Sure, He that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason
To fust in us unused.
Yet do I believe
The origin and commencement of his grief
Sprung from neglected love.
... he repulsed—a short tale to make—
Fell into a sadness, then into a fast,
Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness,
Thence to a lightness; and by this declension
Into the madness.—Hamlet.
THE very pleasantness of the lunch Harwood had at the Dutch cottage made his visit seem more unsatisfactory to him. He had come up to the girl with that sentence which should surely have sounded pathetic even though spoken with indifference. He was beside her to say good-bye. He had given her to understand that he was going amongst the dangers of a disturbed part of the country, but the name of the barbarous nation had not made her cheek pale. It was well enough for himself to make light of his adventurous undertaking, but he did not think that her smiles in telling him that she would miss him were altogether becoming.
Yes, as he rode towards Cape Town he felt that the time had not yet come for him to reveal himself to Daireen Gerald. He would have to be patient, as he had been for years.
Thus far he had found out negatively how Daireen felt towards himself: she liked him, he knew, but only as most women liked him, because he could tell them in an agreeable way things that they wanted to know—because he had travelled everywhere and had become distinguished. He was not a conceited man, but he knew exactly how he stood in the estimation of people, and it was bitter for him to reflect that he did not stand differently with regard to Miss Gerald. But he had not attempted to discover what were Daireen's feelings respecting any one else. He was well aware that Mrs. Crawford was anxious to throw Mr. Glaston in the way of the girl as much as possible; but he felt that it would take a long time for Mr. Glaston to make up his mind to sacrifice himself at Daireen's feet, and Daireen was far too sensible to be imposed upon by his artistic flourishes. As for this young Mr. Standish Macnamara, Harwood saw at once that Daireen regarded him with a friendliness that precluded the possibility of love, so he did not fear the occupation of the girl's heart by Standish. But when Harwood began to think of Oswin Markham—he heard the sound of a horse's hoofs behind him, and Oswin Markham himself trotted up, looking dusty and fatigued.
“I thought I should know your animal,” said Markham, “and I made an effort to overtake you, though I meant to go easily into the town.”
Harwood looked at him and then at his horse.
“You seem as if you owed yourself a little ease,” he said. “You must have done a good deal in the way of riding, judging from your appearance.”
“A great deal too much,” replied Markham. “I have been on the saddle since breakfast.”
“You have been out every morning for the past three days before I have left my room. I was quite surprised when I heard it, after the evidence you gave at the garden party of your weakness.”
“Of my weakness, yes,” said Markham, with a little laugh. “It was wretchedly weak to allow myself to be affected by the change from the open air to that room, but it felt stifling to me.”
“I didn't feel the difference to be anything considerable,” said Harwood; “so the fact of your being overcome by it proves that you are not in a fit state to be playing with your constitution. Where did you ride to-day?”
“Where? Upon my word I have not the remotest idea,” said Markham. “I took the road out to Simon's Bay, but I pulled up at a beach on the nearer side of it, and remained there for a good while.”
“Nothing could be worse than riding about in this aimless sort of way. Here you are completely knocked up now, as you have been for the past three evenings. Upon my word, you seem indifferent as to whether or not you ever leave the colony alive. You are simply trifling with yourself.”
“You are right, I suppose,” said Markham wearily. “But what is a fellow to do in Cape Town? One can't remain inactive beyond a certain time.”
“It is only within the past three days you have taken up this roving notion,” said Harwood. “It is in fact only since that Government House affair.” Markham turned and looked at him eagerly for a moment. “Yes, since your weakness became apparent to yourself, you have seemed bound to prove your strength to the furthest. But you are pushing it too far, my boy. You'll find out your mistake.”
“Perhaps so,” laughed the other. “Perhaps so. By the way, is it true that you are going up country, Harwood?”
“Quite true. The fact is that affairs are becoming critical with regard to our relations with the Zulus, and unless I am greatly mistaken, this colony will be the centre of interest before many months have passed.”
“There is nothing I should like better than to go up with you, Harwood.”
Harwood shook his head. “You are not strong enough, my boy,” he said.
There was a pause before Markham said slowly:
“No, I am not strong enough.”
Then they rode into Cape Town together, and dismounted at their hotel; and, certainly, as he walked up the stairs to his room, Oswin Markham looked anything but strong enough to undertake a journey into the Veldt. Doctor Campion would probably have spoken unkindly to him had he seen him now, haggard and weary, with his day spent on an exposed road beneath a hot sun.
