Cyril Mowbray did not seem to feel quite as jubilant as he might have done, when it was proved beyond the possibility of doubt, that Claude was alive. The income that would be his when he reached the age of twenty-five was a small one, and quite insufficient to allow of his keeping three hunters and driving a coach, to say nothing of that two-hundred-ton yacht upon which he had set his heart.
He considered that he was, on the whole, very hardly dealt with by Fate, for he felt convinced that he was meant by Nature to be a country gentleman in affluent circumstances and without need to take thought for all the unlet farms that might be on his property. He considered it especially hard that he should be cheated out of his money—that was how he put it—by the reappearance of Claude. He had great confidence in his own ability to persuade his sister to part with her money. To whom should she give her money if not to her own brother, he inquired of such persons as he took into his confidence on the subject of his grievances.
His confidence in his capacity to get his sister's money into his possession was but too well-founded. During the year of idleness that followed his being sent down from the University, he had been a terrible burden to Agnes, for it was in vain that she pleaded with him to seek to qualify himself for some employment in which a University degree was not necessary; he refused to listen to her, saying that he was fit for nothing but the life of a country gentleman.
That was certainly the life which he had led for a year, at his sister's expense. He was a great burden to her, but she was extremely fond of him, and she was a woman.
Lizzie Dangan had left the neighbourhood without revealing to any one the fact that she had had a secret interview with Mr. Westwood within twenty yards of where his body had been found in the morning, and also without being reconciled to her father, the gamekeeper, though Agnes made an attempt to get the man to forgive his daughter for her lapse. The man had always been a strict father, giving his children an excellent education, and insisting on their going to church with praiseworthy regularity. It was therefore mortifying for him to find that his two sons had enlisted in a cavalry regiment and that his one daughter had neglected the excellent precepts of life which he had taught her by the aid of a birch rod.
It was probably the sense of his own failure in regard to his children that made him refuse to be reconciled to Lizzie. He had shown himself all his life to be a hard and morose man, discharging his duties with rigid exactness, and being quite intolerant of the lapses of the people about him. After the death of Mr. Westwood and the departure of his daughter, he became more morose than ever, scarcely speaking to any one on the estate, and rarely leaving the precincts of the park. Some of the servants said that, after all, he had been attached to Mr. Westwood, but others said that he was grieving because Lizzie had not been allowed to starve to death in expiation of her fault. He had more than once said that he hoped he would see her in her coffin for bringing shame upon his house, but until she was lying in her coffin he would not have her brought before him.
It was after her departure that Cyril began to feel a trifle lonely. He missed his stolen interviews with the girl, and above all he missed the sense of being engaged in an intrigue that was attended with the greatest risk, and which he flattered himself had been carried on without awaking the suspicions of any one, except his too considerate friend, Dick Westwood. Even the excitement of the trial and the consciousness of being a person of the greatest importance in connection with the case for the Crown, failed to compensate him for the absence of Lizzie, especially as, within a week after the conviction of Standish, the Crown no longer regarded him as a person of distinction. To be the chief witness for the Crown had seemed in his eyes pretty much the same thing as to be on speaking terms with Royalty; and when he found himself, after he had served the purposes of the prosecution, cast aside in favour of a farm labourer, who became the hero of the moment because he had detected a man loitering in the neighbourhood of certain hay ricks that had been burnt down, he was ready to indulge in many philosophical reflections upon the fickleness of Royalty. He felt like the discarded favourite of a Prince.
Thus it was that he became an intolerable burden to his sister, and the subject of unfavourable predictions uttered by the most far-seeing people of the neighbourhood, although his worst enemies could not say that he was not improving at billiards. It was universally admitted that he was making satisfactory progress in the study of this fascinating game; a fact which shows that if one only practises for six hours a day at anything, one will, eventually, become proficient at it.
To say, however, that he was satisfied with his life and its prospects at this period would be impossible. As a matter of fact, he was as much dissatisfied with himself as his friends were. He had been heard once or twice to say something about enlisting.
