I wish I hadn't climbed up to put it on your window-sill and wricked my bad arm into the bargain," he said sullenly.
Her face grew grave. "Did you climb up; that was very wrong."
"Was it?" he replied shrugging his shoulders; "but I'm afraid I'm a very wrong person altogether. At the present moment I feel inclined to--to--but what is the use--you wouldn't understand. Aura! for the last time, will you marry me?"
"No, Ned, I won't."
"Then that ends it," he said recklessly. "So good-bye."
She paled a little.
"Must you go?"
"One of us must," he replied, caught in fresh hope, "unless you change your mind."
"That is impossible--but you will come back, won't you?"
He looked at her full of impatience, yet full of tenderness.
"I believe I ought to say that I won't, but----" Then he held out his hand, "I understand--apart from everything else in the world--what this love of ours--" her hand trembled in his for a second, "means to us--both. I will go away for--yes! for two months, and give you time to think. Then I will come back. Good-bye, my dear. I can only say it once more--I love you."
For an instant as he left her she stood still, her lip quivering; then she called to him:
"Come back, please! I want to give you this."
She held out the bunch of winter heliotrope which had been fastened in her coat; its faint scent had been in the air as he had sat beside her holding her hand.
It was too much; the passion he had held back, not unwillingly for so long, mastered him. "This is foolishness," he cried, striding towards her, "you do love me--why can you not say so--you might at least tell the truth."
Something in her face arrested him.
"The truth," she echoed, "I have told you the truth. I think I do love you, and I am sorry, and vexed, and angry." Her clear eyes were looking through his as if she could see into his innermost thought. "But I will not marry you. I am afraid. Do you understand what that means to me? I am afraid of myself, and for you, for you deserve something better."
Suddenly she stooped, kissed the withering flowers she held, dropped them at his feet and was off like a mist wreath down the hill.
He did not attempt to follow her. He simply sat down again on the stone where he had been sitting before, and swore to God that sooner or later he would marry her.
And then he fell to thinking of how once or twice in his life before he had caught a glimpse, as he had just now caught one, of that "something better," beyond the Dream of Life.
Once, when he was a boy watching the trail of silvery bubbles left behind it in the brown stream by a water-rat as it swam. Once again as a young man, when he had paid half a crown for a penny bunch of violets, and something in their sweetness had made him add half a sovereign to their price and go on his way.
Then the present reasserted itself. He could not possibly take this for his answer, he must wait till the shock of Gwen's death had faded, until Aura became accustomed to the idea of her own love for him--for that she did love him he had little doubt. It was briefly her love which had frightened her, quaint compound as she was of nature and culture. He would leave her to think it out for two months. During that time he also would have time to make up his mind concerning many things. He was becoming dimly conscious that life was resolving itself into the spending of money in order to escape from the responsibilities of having money, into the fighting of money by money.
It would be rather interesting to let the fight go on while he raised no finger to protect his own personal rights; if indeed he had any, which he was beginning to doubt. He and Aura would be as happy--nay! happier without money. Yes! in the one thing worth having, the one thing without which even life itself was not worth having, money had no purchasing power whatever.
"I am only just beginning to realise how I should hate to be rich."
Aura's words came back to him. She need not fear. If she would only consent to marry him, he would chuck everything he possessed!--barring a modest competence of course!--after the sovereigns he had chucked that June morning into the little lochan at the gap.
He had never thought of the hidden money since that day. It had gone clean out of his head. Now, as he stood up to try and locate the exact dip on the hills where it lay, his own words came back to him.
"Neither I nor the world would suffer if I made ducks and drakes of these sovereign remedies."
He seemed to hear the softwhit whitterof the skimming gold and to see the blank look on the faces around him.
There were other ways of getting rid of gold, however, than by chucking it into a pond. You had in this civilised world but to let your neighbour know that you had it in your pocket, and it was sure to go.
So, despite his refusal, with a light laugh he started down the hill.
Aura, however, felt bruised and broken, as with slower, heavier foot than usual she crossed the drawbridge, and choosing the back way, went through the cottage to the kitchen.