“He is anything but strong enough,” said Harwood to himself as he watched the other man; and then he recollected the tone in which Markham had repeated those words, “I am not strong enough.” Was it possible, he asked himself, that Markham meant that his strength of purpose was not sufficiently great? He thought over this question for some time, and the result of his reflection was to make him wish that he had not thought the conduct of that defiant chief of such importance as demanded the personal observation of the representative of theDominant Trumpeter. He felt that he would like to search out the origin of the weakness of Mr. Oswin Markham.
But all the time these people were thinking their thoughts and making their resolutions upon various subjects, Mr. Algernon Glaston was remaining in the settled calm of artistic rectitude. He was awaiting with patience the arrival of his father from the Salamander Archipelago, though he had given the prelate of that interesting group to understand that circumstances would render it impossible for his son to remain longer than a certain period at the Cape, so that if he desired the communion of his society it would be necessary to allow the mission work among the Salamanders to take care of itself. For Mr. Glaston was by no means unaware of the sacrifice he was in the habit of making annually for the sake of passing a few weeks with his father in a country far removed from all artistic centres. The Bishop of the Calapash Islands and Metropolitan of the Salamander Archipelago had it several times urged upon him that his son was a marvel of filial duty for undertaking this annual journey, so that he, no doubt, felt convinced of the fact; and though this visit added materially to the expenses of his son's mode of life, which, of course, were defrayed by the bishop, yet the bishop felt that this addition was, after all, trifling compared with the value of the sentiment of filial affection embodied in the annual visit to the Cape.
Mr. Glaston had allowed his father a margin of three weeks for any impediments that might arise to prevent his leaving the Salamanders, but a longer space he could not, he assured his father, remain awaiting his arrival from the sunny islands of his see. Meantime he was dining out night after night with his friends at the Cape, and taking daily drives and horse-exercise for the benefit of his health. Upon the evening when Harwood and Markham entered the hotel together, Mr. Glaston was just departing to join a dinner-party which was to assemble at the house of a certain judge, and as Harwood was also to be a guest, he was compelled to dress hastily.
Oswin Markham was not, however, aware of the existence of the hospitable judge, so he remained in the hotel. He was tired almost to a point of prostration after his long aimless ride, but a bath and a dinner revived him, and after drinking his coffee he threw himself upon a sofa and slept for some hours. When he awoke it was dark, and then lighting a cigar he went out to the balcony that ran along the upper windows, and seated himself in the cool air that came landwards from the sea.
He watched the soldiers in white uniform crossing the square; he saw the Malay population who had been making a holiday, returning to their quarter of the town, the men with their broad conical straw hats, the women with marvellously coloured shawls; he saw the coolies carrying their burdens, and the Hottentots and the Kafirs and all the races blended in the motley population of Cape Town. He glanced listlessly at all, thinking his own thoughts undisturbed by any incongruity of tongues or of races beneath him, and he was only awakened from the reverie into which he had fallen by the opening of one of the windows near him and the appearance on the balcony of Algernon Glaston in his dinner dress and smoking a choice cigar.
The generous wine of the generous judge had made Mr. Glaston particularly courteous, for he drew his chair almost by the side of Markham's and inquired after his health.
“Harwood was at that place to-night,” he said, “and he mentioned that you were killing yourself. Just like these newspaper fellows to exaggerate fearfully for the sake of making a sensation. You are all right now, I think.”
“Quite right,” said Markham. “I don't feel exactly like an elephant for vigour, but you know what it is to feel strong without having any particular strength. I am that way.”
“Dreadfully brutal people I met to-night,” continued Mr. Glaston reflectively. “Sort of people Harwood could get on with. Talking actually about some wretched savage—some Zulu chief or other from whom they expect great things; as if the action of a ruffianly barbarian could affect any one. It was quite disgusting talk. I certainly would have come away at once only I was lucky enough to get by the side of a girl who seems to know something of Art—a Miss Vincent—she is quite fresh and enthusiastic on the subject—quite a child indeed.”
Markham thought it prudent to light a fresh cigar from the end of the one he had smoked, at the interval left by Mr. Glaston for his comment, so that a vague “indeed” was all that came through his closed lips.
“Yes, she seems rather a tractable sort of little thing. By the way, she mentioned something about your having become faint at Government House the other day, before you had seen all my pictures.”
“Ah, yes,” said Markham. “The change from the open air to that room.”
