IT was about half-past nine o’clock on a bright crisp morning in early Spring; the sun shone gaily into Miss Verinder’s drawing-room, eclipsing the genial red glow of the fire; the leafless branches of the plane tree tapped against the window panes; and, although one could not see it, one had a feeling of there being a blue wind-swept sky with little white clouds racing giddily above the highest chimney pots. Miss Verinder herself, seeming if not quite as sunny and bright as the weather, at least strangely gay and alert, had been in and out of the room two or three times; while Louisa bustled hither and thither, giving last touches to the breakfast table that she had set forth between the sofa and the fire.
Louisa was indeed laying out a lovely breakfast, and her mistress glanced with pleasure at the honey, the various jams, and the hot-plate and the kettle, under both of which a lamp burned cheerfully. Over the back of the sofa were about half-a-dozen different newspapers. With a smile upon her unusually carmine lips, Miss Verinder unfolded one of these and read the account of how Mr. Anthony Dyke had arrived in London yesterday afternoon. This particular journal stated that the famous explorer appeared to be in the most robust health and the highest spirits. He would say little about the ill-fated expedition or the series of mishaps that had led to the return of the ship andthe postponement of her voyage to another season; but he explained that he would give the fullest details of results so far achieved in the lecture that he proposed to deliver shortly. “He left at once for Devonshire, to pass a few days in complete quiet with his relatives.”
Louisa brought in three silver dishes, a glass jar of marmalade, a china basket full of apples; but Miss Verinder was thrown into slight agitation by the discovery that there was still something wanting to perfect the breakfast. The hot rolls had not arrived. Louisa, even more distressed and worried by this failure, said the baker had faithfully promised. “It’s that wretched boy of his who has played us false”; and Louisa used an odd expression, and using it laughed in spite of her annoyance. “I’d like to break his bones for him, I would.”
She had left the hall door ajar at the top of the flight of stairs, and for about the fifth time she pushed it open and looked down. There was not a sign either of the boy or the rolls. She went into her neat little pantry, fuming. Then after a minute she heard a footstep on the stairs, and, rejoiced that the rolls had come at last, she called gaily, “Put them down, you imp. And shut the door.”
“What is that?” said a totally unexpected voice.
Next moment Mrs. Bell of Queen’s Gate had passed through the hall and entered the drawing-room. Miss Verinder, turning, was really much agitated by the sight of the visitor with Louisa behind her in the doorway showing a scared face. She made desperate signs to Louisa, who precipitately sprang away; and kind Mrs. Bell in her astonishment nearly let fall the large parcel of hot-house grapes that she was carrying.
Yesterday Mrs. Bell had been refused admittance because of an indisposition that had overtaken Miss Verinder. This morning, being out earlier than was customary, she had come to bring the grapes and to inquire after the state of her cherished invalid. Naturally she was now amazed to find Miss Verinder up and about, and, as she said at once, “looking better than I’ve seen you for years.”
Miss Verinder said that she was indeed quite well again. Her slight illness had entirely passed off.
Then Mrs. Bell noticed the breakfast table, so nicely prepared, here, in the drawing-room, with silver dishes and cups and plates for at least two people—yes, with two chairs, one on each side of it.
Miss Verinder explained that she had a friend staying with her.
“Now that’s very wrong of you,” said Mrs. Bell in good-natured reproof. “You have struggled up to entertain your friend when you ought to have remained in bed. I can see now that you are not at all well, really. You are feverish, I believe—yes, feverish and shaky. Why did you allow her to come at such a time? Why didn’t you put her off? You should not have studied her convenience. Who is she? Do I know her?”
Miss Verinder said “No.”
“Take care of yourself,” said Mrs. Bell, going. Then she paused, one of her usual kindly ideas having come into her mind. “Listen, dear. If your friend is on your nerves—you didn’t mention her name—send her round to me. I’ll take her off your hands for the day.”
“You are too good, dear Mrs. Bell. But really I wouldn’t think of it.”
Miss Verinder saw her safely out of the hall, and bolted the door behind her—that door at the top of the stairs that had been left open in such a reckless, dangerous, unheard-of fashion by Louisa, merely because it was early in the morning with nobody about.
“You old goose,” said Miss Verinder to the culprit, as she returned to the drawing-room. “It’s all right. Mrs. Bell has gone. But that was a narrow squeak.”
“All right,” said Louisa, loudly repeating the words of her mistress. “She’s gone.”
And next moment a great big laughing man came into the drawing-room.
“Anthony,” said Miss Verinder, “you’re a very naughty boy to be so late. Your breakfast is getting cold.”
“Oh, this room,” he cried ecstatically. “This room! Let me look at it.”
“You saw it last night.”
“But by lamp-light. It’s by daylight that I always see it in my dreams. I want to feel that I am really in it—awake and not dreaming. Let me touch things.” And he moved about, putting his hands softly on pieces of furniture, cautiously picking up delicate fragile bits of china, admiring them, and putting them down again.
“Tony, your breakfast.”
“Oh, damn the breakfast. Don’t you understand what these moments are to me?” And he told her for the hundredth time how he carried with him always the whole of this room in his thoughts—a picture of it and its minutest details so indelible that thought instantaneously recreated it. He was verifying the picture now. If there was anything changed, anything missing, he would certainly know.“And now let me look atyou.” He said this with infinite pride and love. “My girl—my own little girl.” He was holding her hands apart, as he always did, while these first transports lasted, so that her arms were opened and she could not push him from her. “Emmie—my darling.” Emmie, under this attack, was vainly struggling to maintain her dignified primness of manner; she uttered bashful remonstrances, hanging her head, laughing and blushing, but was in rapturous joy all the while. “Angel of my life”; and suddenly he took possession of her, hugged her, and smothered her warm face with kisses.
Louisa brought in the tardy rolls while he was doing it, and as if blind and preoccupied went out again.
“You’re too silly—really too silly,” said Miss Verinder. She had withdrawn to the bevelled looking-glass in the front of the Queen Anne bureau and was arranging her hair.
They sat down to breakfast, and she made the tea for him exactly as she would have made it for Mrs. Bell or the vicar of the parish, had either been visiting her; but her eyes were bright, and the colour still glowed in her cheeks. Dyke watched each precise little movement with a sort of swooning ecstasy. First she warmed the tea-pot, then she began to load her tiny shovel from the silver tea-caddy, and as she transferred each shovelfull she demurely recited the habitual incantation. “One for me; one for you, Tony; one for the pot—and one for luck. Shall we have one more? Yes, I think one more for luck. Now the kettle, please.”
“Go on,” cried Dyke, with a roar of delighted laughter. “Say it.” He wanted the rhymed couplet to finish the unchanging rite, that foolish rhyme that hehimself had taught her. “Say it, Emmie.”
And she said it, quietly and gravely, as if there was nothing ridiculous about it. “‘For if the water not boiling be, filling the tea-pot spoils the tea.’ Push back that little bolt under the kettle. Thank you, dear.”