Her first look at that sanctuary of shiny saucepans showed her that something in the nature of a domestic cataclysm had occurred during her absence; for the kitchen-table was littered with cake-tins, and the materials for making cakes, a savoury smell telling of cakes rose from the oven, and Martha herself, with a hot flushed face, was beating viciously at the whites of eggs which were to go towards a further making of cakes. Now such activity was Martha's invariable method of showing that she had what she called "a bit o' time" to herself; therefore her invariable habit when she found herself once more monarch of all she surveyed and so presumably rather pressed for time.
"Has Parkinson gone?" asked Aura swiftly.
"Yes! Miss H'Aura," replied Martha, pausing to make a dive into the oven and come up therefrom still more flushed and still more determined. "She's gone. Bad barm won't never bake 'ouseholds as my mother used to say; and glad was I to be rid of her, for I shud a' put her past afore long, yes! I shud, and a' got 'ung for it I s'ppose--it ain't any good lookin' shocked, Miss H'Aura, for a body can't 'elp her feelin's, and put her past I shud, for Bate, he began to pity her shet up alone! 'If you says much more,' says I, 'it's to the pigstyes she'll go'--an' the only proper place for 'er, Miss H'Aura, and me havin' to black my tongue tellin' master it was the sow as was squealin' so! But there! Them as 'as no 'eads takes it out in 'earts, and Bate is that soft about wimmin, 'tis all I can do to keep from kneadin' more flour to him as if he was a silly batch o' bread! But we'll do all right without 'er caps an' aprons; andso I told Bate."
Martha's face, indeed, wore a determination which augured well for domestic comfort.
"But grandfather--" began Aura anxiously, "he ought not to be disturbed."
"Who's a disturbing of the good gentleman?" snapped Martha, "Pore dear, 'e'll have 'is shavin' water 'ot in future. How they can stand, brazen, an' ask wages beats me! An' she talkin' o' the waste o' water being a crime against the company--a water company, winter time, in Wales! Lord sakes!--if she run the cold off, as I bid her do; though 'er pantry tap was spoutin' into the pail a good 'arf hour while she was beguilin' Bate. No! Miss H'Aura! I wasn't goin' to lie for 'er more'n I cud 'elp, so I told master the stric' truth-an'-no-one-a-penny-the-worse, as the sayin' is."
"What did you tell him?" asked Aura rather wearily, for even Martha was getting on her nerves.
"I told him as revivals havin' bin too much for her bodyan' soul she was stoppin' at the inn, where she is, Miss H'Aura, and if she screech there as she screeched here some one 'll be in Bedlam before mornin'--an' so I told Bate."
This was the invariable epilogue to all Martha's diatribes.
"I suppose Mr. Cruttenden has returned?" asked Aura.
"As nice as nuts, an' is in with Master. I reely don't know, now I come to think on it, what we shud a-done this last week without 'im! Not but what 'is lordship----" she shot a quick glance at Aura--"Lord sakes! deary," she cried, "you do look weary-like. Go up to your bed, there's a duck, an' have a lie down--one can't never forget the face o' death till one's asleep."
'Death, and his brother sleep!...'
The words were in Aura's brain as she went upstairs, wondering why it was that now Ned was no longer beside her she felt far more disturbed, far more, in a way, ashamed about him, than she had done when he was beside her. Yes! even when he had been masterful and told her that it was all foolishness, that she knew she loved him.
The house seemed so familiarly quiet and peaceful that the turmoil of her mind became all unreal to her. Surely the least honest effort must suffice to bring back her old fearlessness of outlook.
Her birthday presents lay on the table, amongst them Ted's Shelley, open, curiously enough, at the "Adonais." Her eye glanced at the verses, became fascinated; she stood reading until with a sigh of infinite satisfaction she closed the book over those words:
'The One remains, the Many change and pass!'
That was beautiful. That calmed the soul. Gwen's dead face came back to her now without any terror in it. The Sting of Death was gone.
But Love--the love that Gwen had felt, of which she herself was not all unconscious, what of that?