“Ah, of course. Miss Vincent seems to understand something of the meaning of the pictures. She was particularly interested in one of them, which, curiously enough, is the most wonderful of the collection. Did you study them all?”
“No, not all; the fact was, that unfortunate weakness of mine interfered with my scrutiny,” said Markham. “But the single glance I had at one of the pictures convinced me that it was a most unusual work. I felt greatly interested in it.”
“That was the Aholibah, no doubt.”
“Yes, I heard your description of how if came to be painted.”
“Ah, but that referred only to the marvellous expression of the face—so saturate—so devoured—with passion. You saw how Miss Gerald turned away from it with a shudder?”
“Why did she do that?” said Markham.
“Heaven knows,” said Glaston, with a little sneer.
“Heaven knows,” said Markham, after a pause and without any sneer.
“She could not understand it,” continued Glaston. “All that that face means cannot be apprehended in a glance. It has a significance of its own—it is a symbol of a passion that withers like a fire—a passion that can destroy utterly all the beauty of a life that might have been intense with beauty. You are not going away, are you?”
Markham had risen from his seat and turned away his head, grasping the rail of the balcony. It was some moments before he started and looked round at the other man. “I beg your pardon,” he said; “I'm not going away, I am greatly interested. Yes, I caught a glimpse of the expression of the face.”
“It is a miracle of power,” continued Glaston. “Miss Gerald felt, but she could not understand why she should feel, its power.”
There was a long pause, during which Markham stared blankly across the square, and the other leant back in his chair and watched the curling of his cigar clouds through the still air. From the garrison at the castle there came to them the sound of a bugle-call.
“I am greatly interested in that picture,” said Markham at length. “I should like to know all the details of its working out.”
“The expression of the face——”
“Ah, I know all of that. I mean the scene—that hill seen through the arch—the pavement of the oriental apartment—the—the figure—how did the painter bring them together?”
“That is of little consequence in the study of the elements of the symbolism,” said Mr. Glaston.
“Yes, of course it is; but still I should like to know.”
“I really never thought of putting any question to the painter about these matters,” replied Glaston. “He had travelled in the East, and the kiosk was amongst his sketches; as for the model of the figure, if I do not mistake, I saw the study for the face in an old portfolio of his he brought from Sicily.”
“Ah, indeed.”
“But these are mere accidents in the production of the picture. The symbolism is the picture.”
Again there was a pause, and the chatter of a couple of Malays in the street became louder, and then fainter, as the speakers drew near and passed away.
“Glaston,” said Markham at length, “did you remove the pictures from Government House?”
“They are in one of my rooms,” said Glaston. “Would you think it a piece of idle curiosity if I were to step upstairs and take a look at that particular work?”
“You could not see it by lamplight. You can study them all in the morning.”
“But I feel in the mood just now, and you know how much depends upon the mood.”
“My room is open,” said Glaston. “But the idea that has possessed you is absurd.”
“I dare say, I dare say, but I have become interested in all that you have told me; I must try and—and understand the symbolism.”
He left the balcony before Mr. Glaston had made up his mind as to whether there was a touch of sarcasm in his voice uttering the final sentence.
“Not worse than the rest of the uneducated world,” murmured the Art prophet condescendingly.
But in Mr. Glaston's private room upstairs Oswin Markham was standing holding a lighted lamp up to that interesting picture and before that wonderful symbolic expression upon the face of the figure; the rest of the room was in darkness. He looked up to the face that the lamplight gloated over. The remainder of the picture was full of reflections of the light.
“A power that can destroy utterly all the beauty of a life,” he said, repeating the analysis of Mr. Glaston. He continued looking at it before he repeated another of that gentleman's sentences—“She felt, but could not understand, its power.” He laid the lamp on the table and walked over to the darkened window and gazed out. But once more he returned to the picture. “A passion that can destroy utterly all the beauty of life,” he said again. “Utterly! that is a lie!” He remained with his eyes upon the picture for some moments, then he lifted the lamp and went to the door. At the door he stopped, glanced at the picture and laughed.
In the Volsunga Saga there is an account of how a jealous woman listens outside the chamber where a man whom she once loved is being murdered in his wife's arms; hearing the cry of the wife in the chamber the woman at the door laughs. A man beside her says, “Thou dost not laugh because thy heart is made glad, or why moves that pallor upon thy face?”
Oswin Markham left the room and thanked Mr. Glaston for having gratified his whim.