It was just when he was actually considering if, in view of his failure to realise the simplest aspirations of a country gentleman, it might not be well for him to take the Queen's shilling, that he met Sir Percival Hope on the road to Brackenhurst.
It seemed to him that Sir Percival had a lecturereading expression on his face, and he quickened his pace with a view of passing him with a nod. But he was mistaken; first, in fancying that Sir Percival had so narrow a knowledge of the world as to think that lecture-reading was ever known to act as a brake upon any youth who had made up his mind to go to the bad; and secondly, in fancying that if such a man as Sir Percival Hope had made up his mind to speak to him, either with the intention of reading him a lecture or with any other aim, he would be able to pass him with only a nod of recognition.
Sir Percival stopped him.
“Look here, Mowbray,” he said, “you're a man of the world, and you know all the people about here far better than I do. You see they freeze up when I want them to talk freely to me. I haven't the way of drawing them out that you have.”
Cyril fairly blushed at these compliments; they were delivered in so casual a tone as to seem everyday truths that no one would dream of contradicting.
Cyril did not dream of contradicting them, though he did blush. He merely murmured that he supposed chaps would sooner give themselves away to him than to Sir Percival.
“Of course they would,” acquiesced the elder man. “That is why I am glad to have met you. The fact is, that my chief overseer at Tarragonda Creek—that's one of my sheep stations in New South Wales—has written to me to send him out a young chap who would act as his assistant for a while—a chap whom he could eventually place in charge of one of the farms. Now why on earth he should bother me with this business I don't know, only that O'Gorman—that's the overseer—has a mortal hatred of the native-born Australian: he fancies that he knows too much. I was about to write to him to say that he must manage without me, when it occurred to me that you might be able to help me. What O'Gorman wants is a young fellow who is first and foremost a gentleman—a fellow who knows what a horse is and does not object to be in the saddle all day. If you hear of any one who you think would suit such a billet, I wish you would let me know—only remember, Mr. O'Gorman is a great believer in gentlemen for such posts: he won't have anything to do with stable hands who think to better themselves in a colony.”
“Look here, Sir Percival,” cried Cyril, after only a short pause, “I'm dead tired of life in this neighbourhood. I can hear people say, the moment my back is turned, that I'm going straight to the devil, and I can't contradict them. I am going to the devil simply because I thought I was good for nothing but loafing about billiard-rooms. You don't know, Sir Percival, how far I have gone in that direction. Only one person knows what I am guilty of. But I haven't had a chance; and if you only give me one, you'll see if I don't take it.”
“Do you mean to say that you'd take the situation yourself?” asked Sir Percival, as if the idea had been sprung upon him.
“I see by the way you ask me that you think I'm a conceited cub,” said Cyril. “But I'm not conceited, and—look here, Sir Percival, give me this chance and it will mean the saving of me. You'll not regret it. I was just thinking as I came along here this evening, that there's nothing left for me except to enlist, and by the Lord Harry, if you won't take me I will enlist if only to get away from this place.”
“My dear boy, you needn't hold that pistol to my head,” said Sir Percival.
“A pistol—what pistol?” said Cyril, in a low tone, taking a step or two back and staring at Sir Percival.
“Why, that threat of enlisting. Why need you threaten me with that? I'll give you the chance you ask for without any intimidation. Heavens! If you only knew the relief that it is to me to be able to tell O'Gorman that I have got a man for him. Oh, you and he will get on all right. Of course you'll do just what he tells you, or you'll get your passage paid home by the next steamer.”
“Sir Percival,” faltered Cyril, “you've saved me.”
And then, man of the world though he was, he burst into tears, and hurried away, leaving Sir Per-cival standing alone on the roadside extremely gratified by the reflection that once more he had been right in the estimate he had formed of a man's character, though all the people whom he had met had differed from him. It was this capacity to judge of men's characters without being guided by the opinions formed—and expressed—by others, that had made him a rich man while others had remained poor. He had come to the conclusion that Cyril was not in reality amauvais sujet, or what is known in England as a bad egg. The philosophy of Sir Percival's life was comprised within these lines:
“Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.”