Dimly, darkly, as in a glass, the girl saw that to be noble it must be the antithesis of Death--it must be Birth. But that was not the Love of the world. What had Mervyn, what had Gwen, thought of Birth? Nothing. If anything they had hoped to evade it. They had tried to take the Pleasure without incurring the Pain. They had not thought of anything but themselves.
She passed on to the window-sill and looked down once more on the "most beautiful thing in the most beautiful place in the world."
But what was that really?
Was it Love standing between Birth and Death, or was it something better? Something beyond both. Something of which but a glimpse could be caught during that journey between the Cradle and the Grave?
So, for one brief moment as she stood looking at the iris she saw that Something, beyond Birth, beyond Death, beyond even Love. A shimmer came to the air, her pulses caught the rhythm, and lo! she was no more, the One was All, and from the uttermost end of Space came back the ceaseless Wave of Unity.
And then?...
Then the fear of death re-asserted itself. Surely the flags of the iris showed limp! The dear thing must not stop there without due foothold on the round world, else would it lose the immortality of new birth.
So, tired as she was, she lifted it up, saxifrage and all, in both her hands, went downstairs, and so across the lawn to a place she wotted of where it might grow undisturbed by fear of old Adam's meddling fork. There was a certain solemnity about her necessarily slow movements, and she felt almost as if she were conducting a funeral. And so in truth it was; a funeral of her careless girlhood. She was a woman now; she had begun to understand herself. Yet as she laid the flower on the spot where she intended to plant it and went for her trowel, the pity of the funeral hit her hard, and when she returned Ned's blue eyes seemed to look at her appealingly from the iris's broad face. His were such beautiful eyes!
She dug furiously, forgetful of everything but her desire to bury, until a step sounded beside her, and she looked up to see another pair of blue eyes broader, bolder, looking down at her.
"What are you digging," said Ted with a ring of aggrievedness in his voice; "a grave? Oh! I beg your pardon, dear, I oughtn't to have said that, I oughtn't to have reminded you--but I've been expecting you to return for such a long while--and--oh! my poor little girl--I'm so sorry for it all--it must have been horrible."
His normal sympathy brought her back to normal. She realised as she had not realised with Ned, that after all she was but a mere girl who needed cossetting and comforting after the terrible shock of the morning.
"It was horrible," she replied, with a little shiver; "you can't think how horrible--somehow, after it all, it is good to see you just--just yourself."
She felt indeed grateful to him for his size, his solidity, his undoubted affection: perhaps unconsciously she was grateful to him for his failure to disturb her inmost soul.
"It must have been awful," he said, his blue eyes showing all the kindness in the world. "I can't think how you got through with it as you have; but you are so brave--far braver than I should be--but come, don't let us talk or think of it any more. Don't let us spoil my last afternoon."
She stood up startled. "Your last!" she cried, in quick concern. "Oh! Ted, why is it your last?"
He took a step nearer to her, his face lit up with content. "I'm so glad you care--I suppose it's selfish--but I am glad. Yes! I have to go. Hirsch has business for me in Paris--most important business, and I must leave by the mail to-night."
Even as he spoke, his mind running on ahead, thought with a different content of what this visit to Paris might mean to them both, if things turned out as he hoped they might.
"Must you?" she echoed wistfully. It seemed to her as if every friend she had had was leaving; and Ted had been such a help to her during the last few anxious days. "How shall we manage without you?" she went on doubtfully; "grandfather will miss you so much--and I----"
There were almost tears in her voice, and Ted felt a wild desire then and there to come to explanations. But he knew it was wiser to wait.
"I will come back at once if I am wanted," he replied; "but I hope I shan't be wanted--at least not in any hurry; for of course I shall come back again soon--and then--but I really haven't time now. I have to put up my things you see. I stayed as long as I could with him thinking you would be sure to come in at once----" there was the faintest reproach in his tone.
An instant pang of remorse shot through the girl. She had stopped talking sentimental rubbish to Ned while he--Ted--was doing her duty.
"I will go in to him in a moment," she said hurriedly, "I have only to plant this flower."
She set to work hurriedly, Ted lingering to look down superciliously at the iris.
"It's rather pretty," he said; "did you find it in the woods?"
Aura's blush was hidden as she hastily filled in to proper dimensions the perfect grave she had previously dug.