They spent four or five heavenly days together in the flat, never issuing from it till after dark, and not then without a preliminary reconnaissance by Louisa and her report that the coast was clear. All day long they were perfectly blissful, making up to each other in endless talk for the vast tracts of time during which neither could hear the other’s voice. It was during one of these secret visits that Dyke taught the parrot to say “Look sharp, Louisa.” Emmie could never have done it without aid.
Under the friendly cloak of darkness they used to take long walks about the huge town. They had jolly little treats too. Dyke loved the “moving pictures” from their very first introduction, and Emmie was devoted to this form of entertainment for the reason that it afforded her an opportunity of holding Dyke’s hand and squeezing it while the lights were down. They also attended representations of the legitimate drama, going to the cheaper seats of unfashionable theatres on or beyond the four-mile circle; and they found and cherished the strangest sort of restaurants or cafés far from the more frequented haunts of well-to-do mankind, where they dined and supped with the utmost enjoyment. Some of these eating-places were almost too humble and doubtful, scarcely better than cabmen’s shelters; for Dyke, fresh from New Guinea or an uninhabited island, was almost incapable of differentiation. To him, at any rate for a while, the Ritz Hoteland a refreshment room at an Underground railway station seemed equally magnificent and luxurious.
Emmie’s favourite restaurant was at least clean and respectable, a little place kept by Italians in a side street near Hammersmith Broadway; and thither she guided her illustrious traveller when he wished to invite a guest to join them at dinner. These guests were always of the same class, rough simple fellows, generally colonials, with whom Dyke had sailed the seas or plodded the earth at some time or other in the past. He had promised to have an evening with them when the chance came and was anxious not to break his word. So, Emmie consenting, he sent off a slap-dash line inviting them to meet him at Spinetti’s.
One night dear old Captain Cairns of theMercedariadined with them there.
“Well, upon my life, Tony, it’s a sight for sore eyes to see you again,” said Cairns. “And you too, miss.”
He was just as he had been when she first saw him at that Johnsonian chop-house in the City; wearing a pea-jacket with a blue shirt collar, and, although so short, seeming excessively broad and powerful. His stubby beard was perhaps a little greyer, his big round head balder, and the network of wrinkles on his sun-burnt cheeks had become more intricate. His weight and solidity inspired confidence in her just as they had done at their very first meeting; but Emmie had a premonition that he would certainly break the fragile cane chair on which he had seated himself, and gracefully vacating her own place, she manœuvered him to the more substantial foundations of the velvet-covered bench against the wall. He sat there, beside Dyke, and beamed at her across the table.
“Oh, how he did make me laugh about them Papuans. Yes, I can see the old chap’s going as strong as ever. Meanin’ to have another bang at the South Pole, isn’t he, miss?” And Captain Cairns’s sense of humour induced a fit of chuckling. “Him and that Pole! I wrote and told him he’s like the baby with the cake of soap. He won’t be happy till he gets it.”
They had a jolly evening.
“Ah well.” Captain Cairns sighed when taking leave. “Here’s my address, Miss Verinder, if you should have news you’d like to send me at any time—for he doesn’t answermyletters. Good-night, and thank you. Those were happy days on the poor oldMercedaria.”
“What is she doing now?” asked Emmie.
“She’s broke up”; and Captain Cairns sighed again. “She was a good ship, she was—in her time. But her time was mostly over, when you honoured us, miss.”
Then Dyke, laughing, said he had a little tale to tell; and he insisted that Cairns should sit down again and have another whisky and soda.
“If so, it must be a small one,” said Cairns. “Really only a spot.”
They sat down and Dyke gleefully narrated how, after saying good-bye to theMercedaria, they got into a tight place—and Miss Verinder saved his life by killing a man.
In vain Emmie protested; he would go on.
“It’s too bad of you, Tony. I asked you never to remind me of all that—never to speak of it to anybody.”
“Only to Cairns. Such a real true pal as old Cairns!”
“Well, I’m blessed,” said Cairns, when he had heard the story; and he looked at her with the deepest admiration. “That was grit, and no mistake. Whips out a revolver, and—”
“Mr. Cairns,” said Miss Verinder, pulling on her black suède gloves and speaking rather primly, “please forget this nonsense. You know Tony’s way. In order to make out that I did something remarkable, he is led into exaggerations. Good-night. It has been so pleasant to see you, and I hope we shall meet again before very long.”
After five or six days spent in this manner Dyke would disappear from the flat and give himself to the public. There were interviews in the newspapers; he delivered his lecture, asked for financial support, visited his publisher, was seen at his club, attended one or two public dinners. Some time was spent with his father at that old house called Endells. Then perhaps he was secreted at the flat again. Then once more he was gone from England; and Miss Verinder, shopping with Mrs. Bell at Knightsbridge, or taking a walk by herself in Kensington Gardens, felt that she herself, all that was real and solid in her, had gone too.
It was she who had decided on the necessity of this long-sustained concealment of their love, and not he. Truly she was not a woman to shirk consequences—she had proved that handsomely; but not for nothing had she been born at Prince’s Gate and reared in the Verinder tradition. She knew her England, which never really changes, however much people talk of change. She knew that to this day, just as in the time of Parnell, no public man is allowed to have an unauthorizedintimacy with a person of different sex—in other words, if he cannot show his wife, he must not show anybody else. And more especially would this be so in the case of a man appealing to the public for money to carry on his public work. Had the fact been discovered, it would have meant an extinguishing cap (of the requisite size—very big) over the head of Anthony Dyke.
It had been necessary to hide him, and she had hidden him. With regard to this achievement one may perhaps for a moment consider how excessively difficult it is for a woman to hide a man in a life that to all appearances is being conducted on a conventional pattern, a life that seems open to observation by every curious person; and one may further remark that of all men Anthony Dyke was obviously the most difficult to hide, because of his large proportions, his loud voice, his terrific explosiveness—not to mention the fact that he was, if not yet as famous as he desired, at any rate sufficiently so to be a well-known, closely-marked public character; some one worth following by newspaper reporters, always remunerative for a chatty interview, and of market value as a snap-shot, take him how or where you would.
Nevertheless she had done it. If the truth must be owned, since there was but a single aim to her existence, she had welcomed as likely to aid her, the very hardships under which she was supposed to be suffering acutely; such as, the loss of reputation, ostracism by near relatives, coldness at the hands of friends.
Louisa, the tried and faithful servant, had also been a heaven-sent gift. But perhaps the real key to the triumphant deception had been her own unflinchingaudacity—the bold idea carried out with a boldness that never faltered. For at the beginning, whenpeople were naturally most suspicious and keeping a sharp watch for the man Dyke, not the most suspicious of them all could suspect that the place to look for him was so outrageously near home as Oratory Gardens.
She was successful, then, and as time went on the thing grew easier. At those queer haunts of theirs they scarcely ever met anybody who knew him, and never anybody who knew her. They had no accidents; that narrow shave with her solicitous kind-hearted Mrs. Bell was the closest approach to catastrophe. But on the last evening of this same visit of Dyke to his native land they had a really unfortunate encounter.
