Life treads on lifeAnd heart on heart;We press too close in church and martTo keep a dream or grave apart.
Life treads on lifeAnd heart on heart;We press too close in church and martTo keep a dream or grave apart.
Life treads on lifeAnd heart on heart;We press too close in church and martTo keep a dream or grave apart.
And when they came back from their ramble on that joyous morning, Diana's letter caused a shadow to come over all the sunlight, and a quick anxious ache to grow up in her heart. After baldly stating the news of Meryl's engagement her cousin wrote:—
"Was it you, or was it that bearish policeman, who suggested to such a dreamer as Meryl the desirability of a martyr's crown?... She is far better suited to love in a cottage and babies, but just because that is the case and it is easy to obtain, she chooses to break her heart on some vague altar of sacrifice. I have no patience with these high-falutin ideas myself, nor with the cottage and babies either, for the matter of that; but I suppose a few people had to be practical and selfish and commonplace, to keep the world going round without violent bumps and jerks. Don't send Meryl congratulations; send her an In Memoriam card. Believe me, it is better suited to the auspicious occasion."
Ailsa showed the letter to her husband, feeling that it was the worst news she had had for many years. "What does it mean, Billy?... What can have influenced her?... My sweet Meryl! What is it?... What can it be?... that keeps Major Carew so aloof? It was easy to see how they attracted each other."
"He is a proud man," her husband said, gravely. "It is not easy for a proud man with nothing to choose a wife with a large fortune."
"Ah, but there is something more," she cried, "it cannot be only that. What has kept him so reserved in every particular all these years?"
But Grenville could not help her, and all the afternoon she worried and fretted in silence.
In the evening she said to him anxiously, after again discussing the news, "Mrs. Fleetwood has often asked me to visit her in Salisbury. Shall I go now? Perhaps if I could get Major Carew to talk?..."
"You will never get him to talk," with quiet conviction.
"Nevertheless, my husband, I feel I must try. We have so much, you and I. One can but make the effort."
She got up from her chair and went round to him, and climbed on to his knee and hid her face, because she was troubled and unhappy.
"Tell me something I can do to help them, Billy?" she pleaded.
He fondled her hair in silence a moment, and then, because he thought it might comfort her afterwards to know she had tried, he said, "There is no harm in your going to Mrs. Fleetwood's. I think the change would do you good."
And Ailsa went to bed a little comforted that at least he sanctioned her journey.
Ailsa had to journey to Selukwe in the post-cart, and she found it very trying; all the more so because her tender heart, which loved all animals, suffered agonies of compassion for the poor underfed, overworked mules, some with sores, urged pitilessly along by their black driver. She wished vainly that she was the happy possessor of a fortune, and might at once finance in Rhodesia the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, for which funds are so urgently needed. At Selukwe she had some little time to wait at the hotel before taking the train, and she went round to the posting-stables to interview any white man she could find who might be in a responsible position towards the post-cart mules on the subject of their condition. The man, of course, complained of the roads, which were in a hopeless condition, and beyond satisfying in a measure her own sense of compassion, she knew she had done little good. But while she talked to the white man at the stables, a thin, scholarly looking, grey-haired gentleman chanced to overhear their discourse, and raising his hat to her with grave courtesy, expressed his admiration of her action.
"But can nothing be done, do you think?" she asked him dolefully.
"I'm afraid not. You see, the Government do not particularly wish that route used, and so they have allowed the road to lapse. Let us hope there will very shortly be a railway, at any rate, to Edwardstown, and that then visitors will be encouraged to go and see your wonderful Zimbabwe ruins, instead of discouraged by the discomforts of the way."
They moved towards the hotel together, and Ailsa asked, "Have you seen them?"
"Only for a few short hours, which were all I could spare from some research work I was doing elsewhere in Rhodesia. I was tremendously impressed by the little I had time to see, and look forward to a long sojourn there presently."
They talked on, their conversation drifting from one subject to another, and then he discovered her name was Grenville, and she that his was Delcombe, and they greeted each other anew as both hailing from lovely Devon. After that he proudly assumed the rôle of escort, and waited upon her hand and foot. As it chanced, he also was journeying to Salisbury, so they became travelling companions, and the chance acquaintanceship ripened rapidly. In the evening they dined together in the restaurant-car and sat long over their meal; and then it was that Ailsa chanced to mention the name of Major Carew.
Henry Delcombe at once remarked, "There was a Major Carew at the Zimbabwe police camp, I think, when I visited the ruins, but I did not see him. I should like to have done. I understood from the young trooper there that he is some relation to the Fourtenay-Carews?" and he paused interrogatively.
"It was the man I am speaking of. Heisa Fourtenay-Carew."
"Ah!..." and Ailsa saw instantly the swift interest in her companion's eyes; a wave as of thought-telepathy that this man probably held the key to Peter Carew's past. Delcombe read in her sparkling eyes that her interest in the soldier-policeman was no casual one, but of the warmest friendship.
"Did you know him before he came out here?" she ventured.