... What he spake, though it lacked form a little,
Was not like madness. There's something in his soul
O'er which his melancholy sits on brood.
Purpose is but the slave to memory.
Most necessary 'tis that we forget.—Hamlet.
THE long level rays of the sun that was setting in crimson splendour were touching the bright leaves of the silver-fir grove on one side of the ravine traversing the slope of the great peaked hill which makes the highest point of Table Mountain, but the other side was shadowy. The flat face of the precipice beneath the long ridge of the mountain was full of fantastic gleams of red in its many crevices, and far away a thin waterfall seemed a shimmering band of satin floating downwards through a dark bed of rocks. Table Bay was lying silent and with hardly' a sparkle upon its ripples from where the outline of Robbin Island was seen at one arm of its crescent to the white sand of the opposite shore. The vineyards of the lower slope, beneath which the red road crawled, were dim and colourless, for the sunset bands had passed away from them and flared only upon the higher slopes.
Upon the summit of the ridge of the silver-fir ravine Daireen Gerald sat looking out to where the sun was losing itself among the ridges of the distant kloof, and at her feet was Oswin Markham. Behind them rose the rocks of the Peak with their dark green herbage. Beneath them the soft rustle of a songless bird was heard through the foliage.
But it remains to be told how those two persons came to be watching together the phenomenon of sunset from the slope.
It was Mrs. Crawford who had upon the very day after the departure of Arthur Harwood organised one of those little luncheon parties which are so easily organised and give promise of pleasures so abundant. She had expressed to Mr. Harwood the grief she felt at his being compelled by duty to depart from the midst of their circle, just as she had said to Mr. Markham how bowed down she had been at the reflection of his leaving the steamer at St. Helena; and Harwood had thanked her for her kind expressions, and made a mental resolve that he would say something sarcastic regarding the Army Boot Commission in his next communication to theDominant Trumpeter. But the hearing of the gun of the mail steamer that was to convey the special correspondent to Natal was the pleasantest sensation Mrs. Crawford had experienced for long. She had been very anxious on Harwood's account for some time. She did not by any means think highly of the arrangement which had been made by Colonel Gerald to secure for one of his horses an amount of exercise by allowing Mr. Harwood to ride it; for she was well aware that Mr. Harwood would think it quite within the line of his duty to exercise the animal at times when Miss Gerald would be riding out. She knew that most girls liked Mr. Harwood, and whatever might be Mr. Harwood's feelings towards the race that so complimented him, she could not doubt that he admired to a perilous point the daughter of Colonel Gerald. If, then, the girl would return his feeling, what would become of Mrs. Crawford's hopes for Mr. Glaston?
It was the constant reflection upon this question that caused the sound of the mail gun to fall gratefully upon the ears of the major's wife. Harwood was to be away for more than a month at any rate, and in a month much might be accomplished, not merely by a special correspondent, but by a lady with a resolute mind and a strategical training. So she had set her mind to work, and without delay had organised what gave promise of being a delightful little lunch, issuing half a dozen invitations only three days in advance.
Mr. Algernon Glaston had, after some persuasion, promised to join the party. Colonel Gerald and his daughter expressed the happiness they would have at being present, and Mr. Standish Macnamara felt certain that nothing could interfere with his delight. Then there were the two daughters of a member of the Legislative Council who were reported to look with fond eyes upon the son of one of the justices of the Supreme Court, a young gentleman who was also invited. Lastly, by what Mrs. Crawford considered a stroke of real constructive ability, Mr. Oswin Markham and Miss Lottie Vincent were also begged to allow themselves to be added to the number of the party. Mrs. Crawford disliked Lottie, but that was no reason why Lottie should not exercise the tactics Mrs. Crawford knew she possessed, to take care of Mr. Oswin Markham for the day.
They would have much to talk about regarding the projected dramatic entertainment of the young lady, so that Mr. Glaston should be left solitary in that delightful listless after-space of lunch, unless indeed—and the contingency was, it must be confessed, suggested to the lady—Miss Gerald might chance to remain behind the rest of the party; in that case it would not seem beyond the bounds of possibility that the weight of Mr. Glaston's loneliness would be endurable.