They were coming along the Brompton Road, past the top of Thurloe Square, when a small elderly woman caught sight of Dyke in the full light beneath a lamp-post, and accosted him. He told Miss Verinder to go on, and stopped to talk to the woman. Miss Verinder, obeying him, went by herself slowly to the corner of Oratory Gardens and round it. Then, turning, she strolled back again to meet him. He was hurrying towards her, waving his arm as if as some kind of signal, and the woman was following him and calling after him angrily.
“Straight on, Emmie,” he whispered, taking Miss Verinder’s arm, “and step out.”
He led her rapidly past the two corners that would have taken them home, round into Ovington Square, Pont Street, Sloane Street, and thence by devious twists back to Oratory Gardens; explaining while they took their sharp bit of exercise that he wished “to shake off that old devil,” who was by no means to learnwhere Miss Verinder resided. When they were safe in the flat he further explained that the old devil was an aunt of his wife, a dangerous objectionable person with whom Emmie must never come into contact. He was sorry that Emmie had made that rather significant turn towards the flat, but he hoped that it had not been noticed.
But next day, after Dyke had gone, the woman called at the flat, and, as reported by Louisa, asked who lived there. Louisa refused to say, and shut the street door in the woman’s face. Then, after a little while, opening it, she saw the woman come out of the auctioneer’s office. Either from the auctioneer or somebody else the woman obtained the information she desired. She was in fact that connection by marriage whom the elder Mr. Dyke had described as a pertinacious writer of abusive or blackmailing letters to him and his son. Soon now she wrote a letter to Miss Verinder.
The last post brought it one night when Emmie was sitting by the fire and thinking of the man who had gone. Louisa, looking stately in her black silk dress and apron, laid it on the small table beside her mistress; and there for a little while it remained unopened.
The evening had begun with desperate sadness as Emmie lived again in memory those perfect days, and thought that once more the joy had fled and life for another merciless stretch of time could be summed up by the two words, waiting and hoping. She must get through it somehow, as she had hitherto got through these dreadful empty intervals, and fortunately he had left her work to do. Work was always a comfort. Then she thought of his recent disappointment—the first failure of the scientific expedition—and of hisanxiety that the second attempt should be a complete success. She felt, although he had not said so, that he was dissatisfied with the reception given to him in England. Some of the newspapers had annoyed him by taking the wrong side of the quarrel with that French explorer Saint-Bertin, had condemned him for hastiness and overbearingness. She remembered with burning indignation something really rude that had been said about him by one newspaper. None of them, as it now seemed to her, had been as eulogistic as they used to be; they did not recapitulate sufficiently the magnificent achievements of the past; they dwelt too much on a temporary set-back.
As much as he himself, she was eager that he should ultimately attain undying fame. She knew too that he would never settle down and be quiet until he had reached the goal. And, alas, he was growing older; the years, however lightly they dealt with him, left some marks. The time available was not infinite. He himself asked for luck; and the luck was always against him.
Sitting by the fire, and feeling the natural depression of spirits caused by the sense of loneliness after companionship, she was attacked again by a horrible doubt with which more than once she had been compelled to fight. Was bad luck the only explanation? It was most horrible to her when, as now for a few moments, she seemed to hear mocking questions which she disdained to answer, but which she could not silence. Why always the bad luck? That little trip of his to the Andes was typical; representing on a small scale the big adventures of his life. Again and again, if not always, the tale had been the same. He fitted himselfout for an expedition, plunged into the wilderness, and was heard of no more, until he emerged starving, with nothing but the shirt on his back. Should not this make one doubt his powers, and admit that, splendid as he is, there may be some flaw in his mental equipment—some clumsiness of thought that, in spite of his brilliant qualities, makes him less than the truly great; so that he will never really achieve what he desires? As on previous occasions, she fought with all her strength against this disloyal and treacherous doubt, and drove it away to-night perhaps for ever.
It is love that kills doubt of every kind. She thought of the love, and of that only. These seemingly interminable absences must be supported with joy and pride as a part of the love itself; far from spoiling it, they made it what it was, unique and glorious; they lifted it high above the common bond of any ordinary marriage. She need not envy any woman who ever lived or think any more fortunate than she.
There was a smile on her lips now; she folded her hands and half closed her eyes, as she thought with an immense pride that no woman ever made a man more completely hers or gave herself to a man so utterly. He was her lover, whom she loved with a flaming passionate strength; he was her faithful mate, her partner, so that, as much as in any business partnership, anyfirm, all that struck at him struck her also; he was her child too, over whom she yearned with more than a mother’s tenderness—her wayward noble boy, who sometimes acted with rashness from sheer nobility of spirit; who must be thought for, cherished as well as encouraged; who must be subtly guarded and secretly aided by the poor weak half of him that watched,waited, hoped at this fireside while his other splendid half battled magnificently in the frozen darkness twelve thousand miles away. Still preserving that characteristic attitude, with meekly folded hands, she thought thus rhapsodically of her love, and the glory of it—yes, the wonder and the glory of it.
Then she opened the letter, which tried to put everything in a different light. Cruelly abusive, it produced the effect upon her of something vile and incongruous and stupid, seen suddenly in a beautiful or sacred place—as, shall one say? mud-stained feet upon a marble floor or a bundle of filthy rags dropped by a passer-by on the steps of a cathedral altar. The writer signed herself “Mrs. Janet Kent”; she headed the letter with the name of a midland town; and she began by saying that she had just paid a visit to “the Assylam” and seen her niece, Mrs. Dyke.
“...the lawful wife of the man who keaps you. And I say it is a shame for a wicked kept woman to keap my niece in prison as she is. Miss Verinder, she is no more mad than I am, and would not be if proparly treated with a house of her own, and those who love her to take the care as I have told him I am ready to do. But no he says. Notwithstanding I say for a miss like you he can spend all the money required to make his own wife comfatable with me. You ought to be exposed for what you are.”
“...the lawful wife of the man who keaps you. And I say it is a shame for a wicked kept woman to keap my niece in prison as she is. Miss Verinder, she is no more mad than I am, and would not be if proparly treated with a house of her own, and those who love her to take the care as I have told him I am ready to do. But no he says. Notwithstanding I say for a miss like you he can spend all the money required to make his own wife comfatable with me. You ought to be exposed for what you are.”
And lapsing from the abusive to the blackmailing habit, the writer threw out a not ambiguous hint that it would be wise to avoid exposure by prompt generosity.
“Miss Verinder, waiting your answer, I am, Yours truely, Mrs. Janet Kent.”
“Miss Verinder, waiting your answer, I am, Yours truely, Mrs. Janet Kent.”
This letter remaining unanswered, Emmie soon receivedanother of the same sort; and after that more letters until at last one came with very direct threats in it. Writing to Dyke, Miss Verinder refrained from speaking of the annoyance to which she was subjected. Why worry him? It would be time enough to tell him when she had him safe home again. But she went now for advice to a solicitor—not to Messrs. Williams, the family solicitors, but to some one whose name she had chanced to read of in a newspaper as connected with criminal proceedings.