"I knew his father well; I lived near to them in Devon. I was doing some research work, and I had a quiet little home in a lovely valley close to the little place that was then this man's home, and quite near also to Dartwood Hall, where the elder brother, Richard Fourtenay-Carew, lived. They are not a rich family at all, you know. Dartwood Hall and estates and money came to Richard Carew through a very eccentric godmother, who brought him up, and he could do as he liked with it all. His younger brother, Peter Fourtenay-Carew, and his wife had, I think, only a very small income between them besides his pay as a captain. They rented a pretty little place in Devonshire close to Dartwood Hall, and came there for the hunting whenever he was able. The brothers were good friends, and he always had the run of the Dartwood stables. They were an interesting pair, but it was the younger whom I regarded as a friend, and that was why I was anxious to find out if I had stumbled across his son. As you may have heard, Captain Fourtenay-Carew, the father, was killed in the hunting-field and his wife died within the year. The two boys, then quite babies, were adopted by Richard Carew and brought up as his own sons."
He paused and studied Ailsa's face gravely. She was almost breathless with interest, and he seemed a little taken aback by it. She saw the question in his eyes, and hastened to add frankly, "I cannot tell you how interested I am to hear this. My husband and I think there is no one in the world like Major Carew; in fact, in some vague, distant way I believe we are related. But he never speaks of his past life at all. For some reason he seems to regard it as a closed book; he even persists in calling himself a Rhodesian, and resolutely ignores the fact that he is anything else as well."
"Ah!..." and the thin, scholarly face of her companion looked as if he were obtaining a clue he wanted. There was a pause, and each seemed to be weighing something in his and her mind. Then Ailsa spoke: "I conclude he has some reason for his extreme reticence, and I hope I should be one of the last to pry into anyone's secrets; but for a reason I can hardly explain, I should be very glad to know something now that might possibly help me to do a special service for him. I shall see him in Salisbury."
"What I know is no secret in a general sense," said Delcombe, speaking with grave deliberation; "but the facts of it were cleverly hushed up by his uncle, and you will easily understand that Major Carew would never speak of it now. My own interest in the matter is because of my regard for his father, and, I think I may say, admiration for himself. Anyone seeing the two brothers together as I did—that is, the younger men—must have felt deeply drawn to the elder and repulsed by the younger. A finer young fellow than Peter Fourtenay-Carew never stepped. The other brother was good-looking also, but he was cunning and crafty and little liked. Yet, such are the mysterious ways of Providence, the younger brother, by an unlooked-for turn of events, became the possessor of wealth and place and influence, and the elder went out from his country penniless, exiled, and alone. As far as I can judge, no one in England has ever heard of him since. I don't think it is even known where he is. A few of us knew that he came out to South Africa, and journeyed to Rhodesia with one of the pioneer columns, but that is quite sixteen years ago, and events at home move quickly, and his utter silence lost him the warm places he might have held in most hearts, or, at any rate, left them in abeyance. I only came out to Rhodesia a few months ago, and I have been much on the veldt, studying ancient relics; but I have kept my ears open. I heard of the man you are speaking of at the police camp at Zimbabwe, but the young trooper, Mr. Stanley, was not communicative. With a very praiseworthyesprit de corps, he declined to be drawn into any discussion whatever concerning his officer. I heard after I left that he, Major Carew, was a very reserved, taciturn man, but it was generally credited he had once held a captaincy in the Blues; that and a personal description persuaded me he was my old friend's son."
"Yes," Ailsa said, "there can be no doubt about it. I suppose you knew that he was going to be married just before he came away, and something rather dreadful happened?"
"Ah; he has revealed that much, has he?" in some surprise.
"Not to me; to a great friend of mine."
"I see."
He seemed perplexed, uncertain evidently, how much to tell her. Ailsa understood, and was a little at a loss how to act herself.
"I should not have mentioned the fact to anyone else," she said, "as he evidently wishes to keep all personal matters entirely to himself; but, of course, you were very likely to know it. I also learnt from my husband that he was the elder brother and originally his uncle's heir, but something happened to cause Mr. Carew to change his mind."
Then Mr. Delcombe said thoughtfully, "I think there is no reason why I should not tell you a little more about him. I have always felt exceedingly sorry for his determined exile, and the isolation from all his old friends and old delights. I know that he dearly loved Devon, and one feels it is time now that he came back to try and pick up the threads. You and your husband appear to be his only friends, and as a distant connection you might be able to approach him upon a subject where a stranger, or shall we say a forgotten friend, would be diffident." He paused, then added, "I wonder if he has the remotest idea that, owing to several deaths, he is now the next heir to the Marquis of Toxeter?"
A sudden joy seemed to sweep Ailsa through and through, and her eyes shone, and she clasped and unclasped her hands with excitement as she breathed, "O, is thatreallytrue? It seems too good; too much like a story-book."
"Yes, it is a fact. Major Carew's family was a younger branch, and sixteen years ago it would never have entered anyone's head that the marquisate might fall to them. Time makes many changes, and three heirs have died in succession. The present marquis is old and has no children, therefore the next heir was Richard Fourtenay-Carew, also childless, and after him Major Carew's father. Richard Carew died very shortly after this man left England, and young Geoffrey Carew then succeeded to all his possessions. I believe something was left to Major Carew, but he refused to touch it. It is since then that (his uncle being dead) he has become the heir of the present marquis, and I think it highly probable he has no notion of the fact whatever."
"I am almost certain he has not," Ailsa intercepted, "for I think he would have mentioned it to my husband."
"Unfortunately there is very little money with the title, but he is not a man to trouble much about that; and, of course, the present marquis may live some time. But I have thought sometimes if heknewit might wipe out a little of the past bitterness. His brother robbed him of so much, but in the end it would seem Nature is making things even again. Geoffrey would give half his wealth to have the title, and I have reason to believe that it is a great bitterness to him to know that his brother, who cares nothing at all about it probably, must inevitably inherit it if he outlives the present owner."