He rather guessed that he could outwit Satan if he only set about trying to do it.
Thus it was that Agnes had to express her gratitude once again to Sir Percival Hope, and thus their friendship became consolidated.
Not once did Cyril put in an appearance at a billiard-room at Brackenhurst during the week that followed his interval with Sir Percival. He had no time for billiards, the fact being that he was made to understand that he must be on his way to Australia by the steamer leaving England in ten days. For the first time in his life he felt it incumbent on him to rouse himself. He went up with Sir Per-cival to London to procure himself an outfit; and though it was something of a disappointment to him to learn that he was not to appear in top boots and a “picture hat,” after a model made by a milliner in Bond Street, and worn by a South African trooper—he should have dearly liked to walk for the last time through the streets of Brackenhurst in this picturesque attire—still he bore his disappointment with resignation, and packed up his flannel shirts with a light heart. He wrote a letter to Lizzie Dangan on the eve of his departure, and only posted it at Liverpool half an hour before he embarked for his new home.
It was when he was beginning to feel, as the waves of the Channel were causing the big steamer some uneasiness, that, after all, he would not look on the acquisition of a yacht as an essential to his scheme of enjoying life when he had become a millionaire, that his sister Agnes was waited on by Dick Westwood's solicitor.
She had scarcely dried the tears which she had shed on thinking that her brother would be by this time at sea, for the reflection that even a reprobate brother is at sea will make a kind-hearted sister weep; and she did not feel much inclined to have an interview which she feared would be a business one.
She soon found, however, that the solicitor had not come strictly on a matter of business.
“I bring you a letter which is addressed to my late client, Mr. Westwood,” said he. “In the ordinary way of business, I have, of course, opened the few letters that have been addressed to him by persons whom the news of his death had not time to reach, but in this particular case I have brought the letter to you.”
He handed her an envelope which was in such a condition as to suggest that it had been lying for a wet day or two in the roadway at Charing Cross or some thoroughfare equally well frequented, and that afterwards some one had dropped it by mistake into one of the iron dust-bins instead of a pillar-box. It was soiled and dilapidated to such an extent as made Agnes uncertain on which side the address was written. But she was able to read on a corner that had been scraped, the one postmark “Zanzibar.”
The letter dropped from her hand.
“The pity of it—ah, the pity of it!” she cried.
“I will leave it with you, Miss Mowbray,” said the lawyer, rising. “I think that it is into your hands it should be put. You will read it at your leisure, and if it contains any matter upon which you think I should be informed, you will be good enough to communicate with me.”
For some time after the lawyer had left the house, the letter lay unheeded at Agnes's feet. She could only say to herself, “The pity of it! The pity of it!” as her eyes overflowed with tears. It seemed very pitiful to her to see lying there the letter which the man to whom it was addressed would never see. She thought of the gladness which receiving that letter would have brought into the life that had passed away. Not for a single moment did she feel jealous because it had arrived in England unaccompanied by any letter to herself. She felt that it was fitting that the first letter written by Claude since his return to civilisation—such civilisation as was represented by the sending and receiving of letters—should be to the brother whom he loved so well.
It was some time before she could take it up and open the cover. When at last she did so, standing at the window leading into her garden to catch all the light that remained in the sky, she failed to detect any but the most distant resemblance in the handwriting to Claude's, as she had known it. But as she read the first words her tears began to flow once more, and she could only press the letter to her lips and say, “Thank God, thank God, for allowing me to see his handwriting once more!”
The letter was not a long one. The writer assumed that his brother would think that he was reading a message from another world. “And by Heaven you won't be so far wrong, old boy,” he wrote, “for I don't suppose any human being ever went so near as I did to the border-line of that undiscovered country without passing over into the land of shadows.”
He then went on to give a brief sketch of the massacre of all the members of the expedition with the exception of himself, and to tell how he had been not merely held in captivity by the strange tribes whom they had met, but promoted to the position of a god by them, owing to the accident of his having found his way into a sacred cave, after taking the precaution to knock out the brains of the two witch doctors who had previously killed every native who had attempted to enter. The position of a god he found great difficulty in living up to, he said, for the gods of that nation Were carefully guarded lest they should make a try for the liberty of an ordinary layman.