This gentleman appeared to be as clever as he was sympathetic; surprisingly few words enabled him to grasp the whole matter, but he told Emmie that hers was one of those cases in which the law unfortunately could be of little assistance to the injured party. He pointed out that the only way of bringing the horrid old woman to book would be by police court proceedings, and it did not seem to him they could very well face the publicity that such action would entail. Indeed there could be little doubt that the old woman understood this quite well. It was probably her perfect understanding of it that made her so bold and impudent. He thought that perhaps the best chance would be for him to write her a “frightening” letter.
He wrote his letter, but Mrs. Janet Kent was not frightened; and his final regretful advice was that in his opinion it would be worth while giving her a little money “to shut her mouth.” He said he would do it for his client, adding that of course if the abominable old wretch were paid once she would probably have to be paid again. The pride of Miss Verinder revolted from the advice; but she saw no escape from following it.
In this manner the last living relative of Dyke’s wife became a humble pensioner on the bounty of the lady whom he was precluded from marrying.
He knew nothing about it, and perhaps would never know. He was busy. The good shipCommonwealthwith all the scientific gentlemen on board was skirting the northernmost fringe of the pack-ice. The last letter that Emmie received from him for many many months contained a photograph taken on deck just before they left New Zealand—Anthony, looking enormous, in the middle, Mr. Wedgwood, the physicist, on his right; Mr. Cleeve, the biologist, and Mr. Hamilton, the geologist, on his left; Lieutenant Barry and the rest of the officers with their names written underneath them, and the crew unnamed. She put it away carefully with her collection of similar pictures.
And she went on with her work. He had left her all the materials for the short volume that was to appear later on under the title ofThe Third Cruise. All those studies of hers, the classes in logic and rhetoric and composition, at which Mrs. Bell and others smiled indulgently or contemptuously, had been undertaken in order to render herself capable of helping him with his books. Dyke, as often happens with authors of his character, had no notion of style or of construction. When he first honoured her with the task of knocking his stuff into shape for publication and she found herself confronted with the mass of manuscript, the muddle and tangle of it threw her into such despair that she, the assistant, called for assistance, and the publisher sent her a real literary person to put the opening chapters into literary form. It was the book calledSand and Sunshine, and the expert strongly objected to Dyke’s initial sentences, condemning them as naïve and childish. “Sand and sunshine,” Dyke had begun, “are very nice things in their way, but you can’t eat them.” She herself did not much care for this turn of phrase, and she connived at very large modifications. But when the proofs of those early chapters were sent out to Dyke, then eleven thousand miles away, he almost went mad with indignation; so that the explosion of his wrath, even at that great distance, made the flat in Oratory Gardens tremble and shake. He said he would break the bones of the literary man. He cursed his impertinence, for tampering with “a document.” She finished the book herself; and then, and afterwards, Dyke allowed her to take any liberties she pleased. He would accept anything from that hand—in fact he never appeared to observe that she had changed things; and she always, with great tact, minimised what she had done. “A word here and there, Anthony, and of course the punctuation; but my effort is simply to make your meaning clear—never to alter it in the slightest degree.”
Each year becoming more skilled, she altered just as she chose, anything or everything—except the titles of the books. Those she dared not touch. They were idiosyncratic. A certain arrogance or assumption in the sound of them had meaning for her, although the rest of the world might not understand. They linked themselves in her mind with that other mannerism, the habit of speaking of himself in the third person—“Dyke will be heard of again; Anthony Dyke is not conscious of failure,” and so on; speaking as he wished the universe to speak of him. Thus the bare simplicityof these titles—The First Cruise, The Second Cruise, The Third Cruise—meant that they were chosen for posterity rather than for the passing hour. In future generations when people saw these words, The First Cruise, they would be in no doubt as to whose cruise it was. They would all know that the cruises made by Dyke were the only ones that had really counted in the century-long siege of the South Pole.
So skilled was she now that she sawThe Third Cruisethrough the press without submitting the proofs to anybody, but not without those fears and agonies from which all very conscientious people suffer when they feel that they are engaged upon a task of supreme importance. She had nightmare dreams about the maps and the illustrations, dreaming once that three photographs of herself and Dyke, taken years ago at Buenos Ayres, had crept into the binding; and she woke early in the morning after she passed the last revise with a cold certainty that she herself had made some such abominable slip as saying seven hundred degrees South Latitude instead of seventy degrees. But everything was correct. She had done her work well, and the book was so favourably received that she soon had a fine batch of press-cuttings laid by for Dyke’s gratification on his return.
That fourth cruise was a long business. Throughout one year she thought he was coming home, and waited full of hope. In that year she did not see him; he never came. Then during the next year she saw him once—for half an hour.
In a letter despatched from New Zealand he told her what she had already learnt by reading the telegraphic news. The fourth cruise had not been very successful.Those scientific gentlemen had squabbled among themselves and Dyke had squabbled with all of them; at a certain point he wanted to let science go hang and push boldly south, while each of the others wanted special facilities for his own line of research—ocean-sounding, magnetic observation, dredging, scraping, altitude-measuring, or whatever it might be. Dyke, making his southern dash, soon got the ship tight-locked; provisions ran scarce, scurvy appeared, one of the scientists died; then when the ice set them free and he reluctantly turned northward, they encountered terrible weather. Moss scraped off rocks, stuff dredged up from the bottom of the sea, and other treasures, were lost; the dead man’s diary was destroyed by salt water; the homeward voyage of the battered ship became a chapter of accidents.
Dyke wrote with the best attempt at cheerfulness that can be made by a sick man who is heavily bruised in spirit. He was ill—he had to confess it—and as soon as the ship reached Brisbane they would put him into a hospital. He said he knew he would get well again directly, but, oh, how he wished that he had his little Emmie there to console him.
Of course he had not meant that she was to go to him; but she sent off a cable message and started next day. At Marseilles she overtook and caught a steamer of the Orient Line. Many people on the vessel noticed her and several talked with her—that old maid who used to sit out on deck knitting, always knitting, looking up with a pensive smile sometimes while her fingers continued to move the needles busily.
At Brisbane she found him strong and well, entirely recovered, but in the very act of departing for NewGuinea, whither he was being sent again on government work. Delay was impossible. They had thirty minutes together in an hotel drawing-room.
Half-an-hour. It was enough—if there could be no more. It was worth all the trouble. She came back to England at once, by a steamer of the P. & O. Line—sitting on deck, knitting, the old maid to whom people spoke because of her loneliness and her gentle smile.
THE two booksNew Guinea RevisitedandA Further Investigationgive the three years narrative of Dyke’s exploratory work in the mountains, with his study of the various native races, and his adventures among the lesser islands. These matters, as his father said, belong to history; and there is also historical record of his having been at home, or very near home, in the year 1908. It was in this year that the lingering quarrel between him and Saint-Bertin, the French explorer, found its culmination in a duel “à outrance,” which took place somewhere on the outskirts of Paris. Saint-Bertin was the challenger and in regard to the combat itself there were many stories afloat in both countries; the accepted English version being that four shots were exchanged and that Dyke fired his two straight into the air, although he had received a scrape on the thigh from the enemy’s first round. The Frenchmen were undecided whether to take this as a further insult or abeau geste, until, as it was alleged, Dyke said the whole thing was damned nonsense and he would continue to shoot at the sky all the afternoon, since, however much he disliked Monsieur de Saint-Bertin personally, he refused to risk injuring France by incapacitating one of her bravest sons. If indeed he said anything of the sort, one may suppose that he did so in his grandest manner, with a Spanish bow or two and with all sincerity of spirit. For, whateveraccusations might be justly levelled against Anthony Dyke for arrogance or overbearingness, no one could charge him with a lack of magnanimity. At any rate his late foe was satisfied by his demeanour—a satisfaction proved by Saint-Bertin’s dedicating his next book to Dyke.