"And you will tell him?..." eagerly.
"Perhaps. Or it may be that you!..." He hesitated, and looked at her thoughtfully.
And then Ailsa said impulsively, "Let me give you trust for trust. I am taking this journey now chiefly on Major Carew's account. There is trouble in the air. I cannot tell you the facts; I scarcely know them. But he has lived his isolated, reserved life so long, I feel it has perhaps warped his view a little, and if he could be persuaded to open his heart to a friend he might see things in a clearer light, and save himself and a dear friend of mine great unhappiness." She paused, then added sadly, "But I am so much in the dark concerning him I hardly know how to win his confidence. There appears to have been this something before he left England, something rather terrible, that has shadowed all his life."
"There was; I will tell you in confidence. Richard Carew hushed it all up, but there were a few of us whoknew. His quarrel with his uncle was because he insisted upon marrying a poor governess, a most lovely and charming lady, instead of the bride his uncle had chosen. He was disinherited, and his allowance so curtailed that he would have to leave his regiment; but none of that troubled him in the least. He adored his fiancée, and was supremely happy, as anyone could see. Then the tragedy fell. I cannot tell you all the details, probably no one knows them except his friends the Maitlands and his brother, and uncle who is now dead. He was out shooting with Maitland, and the other two were near at hand; and Maitland had repeated something to him his brother had said, which was a deadly insult to Miss Whitby. He was in a blind fury, and scarcely knew what he was doing, when he swung round and fired at a hare behind him...." There was a moment's intense pause before he finished in a low voice—"and the shot killed the poor girl he was to have married in a week."
"O, how terrible!..." Ailsa gasped, and went white to the lips. "How terrible! Poor man! O, poor man!" Tears came into her eyes, and she turned away to hide them, and for some moments both were silent.
Then Delcombe continued, "It is no wonder that he has been always reserved and silent. I suppose in a way it killed the part of him that could be anything else. He just went right away to a strange country, dropped the double name they had always been proud of, and cut himself adrift altogether from everything connected with his old life. It is no doubt his intention to remain apart, and take up the old threads no more. But I loved his father, and I loved him in my old-fashioned way which he was not likely to perceive; and when the Royal Geographical Society offered me a chance of a trip to Rhodesia I took it gladly. One of my first thoughts, when the decision was finally made and I was appointed, was, 'Perhaps I shall come across Peter Carew's son.'"
Ailsa rested her elbow on the table and leaned her head on her hand, still with the glisten of tears in her eyes. "It makes one feel there is surely a Providence," she told him softly, "for my chance meeting with you may save him, and that other, from everlasting regret."
A little later, when they went to their separate compartments for the night, she thanked him again. "You have made me feel quite broken-hearted for our dear soldier-policeman. Think what his memories must have been all these years! But perhaps his dark day is finished. I am very hopeful now. God bless you for remaining so staunch a friend to him and giving me your confidence!"
And in Johannesburg that night Meryl said simply and quietly to van Hert, "I will marry you as soon as you wish. As you say, there is nothing to wait for, and, afterwards, there is much that we can do together."
"In a fortnight?" he urged, and she assented.
But Diana insisted otherwise. "It is simply indecent haste," she exclaimed, "and nothing in this world will persuade me to decide upon my bridesmaid's frock and have it ready in less than three weeks, and it may be a month."
And Meryl—a quiet, white-faced Meryl nowadays, with little enough enthusiasm for frocks and wedding-presents—let her have her way.
The first meeting between Ailsa and Carew was a very difficult one for the woman. Directly she saw him she realised that he had drawn back into his shell further than ever, and the increased greyness on his temples spoke for itself of anxious, troubled hours. At first he had been difficult to entrap. In reply to her note came just a vague regret that he was exceptionally busy, and often out on the veldt, with a hope that he would see her before she left. One or two other attempts failed entirely to procure the interview, and she was almost at her wits' end. Finally, she had to resort to strong measures, and gain her end by subterfuge. Carew went to the house of a man friend by invitation, and was shown into his friend's den to find Ailsa awaiting him alone. The expression on his face told her instantly that he felt himself trapped, and resented it. But she could be very disarming when she liked, and she had tact enough to follow the straight course most likely to appeal to him now that she had gained her interview.
"You must not be angry with me," she said, with engaging frankness. "I simply had to see you."
He stood very upright, with a cold, unresponsive face, and waited for her to proceed.
"Won't you sit down? You make it difficult for me when you are ... so ... so ... distant and unbending."
He moved away to the window, and stood looking out, with his back to the room. "Will you tell me what it is you have to say?" he asked very quietly. He knew perfectly well it had to do with Meryl, and he did not want her to see his secret in his face. In fact, he did not wish to speak of the subject at all.
Ailsa stood silently a moment, looking at his back, and then she said very quietly, "I have heard the story of your past life. I ... I ... know it all."
For a moment there was such a stillness in the room that one could almost hear heart beats. The figure in the window never moved.
"Who told you?..." he asked at last.
"Mr. Henry Delcombe, the scientist, who was a great friend of your father's."
Another silence. At last—
"Is he in Rhodesia now?"
"He is here, in Salisbury. He will not tell anyone else," she added. "He told me because ... because ... he perceived that Billy and I cared for you very much, and for your happiness." She moved a little nearer to him, and continued gently, "I felt almost as if I could break my heart with sympathy for you,—and that you should have borne such memories all these years,alone."