Everything had been carried out with that perfect skill which can be gained only by experience. The party had driven from Mowbray for a considerable way up the hill. The hampers had been unpacked and the lunch partaken of in a shady nook which was supposed to be free from the venomous reptiles that make picnics somewhat risky enjoyments in sunny lands; and then the young people had trooped away to gather Venus-hair ferns at the waterfall, or silver leaves from the grove, or bronze-green lizards, or some others of the offspring of nature which have come into existence solely to meet the requirements of collectors. Mr. Glaston and Daireen followed more leisurely, and Mrs. Crawford's heart was happy. The sun would be setting in an hour, she reflected, and she had great confidence in the effect of fine sunsets upon the hearts of lovers—. nay, upon the raw material that might after a time develop into the hearts of lovers. She was quite satisfied seeing the young people depart, for she was not aware how much more pleasant than Oswin Markham Lottie Vincent had found Mr. Glaston at that judge's dinner-party a few evenings previous, nor how much more plastic than Miss Gerald Mr. Glaston had found Lottie Vincent upon the same occasion.
Mrs. Crawford did not think it possible that Lottie could be so clever, even if she had had the inclination, as to effect the separation of the party as it had been arranged. But Lottie had by a little manouvre waited at the head of the ravine until Mr. Glaston and Daireen had come up, and then she had got into conversation with Mr. Glaston upon a subject that was a blank to the others, so that they had walked quietly on together until that pleasant space at the head of the ravine was reached. There Daireen had seated herself to watch the west become crimson with sunset, and at her feet Oswin had cast himself to watch her face.
Had Mrs. Crawford been aware of this, she would scarcely perhaps have been so pleasant to her friend Colonel Gerald, or to her husband far down on the slope.
It was very silent at the head of that ravine. The delicate splash of the water that trickled through the rocks far away was distinctly heard. The rosy bands that had been about the edges of the silver leaves had passed off. Daireen's face was at last left in shadow, and she turned to watch the rays move upwards, until soon only the dark Peak was enwound in the red light that made its forehead like the brows of an ancient Bacchanal encircled with a rose-wreath. Then quickly the red dwindled away, until only a single rose-leaf was upon the highest point; an instant more and it had passed, leaving the hill dark and grim in outline against the pale blue.
Then succeeded that time of silent conflict between light and darkness—a time of silence and of wonder.
Upon the slope of the Peak it was silent enough. The girl's eyes went out across the shadowy plain below to where the water was shining in its own gray light, but she uttered not a word. The man leant his head upon his hand as he looked up to her face.
“What is the 'Ave' you are breathing to the sunset, Miss Gerald?” he said at length, and she gave a little start and looked at him. “What is the vesper hymn your heart has been singing all this time?”
She laughed. “No hymn, no song.”
“I saw it upon your face,” he said. “I saw its melody in your eyes; and yet—yet I cannot understand it—I am too gross to be able to translate it. I suppose if a man had sensitive hearing the wind upon the blades of grass would make good music to him, but most people are dull to everything but the rolling of barrels and such-like music.”
“I had not even a musical thought,” said the girl. “I am afraid that if all I thought were translated into words, the result would be a jumble: you know what that means.”
“Yes. Heaven is a jumble, isn't it? A bit of wonderful blue here, and a shapeless cloud there—a few faint breaths of music floating about a place of green, and an odour of a field of flowers. Yes, all dreams are jumbles.”
“And I was dreaming?” she said. “Yes, I dare say my confusion of thought without a single idea may be called by courtesy a dream.”
“And now have you awakened?”
“Dreams must break and dissolve some time, I suppose, Mr. Markham.”
“They must, they must,” he said. “I wonder when will my awaking come.”
“Have you a dream?” she asked, with a laugh.
“I am living one,” he answered.
“Living one?”
“Living one. My life has become a dream to me. How am I beside you? How is it possible that I could be beside you? Either of two things must be a dream—either my past life is a dream, or I am living one in this life.”
“Is there so vast a difference between them?” she asked, looking at him. His eyes were turned away from her.
“Vast? Vast?” he repeated musingly. Then he rose to his feet and looked out oceanwards. “I don't know what is vast,” he said. Then he looked down to her. “Miss Gerald, I don't believe that my recollection of my past is in the least correct. My memory is a falsehood utterly. For it is quite impossible that this body of mine—this soul of mine—could have passed through such a change as I must have passed through if my memory has got anything of truth in it. My God! my God! The recollections that come to me are, I know, impossible.”
“I don't understand you, Mr. Markham,” said Daireen.
Once more he threw himself on the short tawny herbage beside her.
“Have you not heard of men being dragged back when they have taken a step beyond the barrier that hangs between life and death—men who have had one foot within the territory of death?”
“I have heard of that.”