"No. Ned gave it me as--as a New Year's gift."
Ted half smiled, thinking that if he had had as much money as Lord Blackborough he would have known better how to spend it on the girl he loved; but, of course, if Ned chose to be so niggardly in some things, so lavish in others, it was his own lookout.
"I hope you liked the book; the binding wasn't quite so nice as I should have wished," he began.
Aura interrupted him heartily.
"I liked it ever so much--thanks so many! And I shall always like it. That is the best of books--summer and winter they are always the same"--she became taken with her own thought and pursued it--"they aren't like flowers--you haven't to watch for their blooming time--you haven't even to smell their scent--you haven't to think for them of storms or slugs or frost and field mice"--here she smiled at her own alliterations--"but if you want them, there they are, ready to make you happy. Do you know, you've been a regular book to me lately, Ted?"
He flushed up with pleasure. "Have I?" he said frankly; "that's good hearing. I--I wish I were your whole library----" Once more he paused, obsessed by that idea of the night-mail to Paris.
As he went off to pack his things he almost wished that she had come in a little earlier; but then he would not have had such an eminently satisfactory talk with her grandfather. So far as he, at any rate, was concerned it was all plain sailing, for the old man, distressed at hearing of Ted's sudden departure, had for the first time taken him into his confidence. It was not exactly a pleasing confidence, but it was only what Ted had expected. Aura would be penniless, since years before Sylvanus Smith had sunk all his money in an annuity which would cease with his death. Under the circumstances, Ted had felt that both the kindest and the wisest thing was to allay anxiety--that tardy anxiety which was in itself but another form of selfishness--by speaking of his own love for Aura, and his earnest desire to marry her, if she would have him.
"Of course she will marry you!" Mr. Sylvanus Smith had said with calm shrewdness. "Who else is there for her to marry?"
Whereupon Ted, divided as to whether he was doing a magnanimous or a mean thing, had suggested Lord Blackborough. It had produced a perfect storm of incredulous irritation. The bare idea was absurd. Blackborough, like all in his rank, was merely amused by a pretty face. He, Sylvanus Smith, had only tolerated him as Ted's friend, and he would forbid him the house in future; no granddaughter of his should marry a lord!
Briefly, the old man whose life had been spent in preaching socialism and liberty in the abstract, who denied the existence of social rank, and proclaimed the right of the individual to independent action, was ready to forswear both tenets, and pose as a relentless parent of the good old type.
Ted had forborne to smile, and, feeling really magnanimous this time, had attempted to smooth over the old man's irritation, which none the less he knew to be points in his favour.
So, as he packed his portmanteau, he whistled lightheartedly.
Aura, meanwhile having finished her burial, went off to the book-room where she found her grandfather, as usual, busy with pen and paper, the writing-table drawn up to the fire, the solitary extra chair in which Ted had been sitting looking lone and outcast, camped away in the open beyond the leather screen which in winter always surrounded Mr. Smith's socialism and the fire.
He was looking a little flushed, and she paused, ere sitting down on the floor by the hearth to say anxiously, "You haven't been vexing yourself, I hope, grandfather, while I was away--I--I had rather a headache--so I went up the hills. Martha----"
"Martha has been excellent, as usual," he replied, "on the whole she does Parkinson's work fairly well; though I could wish----" here he sighed--"the absence of a suitable cap and apron is certainly to be deplored, but she makes an excellent omelette." He turned again to his work of writing a pamphlet on the Simple Life.
Aura sat watching him, as she had watched him as long as she could remember. She was very fond, very proud of him. Extremely well read, curiously quick in mind, he had taught her everything she knew, and she was but just beginning to find out that this everything was more than most women are supposed to know. She had found no difficulty in holding her own with Ned and Ted, and Dr. Ramsay and Mr. Hirsch, except so far as mere knowledge of the world went, and that was not worth counting.
To her mind grandfather had had the best of any argument she had ever heard; but then Ned would never argue with him.
Still he had not taught her all things. He had never mentioned love or marriage, or birth or death, though these surely were the chief factors in life--in a woman's life anyhow.