"I have put them behind me," he said, speaking almost harshly. "The past is dead. What does it matter who and what I was before?... To-day I am a Rhodesian, and my work ishere. I shall remain here now until I die."
"You may not be able to do that," and her voice had suddenly a ring in it that seemed to arrest him.
"Why may I not?"
"Because presently—very soon perhaps—you will have to answer to a call that requires you in England."
He half turned to her, waiting silently and unmoved, with grave eyes fixed on the distance.
She came a step nearer. "Mr. Delcombe told me also, that because of many changes that have taken place in the sixteen years since you cut yourself adrift from home, you are now heir to the marquisate of Toxeter. When the present marquis dies you will succeed him."
It seemed at first as if he heard without understanding. Once more there was a silence in which one might hear heart beats.
"Will you let me congratulate you?" Ailsa asked a little timidly.
"I think he must have been dreaming," he said in slow comment.
"No; there is no doubt about it whatever. He will tell you himself if you will let him. He wants to see you very much."
And still he was only silent, gazing, gazing to the far distance. If it was true, how was it he had never heard?... Could it possibly all have transpired during the times he had been away shooting in the far north, or out on the veldt, away from newspapers for months?
"There is something else I want to speak about," and her voice trembled somewhat. "This news concerning your future will make it a little easier. You know, of course, that Meryl Pym has become engaged to Mr. van Hert, the well-known Dutch politician?"
Instantly he stiffened. "I saw it in a newspaper."
She came close up to him suddenly. "O, Major Carew"—and there was an infinite pleading in her voice—"Billy and I thought you cared for her, and we believed she cared for you. Don't let her wreck her whole life now.... Don't stand by and let her marry a man she does not love. Go to her before it is too late!"
Under his iron control his face seemed to work strangely. She saw the swift compression of his lips, the swift pain in his eyes, the strong hunger he could not entirely hide.
"It is impossible," and the usual steadiness of his voice was shaken. "You say you know my story!... How can I go to her and tell her that once I killed the woman I loved?... How can I speak to her of love—I, the policeman, she the heiress?... How can I tell her that story which was told to you?... The story of damnable hate and passion, when I tried to strangle my own brother. I tell you she would shrink away in horror. She must shrink. Why did you speak to me about it at all! Your thoughts are folly and madness.Ioffer love to Meryl Pym?... My God! I have some decency—some pride left." And the pain and bitterness in his voice shocked and stabbed her.
But in spite of her inward shrinking she answered him boldly, drawing on a courage lent her by love and sincerity.
"And I say that if you love her truly, you ought to be able to trust her with your story. It is not noble and spirited of you to stand aside as you perhaps think. It is cowardly. Pride is generally cowardly. For the sake of your pride, of your own personal feelings, you will let her go on with this marriage and never say a word and never move a finger to save her from shipwrecking her whole life. First you will let your own sad past come between you; then you will let her hateful gold drive you away; then you will talk of yourself as just a policeman. And in any case—you must know it as well as I know it—none of these things would estrange Meryl Pym from the man she loved. There is nothing whatever between you except your pride, and you think that demands a renunciation from you, careless or no whether it brings heart-break for her."
He had grown deathly white now, with dark hollows round his eyes, and she could almost see how his teeth were clenched behind the firm lips. She had taken him entirely by surprise in her outburst, and her news concerning himself; and he discovered she had swept his secret from him concerning his love for Meryl, almost before he knew what he was speaking of.
"There might be something in what you say if Miss Pym cared for me in return. That she does is the merest supposition."
"And how do you know that with such sureness?" she cried. "No, no, Major Carew; in your heart you know otherwise. But you just let her go away without a word, without a hope, and one or two of us know what this hasty engagement means. Diana calls it martyrdom. She wrote me to send Meryl anin memoriamcard instead of congratulations, for it was more in accord with the occasion."
His face worked visibly, in spite of his stern suppression, but he still stood rigid and upright, looking away from her—out over the far shadowy veldt, seeing nothing.
In the pulsing silence that followed he beheld again that terrible October scene, when his love lay dead upon the heather. Could he ask any other woman to share that with him?... let the burden of such a memory faintly touch her life?... He knew that at the inquest it had been decided no one could possibly say who fired the shot. His uncle and brother were both shooting at the time, in the same direction; but though his friend Maitland had insisted upon a verdict of accidentally shot by someone unknown, and Richard Carew had resolutely supported him, in his own heart he had stood condemned. Yet if penance were required, what had he not given?... Exile, loneliness, nonentity for all the best years of his life; and her image, the beloved face of his lost Joan, the only woman's presence in his life. And yet now, as he stood gazing, gazing to the far blue hills, it seemed that her face and Meryl's were strangely blended. From the very first their eyes had been as the eyes of one woman, infinitely comprehending, infinitely true. Was it possible that Ailsa's accusation was true? One woman had been sacrificed more or less to his mad, insensate fury against his brother. Was the other perhaps to be sacrificed to his rigid, indomitable pride? One picture seemed to stamp itself upon his brain with ever-increasing strength and clearness: the picture of Meryl, leaning up against the window lintel that last evening at Bulawayo, white as a frail, exquisite lily, with the anguish in her deep eyes that she could not entirely hide. That, and the iron control he had needed to put upon himself, making him seem grim and unfeeling for fear one instant's weakness should make his longing arms enfold her. Well, he had played his man's part as well as he could; ridden away from her, disappointed her, openly avoided her, only in the end to love her with the deep, wise, understanding, all-embracing love of a man past his first youth, and with a wide knowledge of human nature.