In short, the letter gave arésuméof the writer's terrible hardships when living as the captive of one of the most barbarous of African savage tribes. For nearly eight years he had lived as a savage, and when at last he contrived to escape, he had spent another six months wandering from forest to forest of the interior, in almost a naked condition, and with no weapon except a knife, which had once belonged to Baines, the explorer, and had been given by him to a friendly native when painting the falls of the Zambesi. When at the point of starving he had been fortunate enough to come in contact with an ivory hunter on his way to Uganda, where they had arrived together.
“If you only knew the difficulty I have in holding a pen you would give me unlimited praise for writing so long a letter instead of confounding me—as I fear you will—for being so brief. The chap who takes this to the coast for me will not fail to make as much as he can out of my story for transmission to the papers, so that the chances are that you will have got plenty of news about me by cable a fortnight or so before you get this.”
The writer did not indulge in any more sentimental passages than may be found in the letter of any average Englishman who writes to a brother after taking part in a campaign in a distant country, or fighting his way through savages in the hope of opening up a new land for English trade—and occasionally German.
Only as a postscript he had written:
“I often wonder what you are like now. Of course you have found a wife who adores you, and your children have been told that they once had an uncle who went out to Africa and was killed by men with black on their faces, and if they aren't good children the black men will eat them up too. Well, now you will have to untell all that you have told those innocent little ones, if they exist; and I'm afraid that you'll have to invent another path to virtue than that presided over by the black men.
“By the way, I take it for granted that Agnes Mowbray has followed the example which I assume you have shown her, and that she also has children round her knees. What strange memories the writing of names awakens! I am nearly sure that I told Agnes Mowbray that I loved her—nay, worse than that, I'm nearly sure that I did love her. Don't make mischief, old man, by hinting so much to her husband, i may see her when I get back to England; but I shall not be able to stir from here for at least six months. You can have go idea how thoroughly broken down I am.”
Her tears did not flow when she had finished reading the letter, written in that curiously cramped hand that scarcely bore any resemblance to the bold scrawl which ran over the old pages of his letters that she treasured. She did not weep. She felt a curious little sting of disappointment as she read the latter part of the postscript—a curious little stab, as with the point of a sharp needle.
He had said no word about her in any part of the letter: he had made no allusion to her until he had that afterthought which he embodied in the postscript, and then he had only alluded to her in order that he might express a doubt in regard to her constancy.
Yes; he had actually taken for granted that she had cast to the winds the promise which she had made to him—the promise to love him and him only, and to wait patiently until his return should unite their lives for evermore. Did it seem to him impossible that any woman should remain faithful to one man when apart from him? Was it possible that he knew so little of her nature as to fancy that the passing of years would weaken her faith? What has time got to do with such matters as love and faith?
For a moment she felt that sharp stab, but then the pain that it caused her passed away in the thought of the rapture which could not fail to be his when he became aware of the truth—of her truth, of her love, of her faith in the bounty of heaven. It was not pride in her own fidelity that she felt at that moment: she could not see that she had any reason for pride, for fidelity was so much a part of her nature she had ceased to think of it, just as a man with a sound heart never gives a thought to his heart. It had never occurred to her that there was anything remarkable in the fact that she had passed eight years of her life waiting for the return of the man whom all the world believed to be dead. If she had been waiting for double the time she would not have felt any cause for pride. The glow which came over her, making her forget the pain that she had felt on reading the careless words of her lover's postscript, was due to the thought of the delight that would be his when he came to know that she had never a thought of loving any one save himself.
Would it seem such a wonder to him? Well, let it seem a miracle to him so long as it gave him pleasure. If she had been overwhelmed with happiness at the miracle of his restoration to her, why should he not be overjoyed at the miracle of her restoration to him?