“And you know it is not the same old life that a man leads when he is brought from that dominion of death. He begins life anew. He knows nothing of the past. He laughs at the faces that were once familiar to him; they mean nothing to him. His past is dead. Think of me, child. Day by day I suffered all the agonies of death and hell, and shall I not have granted to me that most righteous gift of God? Shall not my past be utterly blotted out? Yes, these vague memories that I have are the memories of a dream. God has not been so just to me as to others, for there are some realities of the past still with me I know, and thus I am at times led to think it might be possible that all my recollections are true—but no, it is impossible—utterly impossible.” Again he leapt to his feet and clasped his hands over his head. “Child—child, if you knew all, you would pity me,” he said, in a tone no louder than a whisper.
She had never heard anything so pitiful before. Seeing the agony of the man, and hearing him trying to convince himself of that at which his reason rebelled, was terribly pitiful to her. She never before that moment knew how she felt towards this man to whom she had given life.
“What can I say of comfort to you?” she said. “You have all the sympathy of my heart. Why will you not ask me to help you? What is my pity?”
He knelt beside her. “Be near me,” he said. “Let me look at you now. Is there not a bond between us?—such a bond as binds man to his God? You gave me my life as a gift, and it will be a true life now. God had no pity for me, but you have more than given me your pity. The life you have given me is better than the life given me by God.”
“Do not say that,” she said. “Do not think that I have given you anything. It is your God who has changed you through those days of terrible suffering.”
“Yes, the suffering is God's gift,” he cried bitterly. “Torture of days and nights, and then not utter forgetfulness. After passing through the barrier of death, I am denied the blessings that should come with death.”
“Why should you wish to forget anything of the past?” she asked. “Has everything been so very terrible to you?”
“Terrible?” he said, clasping his hands over one of his knees and gazing out to the conflict of purple and shell-pink in the west. “No, nothing was terrible. I am no Corsair with a hundred romantic crimes to give me so much remorseful agony as would enable me to act the part of Count Lara with consistency. I am no Lucifer encircled with a halo of splendid wickedness. It is only the change that has passed over me since I felt myself looking at you that gives me this agony of thought. Wasted time is my only sin—hours cast aside—years trampled upon. I lived for myself as I had a chance—as thousands of others do, and it did not seem to me anything terrible that I should make my father's days miserable to him. I did not feel myself to be the curse to him that I now know myself to have been. I was a curse to him. He had only myself in the world—no other son, and yet I could leave him to die alone—yes, and to die offering me his forgiveness—offering it when it was not in my power to refuse to accept it. This is the memory that God will not take away. Nay, I tell you it seems that instead of being blotted out by my days of suffering it is but intensified.”
He had bowed down his face upon his hands as he sat there. Her eyes were full of tears of sympathy and compassion—she felt with him, and his sufferings were hers.
“I pity you—with all my soul I pity you,” she said, laying her hand upon his shoulder.
He turned and took her hand, holding it not with a fervent grasp; but in his face that looked up to her tearful eyes there was a passion of love and adoration.
“As a man looks to his God I look to you,” he said. “Be near me that the life you have given me may be good. Let me think of you, and the dead Past shall bury its dead.”
What answer could she make to him? The tears continued to come to her eyes as she sat while he looked into her face.
“You know,” she said—“you know I feel for you. You know that I understand you.”
“Not all,” he said slowly. “I am only beginning to understand myself; I have never done so in all my life hitherto.”
Then they watched the delicate shadowy dimness—not gray, but full of the softest azure—begin to swathe the world beneath them. The waters of the bay were reflecting the darkening sky, and out over the ocean horizon a single star was beginning to breathe through the blue.
“Daireen,” he said at length, “is the bond between us one of love?”
There was no passion in his voice, nor was his hand that held hers trembling as he spoke. She gave no start at his words, nor did she withdraw her hand. Through the silence the splash of the waterfall above them was heard clearly. She looked at him through the long pause.
“I do not know,” she said. “I cannot answer you yet——No, not yet—not yet.”
“I will not ask,” he said quietly. “Not yet—not yet.” And he dropped her hand.
Then he rose and looked out to that star, which was no longer smothered in the splendid blue of the heavens, but was glowing in passion until the waters beneath caught some of its rays.
There was a long pause before a voice sounded behind them on the slope—the musical voice of Miss Lottie Vincent.