And this engagement of hers to van Hert! What might it not result from?... What hopelessness, what despair, what heroic resolve to play her little part in the country's good, and win some satisfaction perhaps, since she might not have happiness!
Standing silently at the window it all seemed to pass through his mind with piercing clearness, and Ailsa's spirited attack rang still in his ears: "First you will let your sad story come between you, then her hateful gold, then your lowly position, answering to the call of your own pride, careless whether it wreck her life's happiness or no."
Yes, she was quite right, itwashis pride. Even now the thought of the gold was hateful to him.
Still, if some day he would indeed be the Marquis of Toxeter!... if he could at least offer her a high position!... if it was no longer a question of going to her empty-handed....
The silence continued, and in the background Ailsa waited and watched. She could read nothing from the tall figure in the window, except that his thoughts were far away and he was probing deeply. She leaned back in a low chair, feeling suddenly very tired and overwrought. She had come all the way from far Zimbabwe for this interview, just to say to this man, before it was too late, the spirited things she had said. And now?...
She looked round the den of the man who was her friend, and his, and had helped her to win the interview, noting each trivial detail, each attempt at decoration and hominess, each cunning substitute such as every Rhodesian contrives out of his ingenuity for some trifle not easily procured in that far land. And all the time she was tensely painfully aware of that strong man in the window, and of the issues that hung upon his decision. How, in the event of his deciding to approach Meryl, the recognised fiancé was to be treated, was beyond her. She was too tired to probe further. She only cared that Meryl's happiness should be saved. Her own had been so nearly lost, she had seen so much unspeakable bitterness arise out of one great mistake, made once by many women at the altar, and she only waited to know if she had lost or won.
At last the silent figure moved. At the window Carew turned and came towards her. She watched him with all her soul in her eyes, unable to rise from her chair for very tension.
"What are you going to do?..." she asked, hoarsely.
"Can you tell me where I can find Henry Delcombe?" he said.
In the meantime the household at Hill Court was a restless, uneasy, depressed one. No person in it, except Meryl, seemed undisturbed by the unsatisfactory atmosphere. She by taking thought, had, contrary to the old dictum, added to her stature; but it was the stature of her mind. The spirit that takes a woman through the troubled waters at hand, with all her consciousness set upon the great goal ahead, upheld her now; and in the presence of onlookers gave her a grave serenity, not in any way akin to joy, but baffling to those who would fain have seen her show a stronger feeling either of gladness or regret.
It baffled even van Hert himself. To him she seemed so strangely the same, yet different, from the woman he had loved before the Rhodesian tour. In all his work, his plans, his schemes, she was as earnest and interested as he could possibly wish; but that fairness his dark strength had coveted seemed to elude him at every turn. When he kissed her, he felt vaguely that she suffered his caress; on one or two occasions it almost seemed as if she went further and shuddered, and yet she never actually repulsed him. And then the dainty, light humour that had been hers as well as Diana's!... What had become of it?... It seemed now as if Diana had absorbed it all, for Meryl was nearly always quiet, while the younger girl was almost boisterous. And yet even in Diana there was a note that puzzled him. She was so jumpy and uncertain. Childishly gay one moment, and cuttingly brilliant the next. He was glad she was there. After the first week of the engagement he found himself quite willing to further Meryl's obvious wish for her company upon every occasion. So if she rose to leave them alone they deterred her with vague requests and excuses; and when they went in public together, Diana was always with them. And when she was snappy, they laughed at her and did not mind. Diana snappy was better than no Diana at all.
Aunt Emily thought otherwise, and was deeply grateful to them in her heart whenever they took her refractory niece safely out of her way. Her escapades were apt to be so wild nowadays, and her language so horrifying; and whenever the poor lady remonstrated, she was always told that it was the result of the Rhodesian trip.
"It will take me quite a year to get over it," Diana informed her. "You can't eat rats, and sleep with a frog in your bed, and go unwashed for weeks on end, without suffering from it in some way. God bless my soul!... is it likely?..."
At the end of the second week, anyone watching with keen insight might have seen a still more significant change creeping over the three most noticeable inmates of the house; for Mr. Pym was only silent and grave and retiring, going early to his study and feigning to be much occupied. And Aunt Emily had acquired a habit of going to sleep after dinner during her solitariness, which Diana wickedly called a dispensation from Heaven to bless the household of Henry Pym.
So the lovers and Diana were left to themselves, and usually sat upon the deep verandah. And it became apparent presently that all the talking was done by Diana and van Hert; Meryl was merely a silent listener. Perhaps she was not even a listener; one could not tell. She sat so still, with wistful eyes looking out beyond the stars. But Diana, on the other hand, exceeded herself; and in doing so she made van Hert exceed himself also. She was brilliant, mischievous, reckless, serious, satirical, nonsensical, all in a breath. She drove him hither and thither; led him on one moment, and withered him with her satire the next. It was obvious the man very soon left off treating her with any careless levity; if he did he was outwitted in no time; torn to shreds, and cast to the four winds on merry logic that had ever the sting of satire behind its laughing lightness. Very quickly he was on his guard, with thrust and parry; keen, watchful, alert—the politician to whom South Africa listened. And finally there came a day when, after unfolding a plan to Meryl, he added, "That is my idea, but I thought I would consult your cousin first." It seemed to strike him that it was a little odd, and he added, "She is extraordinarily observant. She may see some weak point we have overlooked."