Emmie was satisfied too, when the packet arrived at the flat, forwarded by Dyke’s publishers, and she read the dedication: “I offer myself the signal honour”—all in the most beautiful French—“of inscribing on this page the name of a good comrade, a courteous gentleman, a knight who has wandered from the age of chivalry to teach in this epoch of low ambitions and sordid concurrences the lesson that men may be rivals, and yet friends, of different fatherland but one brotherhood, united to death and beyond it by mutual admiration, esteem, respect, homage”; and so on and so forth. Miss Verinder, thrilling to the lavish praise of her knight errant, liked the beginning of the inscription better than the end. It seemed to her that the Frenchman, winding up, put himself too much on a level with Dyke.
She was doing more and more for him. All his correspondence was sent to her by the bank or the publishers and she dealt with it as best she could. Among these business people she was known as his authorised representative, his “attorney.” She had long ago bought a tin deed box for the safe keeping of his papers, and in course of time she bought another of the same shape and size. These boxes stood in her bedroom, disguised by brocade covers that she had made and embroidered with her own patient hands; and she was never happier than when they were pulled forwardfrom the wall, uncovered, showing the white letters of the name on the shining black enamel—“Anthony Dyke, Esq., C.M.G., etc., etc.” On her knees before them, tidying their always tidy contents, docketing and stringing the various packets, she had wonderful sensations of power and importance—as if she had been rearranging Dyke’s life itself instead of its scribbled records, setting it in order for him, making it easier and more comfortable.
Amongst the neatly folded packets there was one with the label, “Mrs. Anthony Dyke”; and to this Emmie added every six months a receipted account from the asylum in the midlands—Upperslade Park, as they called it. The sight of that address on the stamped piece of paper always gave her a little shock of pain or discomfort; she hated that particular bundle in the box, and used to shrink involuntarily from the task of opening it and retying it. Her hands grew slow as she touched it, and she lapsed into a waking dream while she thought of the great irrevocable fact, and of what his life, their life, might have been if the fact had not been there.
Since his banking account came entirely into her charge and duty compelled her to examine the passbook with close attention, she had made the discovery that another person beyond herself was taking liberties. As well as subscribing rather large sums anonymously to the funds of those various expeditions and thereby to a certain extent “dipping her capital,” as her old friend and adviser, the late Mr. Williams, would have described it, she had also paid smaller sums directly to Anthony’s account at the bank. She began this practise in fear and trembling. But Anthony never detectedthat he wasbeing thus mysteriously aided. He never counted his money, knowing always that he had not enough, and devoting always every penny he possessed to the needs of a work insufficiently supported by the State and the people. Now she discovered that old Mr. Dyke also fed balances or reduced overdrafts from time to time by unacknowledged contributions.
Her own father was now dead, but in old Dyke she had found another father—a father who understood her. There was nothing that she need keep back from him, nothing that she might not discuss with him. She knew the house called Endells better than she had known her home in Prince’s Gate, and felt more truly at home there. Everything about it was old, settled, full of time-honoured repose; when she and Louisa arrived upon a visit, the old servants, the old walls, the dear quaint old furniture itself welcomed them. Neighbours thought she was a relative of the house; the people of the village smiled at her, and remembered her as somehow belonging to Endells although not regularly living there. She might have lived there, had she wished, in all the time of Anthony’s absences, but she continued to be merely a frequent visitor. And not once did she go there with the son and future owner of the house. A delicacy that all three felt but never spoke of debarred her from that joy. The precious days that Anthony gave to Endells were lost to her entirely.
At the side of the house there was a bit of walled garden where she used to sit with Mr. Dyke. The ground sloped down slightly, so that the tops of the side walls were not horizontal but slanting, and you looked upward to the house with its modest terrace, broad eaves, and latticed windows; sheltered from thewind, the little place was such a sun-trap that you could sit there even on winter days. But it was prettiest and most delightful in early summer. If Emmie, walking along the ugly Brompton Road, cared to shut her eyes and think of it, she could always see it—those flint walls with the odd pent-house roof to protect the blossoming peach trees, the borders of bright flowers, the trim grass path and stone steps; dark green ilex trees against a blue sky, and a glimpse of one of the old servants moving to and fro behind the open casements. Over her head the sweet sea breeze was blowing, bees were humming in the fragrant lavender, and perhaps the bells of the church began to sound behind the pointed gables and huge chimney stacks at the end of the house. Seeing and feeling it thus imaginatively, she had a consciousness always of comfort and rest; the kindly friendly little spot of earth had sunshine in it that filled and warmed her heart. Its walls were buttresses against which she could lean when she felt her weakness and longed for supporting strength.
Here, during her last visit, she had unburdened her mind of the distress caused by the treatment of Dyke in newspapers and reviews. As his publicity agent as well as his man of business, she was pained by a change of tone that she found it difficult to define; it was not that press writers—at any rate those of the better sort—were ever disrespectful, but they were too often oblivious. Mr. Dyke, sitting beside her on the garden bench, patted her hand and told her not to fret.
The fact was there had come to Anthony Dyke what comes to all who have built a reputation by startling the public, as soon as they cease to startle. Moreover, people were busy saying about others all that for solong they had said about him. The many new names demanded loud-voiced recognition—Nansen, Jackson, Scott, Shackleton, and others.
Reeling off the new names, writers merely touched on the old names in parentheses—“nor must we forget the pioneer work done by Anthony Dyke”—or “such men as Bruce, de Gerlache, and Dyke.” They spoke of him as “the veteran explorer”; “still active, unless we are mistaken,” and so on. One hateful rag, using the newly introduced phrase, even spoke of him as “a back number.” And several times the list-makers forgot him altogether; his name was omitted from their roll of honour. Then Emmie, with her facile pen, was compelled herself to write “A Correction,” indignantly asking for space to point out that Mr. Anthony Dyke by piercing the vale of mystery in the year 1888 had opened the southern path which all others had since then followed; or that it appeared strangely ungrateful when speaking of Antarctic explorers not to mention that Mr. Anthony Dyke had held the Farthest South record for fourteen years.
But his father said all this was of no consequence. It was an experience through which the greatest men invariably passed. Matters would right themselves. And he reminded Emmie of the splendid solidification of Anthony’s earlier work, of the proof during recent years of all that had aroused question or doubt—those pigmies, the sacred remains, everything. Each year the foundations of his fame were being rendered firmer by the continually enhancing value of his discoveries, and the edifice raised thereon would stand lofty and secure ages after all these scribbling worms had returned to the dust from which they came.