She sat for a long time at the open window, thinking her thoughts, while before her eyes the soft velvety darkness of the exquisite July night slipped over the garden. The delicate dew scents filled the air, and the perfume of the roses mingled with that of the jessamine which dropped from the trellis-work of the verandah. The drone of a winged beetle rising and falling in musical monotone, like the sound of a distant bell borne by a fitful breeze, came to her ears. A bat whirled past the opening of the window, and the cat that was playing after the moths on the lawn, struck out at it for a moment. And then a servant brought lamps into the room.
She started from her reverie, and became aware in an instant of the details of the scene before her.
It was such a scene as had been before her many times during her life. How often had she not sat there in the early night, wondering if the man whom she loved would ever sit by her side again in the long twilight of a summer's day in England—at home—at home.
And now she thought of him lying alone among the strange trees—the mighty broad-leaved palms, the enormous ropes of the trailing plants falling around him. Was he thinking of the English home which he had forsaken, but which was waiting for him? How often had not he found comfort in the midst of his desolation through picturing the garden at The Knoll, as he had walked in it on those summer nights long ago?
Alas! alas! With his thoughts of the old garden and the old times there must have come that terrible thought which he had hinted at in his letter—the thought that she had been unfaithful to him. Ah, how could he ever have had such a thought? She had heard of fickle women—loving a man passionately one day, and the next carried away by the glamour of a new face and a changed voice—but how could he fancy for a moment that she was such a woman?
Thus she sat, with her thoughts and her memories and her anticipations, until the full moon had arisen behind the trees of Westwood Court and was flooding the sky with light and sending the great shadows of the elm far over the lawn. When the sound of the striking of the church clock roused her from her reverie, she was conscious of one thought: that the pang that must have been his when he wrote that postscript would soon pass away in the joy of knowing that she had been true to him.
But it was a long time before she went to sleep that night.
It had fallen to her lot to write to Claude Westwood the letter which told him of the death of the brother to whom he had all his life been devoted. She knew that a telegraphic message had been sent to the Consul at Zanzibar respecting the death of Richard Westwood, the day after the news of the safety of Claude had reached England, so that he would not receive the first shock of the terrible news from her. She had done her best in her letter to comfort him—indeed, every word that it contained was designed to be a consolation to him. Why, the very sight of her writing would make him feel that his grief was shared by at least one friend.
The letter had not, of course, been written in the strain of the letters which she had sent to him during the first few months after his arrival in Africa. (Some of them had been returned to her from Zanzibar with the inscription “Not found” on the covers.) She thought that any of the rapturous phrases, which could give but very inadequate expression to what was in her heart, would be out of place in a letter that she meant to be expressive only of the deep sympathy she felt for him.
But the following week she had written to him something of what was in her heart, She had taken up once more the strain of that correspondence which had been so rudely interrupted, and had wondered to find how easily the unaccustomed words of endearment slipped from her pen. It seemed to her that her love had been accumulating in her heart through all the years of her enforced silence, for she had never before written to him such phrases of affection. When she had written that letter she had a sense of relief beyond expression. The pent-up flood had at last found a vent. She gave a great sigh as she signed, not her own name, but the pet name which he had given her—a great sigh, and then a laugh of delight.
But then she caught sight of herself in the looking-glass that hung above her escritoire. It seemed to her that all her hair had become grey—that her face had become all scarred with lines. She closed her eyes and had a vision of the slender girl to whom that love-name had been given. She had a vision of the sparkling eyes, the brown hair flung back when one long shining strand had escaped from the knot in which it had beer, tied, and fell down from her shoulder. She could see his eyes as he turned them upon her, when he had kissed and kissed that wonderful rivulet of hair, calling her by that love-name.
And now....
Ah, she was no longer a girl! The pet name which she had written so lightly no longer sat lightly upon her. Would not people think it grotesque for a woman past thirty to call herself by the name that had once seemed so charmingly appropriate when applied to a girl of twenty-three with a rivulet of golden brown hair flowing over her shoulders to meet a lover's kisses?