"Yes, consult Diana," Meryl had replied at once; "she knows a lot about statistics of that kind. She has often had arguments with father over them."
So in the evening van Hert came in eager haste to have his talk with Diana. And Diana had taken herself off to a dinner-party and was not forthcoming. So the lovers sat on the verandah alone, and after a little they began to feel at a loss for anything to say, and wished devoutly that Diana would return.
As she was likely to be late, van Hert got up and spoke of departing. He said he had a measure to study carefully, ready for the reopening of Parliament at Cape Town. And while he was still explaining, Diana returned. She had made an excuse and left the party early.
"It was so dull," she said. "I have no patience with people who let me bite them, and do not try to bite back. I bit them all, more or less, in the end, and left them bathing each other's sores, so to speak, and exclaiming with bated breath at my cleverness. Fools and blockheads! just because I've got a banking account that would buy half of them up, and never miss it. As if I didn't know, when I'm in that mood, I'm a cattish little spitfire!..."
"So you came home to worry us?..." and the pleasure in his face was suddenly illuminating.
"Well, you have the pluck to hit back," and she looked at him with a flash of her eyes that made his senses reel a little. She threw her costly evening-cloak on to a chair, and pushed it a little aside with her foot, with a graceful action that displayed a dainty slipper and ankle, in no wise lost upon him. "I always hit back myself," she continued. "I've no sympathy with the 'other cheek' theory. I hit twice as hard as the attacker if possible. If Aunt Emily were here, I should say I give a dickens of a smack; but as she isn't, it is not worth while." She came forward with a mischievous gleam in her eyes. "Poor dear Aunt Emily! I sometimes have her conscience very much on my mind; but there ... I can bear it." And her comical enunciation in the poor lady's exact tones set both Meryl and van Hert off laughing.
The laughter was coming back to her own eyes too. When she entered they had been clouded, and her lips pouting. If they only knew it, she had been bored to tears at the party; bored utterly and completely, longing to be back on the verandah fighting a wordy, keen, good-tempered battle with van Hert; and she felt sure he would have gone when she returned. She had noticed he never stayed late when she was absent. But she was just in time. He had not gone, was only just going, and she perceived the face of each was tired and depressed.
"What have you been doing?" she rallied them. "You looked as if you had been intending to read the marriage service through together, and had read the funeral one by mistake; or possibly because it appealed to you more!... You both seemed doleful enough for anything."
"We missed you," Meryl said, simply. "William wanted to ask you about a new measure he is planning."
Van Hert said nothing, but he was looking at her unconsciously, with a light in his eyes that staggered her. Other men had looked at her with admiration, but this man had an expression that seemed to envelop her with himself. She felt throughout her pulses that he was all fire and eagerness and intensity, a strong, wilful, obstinate, fierce, virile personality that reached out mute, unconscious arms to her level-headed coolness. The fire in his eyes was only smouldering as yet, but it seemed to tell her that he was a fine-toned, brilliant instrument that she, and perhaps she only, could play upon as she liked, bringing forth both thundering chords and enveloping sweetness.
And in the sudden silence that had fallen upon the verandah, Diana knew that she liked to play, would always like to play, that with this man at least boredom would never fret her restless soul.
Then she plunged into words with him, and they sparred delightedly, and that work he had spoken of as awaiting him at home was left to take care of itself.
Later, Diana went outside on the verandah of her room and Meryl's and looked at the stars. The tables had turned utterly, but it was doubtful if either of them perceived it. Meryl went quietly to bed with only a few words, and either slept, or feigned sleep. Diana loitered on the verandah, and looked at the stars. She hardly knew why, only some strange half-consciousness was springing up inside her that made her restless. Somehow van Hert seemed to be gaining a hold over her. She could not gauge how, nor why, nor wherefore; but as she thought of his fine dark eyes in the starlight, with that luminous, glad expression when he looked at her, she had a sense of violent antipathy one moment, and of a gladness that made her blush secretly the next.
But within three days the date of the wedding was fixed, and all the papers paragraphed it far and wide.
It appeared in Salisbury the day after Ailsa had had her talk with Carew, and it came as a shock to both of them. It left just three weeks for action, and no more. What was to be done? Ailsa tried to get another interview with Carew at once, and found he had had to ride to some place twenty miles distant, and might not be back until the morrow. So, in distress, she sought Henry Delcombe. What he had to tell her was faintly reassuring. Carew had gone to see him after he left Ailsa, and had asked for proofs of his heirship to the marquisate of Toxeter. Delcombe had been able to satisfy him, and he had been gravely friendly, but that was all. At last, in desperation, Ailsa decided to write to Diana. The mail left that morning, and would reach Johannesburg in three days. Diana was full of resource, and she might think of a plan. Ailsa decided to tell her as much as she could without betraying any confidence. She said no word of the tragedy. That only concerned Meryl, and if she were to hear it at all, she must hear it from him. Neither did she mention his changed position; that also he should tell himself. She contented herself with letting Diana know that he had admitted he loved Meryl.
In the meantime she waited anxiously for Carew to return, but heard no word of him until the Sunday afternoon. In reply to an urgent little note he came to see her. She had wondered if he would be changed at all; if his new position would shed a ray of gladness in his steady eyes. But he seemed exactly the same, and she could read nothing.