“Dear Mr. Dyke,” said Emmie, “you are always so wise. You always are able to make me see things again in their proper proportions. Yes, I remember what Tony once said. Justice is done in the end.”
They were fond of each other, these two, bound close by their fondness for that other one. The friendly village folk liked to see them in church together using the same hymn-book; or on the cliff path, the old gentleman leaning on the lady’s arm.
He was glad of this assistance sometimes; for he had not borne out that promise of the man who will never grow older. After his seventy-third birthday he began to age rapidly; and although he still preserved an outward aspect of alertness and carried his thin frame erectly, he had become frail. His walks were restricted; at each visit Emmie noticed a diminution of their range. A certain bench on the cliff path that they used to pass swingingly was now his farthest goal, and he was glad to sit and rest before turning homeward. They sat there one Sunday morning, high above the many-coloured sea and the dark rocks, and he spoke to her of religion.
“Emmie dear, it is good of you to go to church with me.”
“I love it,” she said. And this was true.
“Tell me,” he said. “Was it Anthony who took your religious faith from you?”
“Oh, Mr. Dyke!” She gave a little cry of surprise and distress. “Of course not. Tony and I haven’t discussed sacred matters for ever so long.”
“But you don’t believe—I mean, as we church people—do you, dear?”
Emmie made a fluttering movement of her glovedhands, then folded them on her lap, and with puckered brows looked across the sea to the faint silver line of the horizon. “It would be wicked of me to pretend. I’ll tell you what I believe.” But what did she believe? It was not easy to say, although she spoke with absolute sincerity. She told him that all her faith in the orthodox Christian doctrine had gone from her so gradually—and she must add so easily—that she scarce knew how it went or when it was gone finally. She thought—now that she considered it—that association with a mind as bold as his son’s had perhaps had its part in rendering her old submissive faith impossible. But the loss of orthodoxy had not made her a materialist—oh, far from that. She firmly believed in some supreme and beneficent force that ruled the spiritual universe. That, she thought, was his son’s belief also. And she wound up with words to the effect that it would be most terrible to her if she might not go on hoping there would be some kind of after life in which she and Anthony could clasp impalpable hands and exchange the phantom equivalent of kisses.
“I see—I understand,” said Mr. Dyke gently; and he got up from the bench. “Perhaps very few people could say more nowadays. I don’t know. I never judge. It is all a mystery—but I am too old to change, myself. Shall we toddle back to our roast beef? If we’re late Hannah will scold us again. Thank you, dear”; and he took her arm.
He said he was old, and he looked old; she noticed then, more clearly than before, the uncertain footsteps, the violent yet feeble effort, the moving fragility of age.
Why should she be surprised? Time was standingstill for nobody. The blondness of comfortable Mrs. Bell of Queen’s Gate had gone. She had lost that appearance of an expensive court card, she had been shuffled from the pack or had become a queen dowager; she was out of breath when she got to the top of Emmie’s steep staircase, and she went regularly to Homburg or Harrogate for the waters. When she gave parties her fine big rooms were thronged with another generation, who asked leave to push the valuable furniture on one side in order to dance, and then didn’t dance, but romped in a thing they called “the Boston.”
Wherever Emmie turned her large mild eyes, she could see the changes wrought by unstationary time. It was becoming dangerous to cross the Brompton Road because of the buzzing motor cars, which travelled faster than the motor ’buses. The tube railway had been opened. Men were flying in the air and going in boats below the surface of the water; members of the female aristocracy were dining in low necks at the Carlton Hotel; Mr. Lloyd George was a responsible cabinet minister. What would Mr. Verinder have thought and said? In Exhibition Road one met well-to-do young men smoking pipes, wearing preposterous knickerbockers, and carrying golf clubs; young ladies rode astride past the windows of Prince’s Gate; only the will of Queen Alexandra kept mechanically propelled traffic out of Hyde Park itself.
In the golden summer of 1909 she had the wanderer with her for a long while.
She knew that he was coming, but had not been prepared for his actual advent. It was after luncheon,the room full of sunlight, and she sat in a corner busily typewriting; with a tray of papers on a table at her elbow and slips of printers’ proofs lying on the floor by her feet. Louisa shouted in the passage, and when Emmie heard his voice she jumped up, knocking down the tray and its papers as she did so. She nearly sent the typewriting machine after the tray as she sprang forward to meet him at the opened door. Then something brought her to a dead stop.
He was grey. His beautiful dark hair had lost its black lustrousness; it was the dull colour of a grey silk dress. She gave a little shiver, and then took his hand and looked into his faceas if not noticing any difference.
“Emmie! Let me look at you.”
As always, he held her arms apart before drawing her to him, studied her with adoring eyes; and she knew without the possibility of doubt that he could not or would not see the slightest change in her. So far as she was concerned, she need never fear the years or their marks; always he would see not what she was really, but the girl that she had once been.
Soon they laughed together at the new colour of his hair, and Emmie said it was an improvement. It gave him greater dignity. He would look very handsome in the portrait that a famous artist was going to paint. Trulythe grey hair did not make him look any older; although now fifty-one he was wonderfully, almost incredibly young; sometimes making her and Louisa feel, as they had felt long ago, that they were hiding in the flat an overgrown schoolboy and not a middle-aged public character. He chaffed and teased Louisa; he took the parrot out of its cage and couldnot get it back again; he spent one whole day in teaching the new white cat to jump from between his knees over his clasped hands.
He was cheerful and gay; yet beneath the high spirits Emmie detected his occasional sadness. After running down to Devonshire for a few days he returned to her; and never had he been so entirely sweet or more absolutely devoted; and yet, nevertheless, she understood that he was restless in mind and, except for the comfort of their love, unhappy. It would pass—as all signs of weakness passed from him—but she knew that he was feeling the smart of disappointment. It was more than his own failure in the fourth cruise, it was the knowledge that his province had been invaded. That ocean which he had come to consider as belonging to Anthony Dyke had been attacked by so many others. The hidden mystery of its continent was imminently threatened not by him, Dyke, but by the new men.
He was still generous in his praise, trying hard to conceal the touch of bitterness caused by personal considerations. “Nansen is a splendid fellow. Take it from me, Emmie, he deserves all that is said of him—and they have made a deuce of a fuss, haven’t they? He has been lucky, of course—devilish lucky. Mark my words; the North Pole will be reached”; and walking about the room, he paused to make a widely magnanimous gesture, as though giving away the North Pole. After all, the North Pole was nothing to him; he had never marked it down; anybody might have it—that is, anybody who deserved it.“They are wonderful people, the Norwegians, Emmie. I suppose you know they are fitting out the Fram for a third voyage. Yes, Roald Amundsen will be in command—topping chap, Amundsen—he’ll get there.” Then she saw him wince as he went on to speak again of things relating to the other Pole, the South Pole,hisPole. “That was a tremendous performance of Shackleton’s, Emmie. Great.Lucky beggar, Shackleton. Scott too. I take off my hat to Scott.” And he sighed. “Scott ought to be invincible—sent out as they mean to send him—with all that money behind him. You remember what Sir Clements Markham said about Antarctic exploration—he wanted a hundred and fifty thousand pounds to send a man in proper style.” Then, after looking ruefully at Emmie, he laughed and snapped his fingers. “Poor old Dyke never scraped together a tenth part of that sum, did he?”