But then she recollected the story she had heard of the true lover who loved so well that the gods had given to him the greatest gift in their power—the gift of blindness, so that at the end of forty years when he and the woman he loved had grown old together, she still seemed to him the girl she had been on the first day that he had seen and loved her.
There would be nothing grotesque in that lover calling his wife by the love-name of her-youth. But would such love blindness be given to Claude, so that he should still think of her as the slim girl with the loose hair?
Alas! Alas! He might tolerate the letter signed as she had signed it, but in a few months he would be face to face with her, and would he not see that she was no longer a girl?
Only for a moment she paused as that melancholy question passed through her mind. Then she flung down the letter, crying:
“I will trust him. I will trust him as I have trusted him hitherto. He will love me better, better, better, seeing that it was the years of waiting for him that gave me the grey hairs where only brown had been.”
It never occurred to her to ask herself if it was not possible that the years which had given her half a dozen grey hairs, had brought about quite as great a change in her lover. It never occurred to her to think that there was a possibility that the years spent among savages—wandering through the forests where malaria lurked—starving at times and in peril of beasts and reptiles and lightning and sunstroke every day of his life, had changed him in some measure—even in as great a measure as the years of watching and waiting had altered her.
His portrait stood by her side day and night. Every day and every night she had kissed that picture of the young cavalry officer that smiled out at her from the frame. That was the portrait of her lover, and never for a moment did she think of him as otherwise than that portrait revealed him to her.
So she had posted the first of her new series of love-letters to him with no great heaviness of heart; and then there began for her a fresh period of waiting; for she knew that some months must elapse before her letters could reach him, and after that an equal space before she could receive his reply.
But the barley crop had only been reaped in the golden fields of Brackenshire when Mr. Westwood's lawyer brought her a telegram which he had just received from Zanzibar. It was not from Claude, but from a doctor whose name she frequently heard in connection with the exploration of Africa.
“Westwood arrived here to-day from Uganda, overcome with fatigue, not serious. Leaves for England, probably fortnight.”
So the telegram ran, and her heart leapt up, for she knew that her days of waiting were being shortened. He had doubtless received no news of his brother's death when at Uganda, and although he had intended to remain there until he should be fully restored to health, he had made up his mind to return at once to England. But what had caused her heart to leap up was the sudden thought that came to her:
“He has received my letter, and he knows that I am true to him.”
A moment afterwards she recollected that it would have been impossible for him to receive a letter from her—even her first letter—while he was still at Uganda. He had started for the coast immediately on getting the news by telegraph of the death of his brother, and both her letters, being addressed to him at Uganda, had, it was almost certain, crossed him on the road to the coast.
Still, her days of waiting would be shortened, and that thought gladdened her. Only for a week was she left in the torture of the apprehension that the journey to the coast might have proved too much for him, and that he might die at Zanzibar. All the accounts that had been published in the newspapers regarding him had dwelt upon the necessity there was for him to remain at Uganda until he had in some measure recovered from the effects of his terrible experiences; so that she felt she had grave reason to be apprehensive for him.
The newspapers shared her anxiety not only in telegraphic despatches from Zanzibar, which involved the expenditure of large sums, but also in leaders and leaderettes, which like George Herbert's “good words” were “worth much and cost little.”
At first the news came that the explorer whose name was in every one's mouth, was completely prostrated by his journey; but soon the gratifying intelligence was received that he was making a good recovery, and had gone for a week's excursion in a gunboat that had been placed at his disposal until the mail steamer should be leaving Zanzibar.
It was thought advisable by his physician to put some miles of green sea between Claude Westwood and the scores of enterprising gentlemen who were anxious to see him. The newspaper men were polite but urgent; the English publisher's agent was business-like and impressive; these gentlemen were not so greatly dreaded by the doctor, though he would have liked to be summoned to take a part, however humble, in a post-mortem examination on each of them. But when it came to his knowledge that the American lecture-bureau agent had bought the house next to the Consulate, and was reported to be making a subterranean passage between the two so as to give him an opportunity of an interview with Mr. Westwood, the doctor thought it time to make representations to the commander of the gunboat.