“Did you ever see such a sentimental couple?” she cried, raising her hands with a very pretty expression of mock astonishment. “Watching the twilight as if you were sitting for your portraits, while here we have been searching for you over hill and dale. Have we not, Mr. Glaston?”
Mr. Glaston thought it unnecessary to corroborate a statement made with such evident ingenuousness.
“Well, your search met with its reward, I hope, Miss Vincent,” said Oswin.
“What, in finding you?”
“I am not so vain as to fancy it possible that you should accept that as a reward, Miss Vincent,” he replied.
The young lady gave him a glance that was meant to read his inmost soul. Then she laughed.
“We must really hasten back to good Mamma Crawford,” she said, with a seriousness that seemed more frivolous than her frivolity. “Every one will be wondering where we have been.”
“Lucky that you will be able to tell them,” remarked Oswin.
“How?” she said quickly, almost apprehensively.
“Why, you know you can say 'Over hill, over dale,' and so satisfy even the most sceptical in a moment.”
Miss Lottie made a little pause, then laughed again; she did not think it necessary to make any reply.
And so they all went down by the little track along the edge of the ravine, and the great Peak became darker above them as the twilight dwindled into evening.
I have remembrances of yours—
... words of so sweet breath composed
As made the things more rich.
Hamlet.... You do remember all the circumstance?
Horatio. Remember it, my lord?
Hamlet. Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting
That would not let me sleep.
... poor Ophelia,
Divided from herself and her fair judgment.
Sleep rock thy brain,
And never come mischance.—Hamlet.
MRS. Crawford was not in the least apprehensive of the safety of the young people who had been placed under her care upon this day. She had been accustomed in the good old days at Arradambad, when the scorching inhabitants had lifted their eyes unto the hills, and had fled to their cooling slopes, to organise little open-air tiffins for the benefit of such young persons as had come out to visit the British Empire in the East under the guidance of the major's wife, and the result of her experience went to prove that it was quite unnecessary to be in the least degree nervous regarding the ultimate welfare of the young persons who were making collections of the various products of Nature. It was much better for the young persons to learn self-dependence, she thought, and though many of the maidens under her care had previously, through long seasons at Continental watering-places, become acquainted with a few of the general points to be observed in maintaining a course of self-dependence, yet the additional help that came to them from the hills was invaluable.
As Mrs. Crawford now gave a casual glance round the descending party, she felt that her skill as a tactician was not on the wane. They were walking together, and though Lottie was of course chatting away as flippantly as ever, yet both Markham and Mr. Glaston was very silent, she saw, and her conclusions were as rapid as those of an accustomed campaigner should be. Mr. Glaston had been talking to Daireen in the twilight, so that Lottie's floss-chat was a trouble to him; while Oswin Markham was wearied with having listened for nearly an hour to her inanities, and was seeking for the respite of silence.
“You naughty children, to stray away in that fashion!” she cried. “Do you fancy you had permission to lose yourselves like that?”
“Did we lose ourselves, Miss Vincent?” said Markham.
“We certainly did not,” said Lottie, and then Mrs. Crawford's first suggestions were confirmed: Lottie and Markham spoke of themselves, while Daireen and Mr. Glaston were mute.
“It was very naughty of you,” continued the matron. “Why, in India, if you once dared do such a thing——”
“We should do it for ever,” cried Lottie. “Now, you know, my dear good Mrs. Crawford, I have been in India, and I have had experience of your picnics when we were at the hills—oh, the most delightful little affairs—every one used to look forward to them.”
Mrs. Crawford laughed gently as she patted Lottie on the cheek. “Ah, they were now and again successes, were they not? How I wish Daireen had been with us.”
“Egad, she would not be with us now, my dear,” said the major. “Eh, George, what do you say, my boy?”
“For shame, major,” cried Mrs. Crawford, glancing towards Lottie.
“Eh, what?” said the bewildered Boot Commissioner, who meant to be very gallant indeed. It was some moments before he perceived how Miss Vincent could construe his words, and then he attempted an explanation, which made matters worse. “My dear, I assure you I never meant that your attractions were not—not—ah—most attractive, they were, I assure you—you were then most attractive.”
“And so far from having waned,” said Colonel Gerald, “it would seem that every year has but——”
“Why, what on earth is the meaning of this raid of compliments on poor little me?” cried the young lady in the most artless manner, glancing from the major to the colonel with uplifted hands.