When she suggested that they should hire a motor-car, cross the channel, and go for a tour in Brittany, he eagerly embraced her idea, vowing that it was an inspiration. Those three weeks on wheels were idyllic—rest in motion, quiet introspective joy with a changing outward panorama of pleasant images. He seemed perfectly happy, scarcely once mentioning the South Pole; and she, watching him as a mother watches a son who has been crossed in love, hoped that he was not secretly grieving.
As soon as they were back in London he grew restless. He would sit looking at her, pretending to listen to her, and then suddenly go and ask Louisa to see if the coast was clear, because he wanted a walk. He walked by himself on these occasions, fast and furiously, “blowing off steam,” as he explained to Emmie. At other times he would stand by the window, with his hands in his pockets, motionless for an hour and more, staring down through the foliage of the plane tree as iftrying to look through the whole globe and see what was happening down there at the antipodes.
The news had come of the Japanese Antarctic expedition; the newspapers were always talking of Captain Scott’s preparations; there were vague rumours of other carefully planned attacks. It seemed that all the world was “chipping in,” and that poor old Dyke’s white garden was to have its ice flowers snatched, as if by marauding gangs of mischievous children.
There was talk also, well maintained, of Amundsen and the Fram; and again Emmie observed that Dyke could speak of the gallant Norwegian without wincing. Amundsen—topping fellow—was for the North. More power to him. Only, confound these Japanese, and the rest of them, southward bound.
Beyond the restlessness there was irritability. Often he was irritable with his Emmie, rudely impatient at least once when she was not quick enough to grasp the point of intricate explanations concerning the various plans of these other adventurers; and he snapped at faithful Louisa—a thing he had never done till now. Miss Verinder bore with him, showed always an infinite patience. She could interpret all his emotions; even if she got muddled now and then in latitudes and longitudes. He was suffering in its acutest form the nostalgic longing that is felt by the disabled fox-hunting squire when he has to lie in bed and listen to the huntsman’s voice and horn while hounds are drawing the home coverts. “Oh, damn the doctor. Get my boots, and saddle any old crock that’s left in the stable. I’m going.”
He began to tell her of what he would do if he “made a bid for it” himself, at this eleventh hour.“Do you follow me, Emmie? There are more ways of killing a dog than by choking him with butter.” He said that if he could put his hands on so small a sum as ten thousand pounds, he would join the race—even now. “Listen, Emmie. These are my notions of a chance to get ahead of them all—even now.” She listened meekly and attentively to his interminable harangues; she watched him as he paced to and fro, still talking, quite late at night sometimes, long after they ought to have been asleep; and she never blinked an eye. Nor did she demur, unless conscience obliged her to question his too sanguine calculations.
Then at last he said some words that wounded her most dreadfully.
“Upon my soul, Emmie, you seem as if you could never understand anything.”
She uttered one of her faint little cries; but he went on, not seeing that he had caused her pain. He went on until, pausing for breath, he noticed that her lips were quivering, while her hands agitated themselves queerly; and she said in a strained voice that she knew very well how she failed him for want of intelligence, but she was always trying to improve herself.
“Youfail me, what!” He gave a roar as of a stricken beast, and dropped on his knees, with his arms round her, imploring forgiveness. “My darling little Emmie—my guardian angel. Oh, I ought to be kicked from here to Penzance. I didn’t mean it. On my honour I never meant it. Yet, clumsy lout that I am, I said it. Forgive me, oh, forgive me.”
And she, stroking his bowed head, her face shining, said that it was “quite all right”; never could she really doubt his indulgence towards her, his loving kindness.
But it was long before she was able to comfort him or make him forget the offence of which he had been guilty; remaining on his knees he continued to apologise.
“Emmie, you’re such an angel—you can make allowances and find excuses. It’s only that I am so cursedly miserable about all this. If you think, it is devilish bad luck, isn’t it? To be kicked up to the equator as I’ve been—to be cooked in that damned Turkish bath of a New Guinea—to be kept there these years—how many?—with the very colour bleached out of my hair and the marrow grilling to nothing in my bones—while your Newnesses and your Harmsworths, your admirals and cabinet ministers, your lords and fine ladies, have all been putting their heads together and opening their purse strings—yes, and your kings and mikados too—to fit out and give carte blanche to any one who has the cheek to tell ’em he knows the way to the South Pole! And I’m not as young as I used to be, Emmie. I don’t feel it myself, but the others say it; they throw it in my face. I’d show them, if I had the chance—now. In another ten years it may be too late and I may be really done for then.”
A few days after this she told him that the balance of his banking account would very soon amount to half the sum he had mentioned; he could rely on there being five thousand pounds to his credit. He would scarcely believe it possible. Had the money fallen out of the sky? She said that the cheap editions of his books had been selling marvellously well, and reminded him that royalties for six months were due from the publishers.
He asked no more questions. He was frowningly absorbed, he rumpled his grey hair and cogitated; thenhe laughed gaily. “Five thousand! It’s a nucleus. If only I could add to it somehow.”
It was of course futile for him to think of taking the hat round here in England; the public had thrown their very last threepenny bits into the hats of those other beggars. Then suddenly he said he would try America. “Emmie, there’s a fellow out there who believes in me—a prince of good fellows—I stayed with him at his house on Long Island—lovely place, like Hampton Court Palace on a small scale—and he’s rolling in money. What the devil’s his name? Porter? Potter? James—yes, James L. Porter! That’s it. By Jove, I’ll see if I can touch him.”
Immediately he cabled to Mr. Porter of New York, asking him to put up five thousand pounds. He made the message as eloquent as possible, not sparing words or considering rates, and he grinned while he read it with mock emphasis to Emmie. He was a schoolboy again, full of life and impudence; the gun-running Dyke of ancient days. “Now, old girl, if my pal’s a sportsman—as I think he is—he’ll do it.”
He despatched his cablegram early in the morning and fidgeted all day, calculating the difference of time between London and New York, walking about the rooms of the flat.
At six in the evening the reply came. Mr. James L. Porter had cabled the money.
Dyke was almost delirious. He kissed Louisa on both cheeks, he waltzed with Miss Verinder, he executed apas seuland made the cat do a record jump. Then he sang pæans in honour of the Yanks—those sportsmen over the pond—with a chorus of disparagement for the citizens of his native land.“Is there an Englishman alive who would have sent that answer? They don’t waste timetalkingover there, they do. What was it Tennyson said? Our old England will go down in twaddle—or was it babble?—at last. And I scarcely knew the fellow. Any obligation was on my side, not his. He entertained me royally. Bravo, Porter. What’s the matter with James L. P.?He’sall right.”
At once he sketched his plan. There could be no difficulty in collecting staunch comrades; he knew dozens of likely men. Of course everything must be done cheaply. He would go to Greenland at once to get dogs; he would buy a whaler, fit her out as best he could, and go down light—a scratch lot, certainly. “But with luck, Emmie”; and his eyes flashed. “Get there before Captain Scott, eh? Why not?”