"Did you see the announcement yesterday?" she asked. "There is so little time. I had to see you."
"I did."
"And what are you going to do?"
He looked down at the carpet, lost in thought. "I hardly know," he said.
"O, won't you at least go to Johannesburg?..." she pleaded. "See Meryl once. If you fail her now, perhaps you will never forgive yourself."
"On the other hand, I may only disturb her mind. How do you know she has not cared for this man for a long time? In any case, what right have I to crosshispath now?"
"O, your logic!..." she cried. "The way you men think this and that and the other, when a woman justknows! Go and see her. Go and make sure of things for yourself."
But he shook his head in doubt and perplexity. To him it seemed almost like stealing to go and attempt to take from this other man what he had won fairly and openly; and though Ailsa tried other arguments, she could not move him. Only one half-hope she extracted from him.
"Perhaps," he said, "I will write to Mr. Pym and ask his advice."
Then he went back to the hours of desperate mental stress, that were steadily increasing the grey about his temples. To Ailsa he might have seemed cold and self-contained as ever, but if she could have known it, all his being was torn with conflict. With the hourly growing ache and longing to throw everything to the winds and to try to carry Meryl off while there was yet time there was the fear lest a wrong step on his part should shatter for her some newly found content.
The two days after Diana came home early from her dinner-party were chiefly noticeable for the fact that for the first time since the engagement van Hert remained away from Hill Court. No one knew why, and the excuse he sent was of the vaguest. Diana asked her own heart and was troubled. When he came on the third day, he walked into the drawing-room to look for Meryl, and found Diana reading in the window alone. They discovered each other suddenly, and it was almost as if he gave a guilty start; and he looked unusually pale, with haggard eyes, as if he had slept badly of late. Diana saw it all, but gave no sign.
"You are something of a stranger, Meinheer van Hert," she said lightly. "My sword had almost time to rust."
"It would never do that. The best of swords is none the worse for an occasional rest; unless"—with a somewhat tired gleam of humour—"you have been keeping it bright at the expense of poor Aunt Emily."
"No, it has had a real rest. I am saving it again for the best swordsman worthy of it."
His eyes came suddenly to her face, and she realised at once that until that moment he had scarcely looked at her; and in that second's flash she saw something in them that hurt: a swift, deep trouble that he was struggling to hide. He looked away again quickly, noting the lovely shades of the room, the masses of violets, the general airiness and elegance.
"Is Meryl at home?"
"Yes. I will go and tell her you are here."
Diana went upstairs very slowly, lost in thought. And when she had told Meryl, she stood a long time at the window, thinking still. Presently Meryl came back. "William came to ask me to definitely fix the date of the wedding. We decided on the fifth; that will give us just a week before he must go to Cape Town." Then, as if she did not expect Diana to make any comment, she added, "The invitations must go out to-night."
That evening van Hert came as usual, but, simply because he was gayer than usual, Diana perceived that his gaiety was forced; and she saw also that he shunned meeting her eyes, looking anywhere, nowhere, rather than into her face.
The next day she rode in a direction where she and Meryl often met and joined him for a gallop. Meryl had suggested coming as usual, but Diana had contrived to put her off. She wanted if possible, without quite knowing why, to see van Hert alone; and as it happened, Fortune favoured her, for he appeared up a side road suddenly, and had no time to escape her, even had he wished. So they rode together, and he tried to talk to her as usual. When they came to a spot where they often dismounted, and sat to enjoy the lovely view of distant hills, Diana prepared to get off her horse. She saw him hesitate, and then he muttered something about an important engagement.
"O, nonsense!..." with a gay, airy smile. "If I'm not in a hurry, you can't be. I only want to sit for about fifteen minutes."
So they gave their horses' reins to the smart black groom, who always rode with the girls, and sat on the rustic bench where the three had several times sat together.
And suddenly, Diana, giving rein to her impulsive temperament, said, "What is your opinion of a man who marries one woman and loves another?"
She saw him start and stiffen, but he tried to parry the thrust. "What a question to ask a fiancé of a few weeks, on the eve of becoming a bridegroom!..."
"Well, that's why! I thought you would have formed many opinions on the subject of love and marriage."
"And why do you want to know?"
"O, just a fancy! I know men sometimes do that kind of thing. Personally I think it is rather cowardly."
"Why cowardly?..."
"Because it shows a man hasn't the pluck to own he has made a mistake. He would rather go on with it, and pretend everything is all right."
She saw him bite his lip, and felt more thoroughly that he would not meet her eyes.
"It is hard on the other woman, the one hedoeslove, too. It might make her very happy to be told. One joy is better than two miseries any day, even if his lordship did have to own to a mistake and look rather silly!..." with a little laugh.
"Perhaps I shall know more about it when I am married," trying to speak carelessly. "You must ask me later."
"Probably I shall not want to know then; my fancies are always varying. What shouldyoudo, for instance, if you suddenly found you cared for someone else more than Meryl?"
She was watching him closely, and she saw the swift, tell-tale blood rush to his face.
"I'm sure I don't know," he answered, with a forced, unnatural laugh. "It is rather a remote probability now."
"O, one never knows!..." Diana spoke with assumed lightness, and looked away to the hills, feeling a little unnerved by the sudden, swift palpitating in her blood. "Shall we go on now?" rising and turning her back to him. "I mustn't keep you any longer from that important engagement."