“Let us hasten to the carriages, and leave these old men to talk their nonsense to each other,” said Mrs. Crawford, putting her arm about one of the daughters of the member of the Legislative Council—a young lady who had found the companionship of Standish Macnamara quite as pleasant as her sister had the guidance of the judge's son up the ravine—and so they descended to where the carriages were waiting to take them towards Cape Town. Daireen and her father were to walk to the Dutch cottage, which was but a short distance away, and with them, of course, Standish.
“Good-bye, my dear child,” said Mrs. Crawford, embracing Daireen, while the others talked in a group. “You are looking pale, dear, but never mind; I will drive out and have a long chat with you in a couple of days,” she whispered, in a way she meant to be particularly impressive.
Then the carriage went off, and Daireen put her hand through her father's arm, and walked silently in the silent evening to the house among the aloes and Australian oaks, through whose leaves the fireflies were flitting in myriads.
“She is a good woman,” said Colonel Gerald. “An exceedingly good woman, only her long experience of the sort of girls who used to be sent out to her at India has made her rather misjudge the race, I think.”
“She is so good,” said Daireen. “Think of all the trouble she was at to-day for our sake.”
“Yes, for our sake,” laughed her father. “My dear Dolly, if you could only know the traditions our old station retains of Mrs. Crawford, you would think her doubly good. The trouble she has gone to for the sake of her friends—her importations by every mail—is simply astonishing. But what did you think of that charming Miss Van der Veldt you took such care of, Standish, my boy? Did you make much progress in Cape Dutch?”
But Standish could not answer in the same strain of pleasantry. He was thinking too earnestly upon the visions his fancy had been conjuring up during the entire evening—visions of Mr. Glaston sitting by the side of Daireen gazing out to that seductive, though by no means uncommon, phenomenon of sunset. He had often wished, when at the waterfall gathering Venus-hair for Miss Van der Veldt, that he could come into possession of the power of Joshua at the valley of Gibeon to arrest the descent of the orb. The possibly disastrous consequences to the planetary system seemed to him but trifling weighed against the advantages that would accrue from the fact of Mr. Glaston's being deprived of a source of conversation that was both fruitful and poetical. Standish knew well, without having read Wordsworth, that the twilight was sovereign of one peaceful hour; he had in his mind quite a store of unuttered poetical observations upon sunset, and he felt that Mr. Glaston might possibly be possessed of similar resources which he could draw upon when occasion demanded such a display. The thought of Mr. Glaston sitting at the feet of Daireen, and with her drinking in of the glory of the west, was agonising to Standish, and so he could not enter into Colonel Gerald's pleasantry regarding the attractive daughter of the member of the Legislative Council.
When Daireen had shut the door of her room that night and stood alone in the darkness, she found the relief that she had been seeking since she had come down from the slope of that great Peak—relief that could not be found even in the presence of her father, who had been everything to her a few days before. She found relief in being alone with her thoughts in the silence of the night. She drew aside the curtains of her window, and looked out up to that Peak which was towering amongst the brilliant stars. She could know exactly the spot upon the edge of the ravine where she had been sitting—where they had been sitting. What did it all mean? she asked herself. She could not at first recollect any of the words she had heard upon that slope, she could not even think what they should mean, but she had a childlike consciousness of happiness mixed with fear. What was the mystery that had been unfolded to her up there? What was the revelation that had been made to her? She could not tell. It seemed wonderful to her how she could so often have looked up to that hill without feeling anything of what she now felt gazing up to its slope.
It was all too wonderful for her to understand. She had a consciousness of nothing but that all was wonderful. She could not remember any of his words except those he had last uttered. The bond between them—was it of love? How could she tell? What did she know of love? She could not answer him when he had spoken to her, nor was she able even now, as she stood looking out to those brilliant stars that crowned the Peak and studded the dark edges of the slope which had been lately overspread with the poppy-petals of sunset. It was long before she went into her bed, but she had arrived at no conclusion to her thoughts—all that had happened seemed mysterious; and she knew not whether she felt happy beyond all the happiness she had ever known, or sad beyond the sadness of any hour of her life. Her sleep swallowed up all her perplexity.
But the instant she awoke in the bright morning she went softly over to the window and looked out from a corner of her blind to that slope and to the place where they had sat. No, it was not a dream. There shone the silver leaves and there sparkled the waterfall. It was the loveliest hill in the world, she felt—lovelier even than the purple heather-clad Slieve Docas. This was a terrible thought to suggest itself to her mind, she felt all the time she was dressing, but still it remained with her and refused to be shaken off.