They went out to dinner, after he had sent a dozen telegrams, and he was on fire with happy excitement.
“I shall write to Scott and tell him I’m chipping in. That’s only common courtesy. Although, hang it, no one asksmypermission whentheychip in.”
He had gone. She knew that the thing was hopeless, and yet she hoped. The letters that he sent her were not reassuring; with his scratch lot he would run dreadful risks and have no real chance of success, but still she went on hoping. It is too hard merely to wait and not to hope at all.
Although her financial position would have been described by the late Mr. Verinder as distinctly unsound and she was drifting from the smooth waters of safe investment towards the maelstrom of sheer speculation, she sometimes blamed herself for not havingencroached on her already reduced capital to a greater extent. It was horrible to her to think for a moment or two that if she and J. L. Porter had given him more money, his perils might have been less and his prospects brighter. But, no, if she had put her contribution at a higher figure than five thousand pounds it would have aroused his suspicion, and then he would have refused to take anything at all. Moreover, as she consoled herself by reflecting, it would not have beenrightto give him more; shemustthink of the future; shemustbe decently provided against the day when his travels would be over. When that day came he would not of course have a shilling of his own; for whatever he possessed or earned or inherited he would certainly spend on his work before he ceased working. Then, if they were both poor, what would happen to them?
The time passed very slowly. Although he wrote to her she had lost touch with him; after the beginning of 1910 no exchange of letters was possible. In March he had begun to work his way southwards, and later he wrote to her from South American ports. She sent all her letters to Tasmania. At Hobart, as he said, he would do a lot of refitting and much valuable time would be consumed. His letters showed that he was happy and hopeful; and she too hoped.
Then in September of this year strange news burst upon the world and threw her into a state of white-hot indignation. Amundsen with the Fram had arrived at Madeira; instead of going north Amundsen was going south. He was going to the Antarctic. It seemed to Miss Verinder, quite unreasonably, a piece of dreadful treachery. This commander, all the while that his preparations are being made has permitted every civilizedcountry to suppose that his aim is northward; he sails amid their good wishes; people stand with their eyes turned northward, thinking of him, peering after him. And suddenly they are told to turn round and look the other way. He has gone in the opposite direction, secretly stealing a march on innocent trustful rivals.[1]
Miss Verinder held forth on the subject at an afternoon party given by Mrs. Bell in Queen’s Gate that same day. It was a quiet informal party, because people still wore mourning for King Edward and many of Mrs. Bell’s acquaintance had not yet returned to London. Emmie, standing by the buffet and being assisted to tea and cake by two attentive clergymen, looked very nice in her black dress, with a large picture hat, and some ermine round her slim neck. Unusually animated, a spot of wrathful pink on each cheek, she spoke in scathing terms, and almost choked once as she bit the rather dry cake. Indeed she was throbbing with anger, although her voice, while it emitted bitterness, was still modulated and gentle of tone. She said in effect that it was disgraceful of Mr. Amundsen to chip. Captain Scott must be utterly disgusted.
“Who is Captain Scott?” asked Mrs. Bell. “Do I know him, Emmeline?”
Other ladies gathered round, telling each other that Miss Verinder was speaking of the South Pole and all these explorers. “She is always so well informed.”
And Emmie, firm and explanatory, said that such a“chip-in” as Amundsen’s simply isn’t done. She knew as a fact that in such cases warning was always given. And continuing, she boldly named the name. It was not only Captain Scott who would be upset, there were the Japanese to think of—and the private expedition that was being conducted by Mr. Anthony Dyke.
“Oh, yes,” said somebody. “Dyke. Yes, to be sure. Dyke’s one of the most famous of them all, isn’t he?”
Mrs. Bell had moved on and was talking to a middle-aged couple who had just arrived at the party; but if she had heard Dyke’s name mentioned, it would scarcely have aroused any recollection of the annoyance and trouble that he had once caused. That old scandal was so completely dead that the most vindictive enemy could not now have revived it, and nothing perhaps better proved the esteem in which Miss Verinder was held by all these people than Mrs. Bell’s manner when presently introducing two of them to her. They were the late arrivals, a Mr. and Mrs. Parker, of Ennismore Gardens. They themselves had craved the introduction, and they said their nurse had told them of the very charming way in which Miss Verinder had spoken one morning to their little girl Mildred on her pony outside the front door. They thanked Miss Verinder for her kindness.
Miss Verinder said she deserved no thanks; she was very fond of children; and she thought their daughter such an intelligent, pretty little thing.
“Well, she really is,” said Mrs. Parker, enormously gratified; and she and Mr. Parker together related that the child was good as well as attractive; a quite extraordinarily obedient child—“so different from her brothers”—seeming to take the sweetest kind of pleasure in doing exactly as she was bid.
Miss Verinder said that was very nice indeed, and then she rather startled both Parkers by asking, “What will you do with her when she is grown up? I suppose you mean to give her some sort of profession?”
“Oh, come,” said Mr. Parker, with a foolish chuckle, “I shouldn’t have expected you of all people, Miss Verinder, to say that.”
“No,” said Mrs. Parker. “Surelyyou’renot modern? You don’t believe in letting girls leave home, and make careers for themselves, and all that?”
“No, no, Miss Verinder is not serious,” said Mr. Parker, smiling and nodding his head. “In spite of all the talk nowadays, the best career for young ladies is just what it always was—marriage! Unless, of course,” he added hastily, “a young lady, to the surprise of her friends and admirers, declines—ah, refuses—herself deciding that she prefers—possessing the cultivated and informed type of mind that does not seek—or perhaps I should say, does not brook—domestic ties”; andhe embarrassed himself badly in his efforts to convey the polite opinion that, although Miss Verinder was an old maid, she might have married many, many times had she wished to do so. Then he wound up in regard to his own daughter by indicating that when Mildred was old enough, say, in ten years time, he would select for her a suitable husband, somebody that her parents both trusted and liked, and the docile, obedient Mildred would take him and say thank-you.
“It has been such a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” said Mrs. Parker;“and we should be so very glad if you would visit us. Ennismore Gardens, you know.”
Miss Verinder, in a somewhat absent-minded style, said she would be pleased to avail herself of this invitation some time or other.
“Anytime,” said Mrs. Parker. “Of course, we know how much you are sought after.”
The year 1911 was the longest that Emmie had as yet experienced. The last of Dyke’s letters told her that he expected to cross the Antarctic Circle in January, and then the immense silence began. She spent a couple of months at least at Endells with his father, who had been ill; and she and the old man encouraged each other to hope for almost impossible things. Notwithstanding insufficiency of preparation, unsuitability of vessel, doubtful allegiance of subordinates, “Why should not Tony pull it off this time?” Heavily handicapped, yes, but with such inexhaustible power in him himself. Emmie, hoping more and more, was ready to abandon painfully acquired knowledge, and to believe that only luck was needed. All luck really. The luck must turn in his favour—he had always said so. Moreover, who should venture to assign any limit to the probable in the case of such a man? He was so miraculous.