She might have added that she had learnt what she came out to learn; but instead she put her horse to a smart gallop, and rode back without scarcely speaking, flinging him a gay good-bye over her shoulder when their roads separated.
When she reached home she found Meryl surrounded by dressmakers, and trying hard to assume an interest in the proceedings; but Diana's clear eyes saw the effort as plainly as if it had been written across her forehead. She saw that she looked ill, too; ill and worn and joyless, as if something had damped for ever her natural fount of gaiety. And withal she was so sweet-tempered and considerate, studying everybody else's feelings in this wedding of hers; everyone's apparently except her own. Diana wanted to shake her one moment, and howl round her neck the next. Instead of doing either she was a little more snappy than usual.
"Will you have your dress fitted now?" Meryl asked her. "Madame has it all ready."
"No," shortly. "I haven't time this morning; and besides, one can't be fitted just after a ride. I'm going to have a hot bath and a cigarette," and she flung out of the room, leaving Meryl a little perplexed and Madame considerably perturbed.
In her own apartment she tossed things about, and was very irritable with her maid. Later, she went out into the garden to a shady nook where she was not likely to be disturbed, because she wanted to think. But thinking was no easy matter. On every side were perplexities.
"It's just the devil's own mess," she summed up at last, unable to think of any other sufficiently strong description. "Meryl doesn't want to marry van Hert, and van Hert doesn't want to marry Meryl; they both want to marry someone else; and yet they both mean to go on to the bitter end, because of some rotten-cotton notion about serving South Africa. O! I've no patience with these heroic attitudes! They are not suited to commonplace everyday life. If they'd a little more sound common sense, and a little less of the noble and lofty soul spirit, they would perceive they will only do more harm than good by going against nature and trying to force inclinations. But the absurd thing is, that neither has yet had the perspicacity to perceive the other's unwilling frame of mind. That exactly bears out my point. These heroic attitudes do not suit the exigencies of everyday life. If they weren't both so bent on doing the noble thing, they would perceive they are merely making fools of themselves, and incidentally straining my powers of resource beyond all reason. Of course it can't go on; but what in the name of all that's wonderful can I do to stop it?... Send for The Bear, and compel him to make the best of the awful fact that Meryl possesses a fortune, and console dear Dutch Willie myself, I suppose!..." And she smiled grimly. Then her face softened, and tears unexpectedly gleamed in her eyes. She brushed them away, apostrophising herself impatiently. Then she swallowed down a sob, murmuring, "I can't bear the thought of Meryl, standing with that smile on her lips and that expression in her eyes, to be fitted for her wedding-dress. It makes one want to tear the whole world to pieces, and sink South Africa in the nethermost ocean. No wonder uncle shuts himself in his study so much nowadays. He must be just as hard put to it as I am to know what to do." A step disturbed her cogitations at that moment, and Aunt Emily came into view.
"Ah, my dear, I thought I saw you come down the garden. There is a letter for you with a Rhodesian stamp. I thought you might like to have it." And she handed it to her, at the same time sitting down on the garden-seat beside her.
"Have you seen Meryl's dress," she enquired, with an expression that had suddenly grown sentimental. "The dear child. To think of her in her wedding-dress, so soon to be a bride!"
"Well, that's a commonplace enough event! Girls like Meryl usually do become brides, and later on they wear shrouds, and have a nice little coffin all to themselves. There really isn't very much difference!..."
"O, my dear!... What a dreadful remark to make! I am sure it is unlucky to speak like that."
"Then I hope it will be unlucky enough to postpone the wedding indefinitely."
Aunt Emily turned and looked at her niece as if she thought she had taken leave of her senses, but that was not by any means a new expression upon the face of Henry Pym's sister confronting Henry Pym's niece.
"Really, Diana!..." she expostulated. "I think it is hardly a subject for jesting. Marriage is a very serious thing. I hope God will bless dear Meryl with great happiness. I confess, at first, I was disappointed that she chose a Dutch husband; but Mr. van Hert has very good Huguenot blood in his veins, and he is undoubtedly a very charming man; and then, of course, her children will only be half Dutch."
"Her children ought to be bear cubs!" snapped Diana, wishing her aunt would go away and leave her to read her letter in peace.
For a moment Aunt Emily was too horrified to reply, and then Diana added, "Don't trouble to expostulate any more. I'm not really mad, only eccentric. I never could see why people make such a silly fuss about weddings; anyhow, they are all the same and all commonplace. When I marry, I shall give all my friends the shock of their lives, something to talk about for a year, and then for once in my life I shall be a public benefactor. I see Helen looking about on the terrace as if she wanted you. Shall I ask her?..."
"No, I will go in to her"; and she got up and walked towards the house, still wearing a shocked expression.
"I wonder if Helen will have the sense to manufacture some request?" thought Diana, glancing after her. "As if I could see the terrace from here!..."
Then she opened her letter.
When she had read it through once, she turned back to the beginning and read it through again. And all the time she was so rigidly still, that a little bird hopped close up to her foot to investigate.
Then she laid the letter down and looked out across the garden. Five minutes later she got to her feet.
In a moment of crisis Diana was the type who courageously follows an inspiration, without overmuch weighing and sifting. She had faith in her own keen woman's instinct and she knew there were times when sharp, decisive action is better than lengthy, minute attention to all the laws of war, and far-reaching considerations of what might or might not result.
A gate at the far end of the garden led out to the main road, and not very far down was a post office. Diana went straight to it, and sent a wire, with prepaid reply, directed to Major Carew, which ran:—