Suddenly, out of the almost bewildering ramifications of her thought, she put, almost thoughtlessly, a question.
"Grandfather, was my father fond of me?"
Mr. Sylvanus Smith looked up startled, and distinctly pale. "I had not the honour of your father's acquaintance," he said icily, "therefore I cannot say." Then he, as it were, pulled himself together. "And you will oblige me," he continued, "by not asking any more questions of the sort. I cannot answer them."
He went on writing, but his hand trembled a little. She had heard this formula more than once, but after a time, moved thereto by the new stress in her thoughts, the girl rose, and going up behind him stood looking over his shoulder.
"Grandfather," she said, "I am not going to ask any more questions about the past. I don't see that it matters at all. I should like to have known that my father was--was glad of me; my mother must have been, I think, though she died so soon. But I should like to know what is in the future. What--what do you expect me to do? Do you wish me to marry?"
He turned round in his chair, and looked at her helplessly.
"That is rather a peculiar question, my dear," he said feebly, "but, of course----"
"Don't answer it if it worries you, please," she urged quickly; "but if you could speak of it--it would be a great help."
Vaguely she felt choky over the last words. It did seem so hard to be left all alone in the wide world to face these dark problems.
"It--it is not a usual subject for discussion, even between parent and child, Aura," he replied; "but if you ask me--yes. I am extremely anxious for you to marry."
"Why?" The question came swiftly.
Mr. Sylvanus Smith put down his pen finally, and turned his feet to the fire. He thought for a moment of quite a variety of reasons. Because it was the natural end of woman; ... but for years past he had laboured in vain to convince the world that marriage was slavery. Because he wished her to be happy?... but so many marriages were unhappy. Because he would have liked to see grandchildren about him?... but in his innermost heart he knew that a few months of life was all for which he had any right to look.
He decided finally on the real reason.
"Because--because when I die, my child, and that cannot be far off----"
"Grandfather, don't!"
Her voice became poignant with fond reproof.
He heaved a sigh, and honestly felt himself heroic.
"My dear," he said grandly, "there is no use in deceiving ourselves--I may live--but on the other hand," he waved his pretty white hand gracefully. The conversation was beginning to interest him, and though he had acquiesced in Ted Cruttenden's desire to let the question stand over for the present, he felt there could be no harm in diagnosing Aura's attitude. "The fact is, my dear, that when I die you will be very badly off, in fact, it is a source of the very greatest anxiety to me, Aura, you will have nothing--I mean no money--and unless you are married--happily married--I do not see how you can earn your own livelihood."
"Then I should earn it by being married!" she asked.
"Well! hardly so; but--it would be a great weight off my mind, Aura. So--if you have the chance----"
She stood still for a moment or two, then once more seating herself on the floor, this time at his feet, she turned her face to the fire. "I have the chance," she said at last in a clear voice, "Lord Blackborough asked me to marry him to-day. I refused--but----" Her face was still hidden, but a curious expectancy came to her whole attitude. She seemed on the alert.
Sylvanus Smith who had sat up prepared to curse, sank back in his chair to bless with a sigh of relief. "You refused him! Thank God! My dear child, you--you caused me the most painful alarm; though I might have trusted your good sense to see that it would have been--a--a most unsuitable marriage."
The alertness had gone. "Would it?" she said indifferently, "Yes! I suppose it would." She said no more, though all unconsciously the iron was entering her heart, the young glad animal heart which clamoured for pleasure. Still, what her grandfather had called her good sense had shown her this unsuitability at once, though his grounds for his opinion were most likely very different from hers. At the same time it was her decision. She had made it of her own free will. There was no coercion about it. She had made it, and it was as well that others endorsed her action.
So she essayed a smile and turned towards him. "Then I don't think I have any other chance of getting married just at present, grandfather," she said lightly, "but if anybody 'comes along----'" She paused, joking on the subject being a trifle beyond her.
The old man sat looking at her with real affection overlaid by the quaint sense of magnanimity which pursued him in every relation of life, the result no doubt of his unquestioning acceptance of himself as philanthropic benefactor to the race. Should he or should he not tell her what he had just heard from Ted?
Something in the slackness of her attitude as she sat crouched by the fire, something of weariness in the young face which, as a rule, was so buoyant with thejoie de vivre, made him decide on telling her. There could be no harm in finding out how she was prepared to receive the suggestion. He drew his chair closer.
"But there you are mistaken surely. Has it never occurred to you that--that perhaps--Mr. Cruttenden----"
"Ted!" echoed Aura. "No! Grandfather, it is you who are mistaken. Ted and I have always been the best of friends--the very best of friends! but he has never--Oh! I can assure you he has never been the least-- never the least like Ned--I mean Lord Blackborough."
"Perhaps that stands to his credit," remarked the old man chillily. "Love is not shown--by--by love-making. But I am sure of what I say, my dear, because--Ted as you call him--though in my young days--but we will let that pass for the present--told me himself that the dearest wish of his heart----"
At this moment the door opened and Ted himself, light-hearted, free, eager to have what he could of Aura's company, came in.
"I've finished," he cried, "so now for something better----" he paused, conscious that the air was full of something more important at any rate. Was it better, or was it worse?
Mr. Sylvanus Smith essayed a discreet innocence by a warning cough to Aura, and a hasty return to his papers; but the girl was too much in earnest for silence. Her nerves, overstrung by the strain of the long day, during which almost everything to be learnt in life seemed to have been crowded into a few hours, vibrated to this new possibility. She rose instantly, and advancing a step or two stood facing the young man with a new recklessness in her expression. "Ted," she said, and there was a note of appeal in her voice, "Grandfather has been telling me something I can't believe. Is it true that you also want to marry me?"
For an instant surprised out of balance, overwhelmed by the utter unconventionality of the question the young man hesitated. Yes or no seemed to him equally out of keeping. Then his passion for her came to the rescue, and something told him that the question would never have been asked if the girl had not staked herself, body and soul, on the answer.
He strode across the room and took her by her outstretched hands.
"I have wanted it, Aura," he said, and his voice vibrated as the whole world seemed to him to be vibrating, "ever since I saw you first--do you remember--" he was drawing her closer to him unresisting, though in her eyes there was a certain expectant dread, "you were standing--surely you remember--" his voice grew softer--"in the garden room--standing in the sunlight with the flowers behind you--and the cockatoo----" the sentence ended in the first kiss which had ever fallen on Aura's lips.
She did not shrink. On the contrary, she gave a little sigh of satisfaction, and looked gratefully at Ted.
"Yes, I remember," she said softly, "and ever since then you have been so good to me."
"Then you will marry me, Aura," he said--"you will really marry me?"
"If it makes you happy--if you really mean it, and--" she turned to her grandfather--"does it make you happy too?"
He was busy with his pocket handkerchief, and blew his nose ere he replied. "My happiness is assured if--if you--" He said no more, for his memory was clear, and there are some things which do not grow dim with years, and one of them is the remembrance of love.
"I am quite happy," she said gravely, "and I think I shall always be happy with Ted."
Whereupon Ted kissed her again, and tried to realise that he was in the seventh heaven of delight; as he was indeed, though he felt rather rushed as he thought of the night mail to Paris.
"We have hardly time to get engaged decently and in order," he said joyfully. "You will have to wait for your ring, my darling."
"My ring?" she echoed inquiringly, whereupon Ted laughed still more joyfully at her entrancing ignorance of the world and its ways; but Sylvanus Smith, who had been looking into the fire, roused himself to touch a ring which he always wore on his little finger. "I have one here," he said dreamily; "it holds her mother's hair."
"My mother's!" cried Aura gladly, "Oh! may I have it, grandfather?"
Ted looked with distaste at the little mourning ring; just a plait of bronze brown hair like Aura's set in a plain gold rim as a background to "In Memoriam" in black enamel letters.
"It is rather grisly," he whispered fondly as he slipped it on to the girl's finger, "but it will do to--to keep the place warm! By and by it shall be diamonds."
She shook her head. "I shall like this best," she said, "it will remind me of----" And then she lifted her finger to her lips and kissed the little ring. It would be hers always to remind her of Love and Death, and Birth that came between the two.