Mr. Westwood was smuggled aboard the vessel at midnight, the anchor was weighed as unostentaciously as possible, and the gunboat steamed out of the harbour at dawn; but it was said that the commander had to bring his two big guns to bear upon a steam launch hastily chartered by the lecture agent to follow the vessel in order that he might board her and get the explorer to sign an agreement for a hundred lectures in the States during the forthcoming fall.
Then came the news that Mr. Westwood had returned to Zanzibar so greatly improved in health by his cruise that he would be permitted to make the voyage to England by the next mail; and, of course, all the correspondents, the publishers' agents and lecture agents hastened to engage cabins on the same steamer. The briefest of telegrams announced the departure of the steamer in due course, and Agnes found herself able to breathe again. In less than a month he would be by her side.
It was very generally felt among those hostesses in Mayfair who are the most earnest of lion-hunters, that Mr. Westwood was guilty of a gross breach of manners in not timing his arrival for the spring of the London season. Some of the more enterprising of them had long ago sent out cards of invitation to him at Uganda, for receptions to be held in the spring. Others had given him a choice of dates, and left it optional for him to have a dinner, an at-home, or a garden-party. In these circumstances it was thought that in changing his plans, starting from Uganda at once instead of remaining there, as he had at first intended, for six months, he was behaving very badly.
How could any man expect to be treated as a hero in the month of October? they asked, as they felt that the honour and glory which attaches to the exhibition of lions were slipping from their fingers.
They had long ago forgotten that the same newspapers which had announced the safety of Claude Westwood had contained that heading, “The Brackenshire Tragedy”; and when it was announced that Mr. Westwood was compelled to decline all engagements, as it was his intention to remain in the seclusion of Westwood Court for several months, people shrugged their shoulders, and went on with their pheasant shooting.
They said that Mr. Westwood would find out the mistake he was making before the next season; adding that their memories were quite equal to recalling instances of heroes, who were looked on as such in the autumn, becoming stale and of no market value whatever before the next London season.
They rather feared that Mr. Westwood had failed to remember that the most evanescent form of heroism is that which is the result of African exploration. Africa as a field for the development of heroes was getting used up; the Arctic regions were already running it close, and Polar bears were as good as lions any day. Oh yes, Mr. Westwood might find himself compelled to take a back seat next May in the presence of the man who had come from Formosa with a crimson monkey, or the man who had come from Klondyke with a nugget the size of an ostrich's egg.
The people who talked in this strain could with difficulty be made to understand that the tragic circumstances of the death of Mr. Westwood's brother might possibly cause him, quite apart from all considerations in regard to his own health, to wish to live in retirement for a few months. They would rather have been disposed to appraise his value in a drawing-room or as a “draw” at a reception, at a somewhat higher figure, by reason of the fact that the death of his brother had for close upon a fortnight been one of the Topics of the Season. A man who is in any way associated with a Topic of the Season is a welcome guest in every house.
But Agnes, knowing how attached the brothers had been all their lives, understood how distasteful—more than distasteful—to Claude would be the idea of lending himself for exhibition in order to attract people to some of those houses whose attractiveness is dependent upon the freak of the fashion of the hour. She had also a feeling that, although he had written that curiously flippant postscript, Claude had still in his heart no doubt as to her faithfulness. She felt that he knew that his retirement would mean the taking up with her of the book of life at that glowing passage at which they had laid it down. After such a separation, what a meeting would be theirs!
And yet as the hour for his coming approached, she felt more and more as if she were waiting to meet a stranger. She felt all the shyness that she had felt years before when, as a girl, she had found herself in the same room with Claude Westwood. She had read of his heroic action on the North-West Frontier of India—of that splendid cavalry charge, which he had led, retrieving the honour of his country when it was trembling in the balance, and so when she found herself presented to him as though he were an ordinary man whom she was meeting casually, she had felt quite overcome with shyness.
And this was the very feeling which she now had when she was counting the days that must elapse before his arrival. At first it had been her intention to meet him aboard the steamer that was bringing him to England. If she had not read that postscript she might even have thought of going out to meet him at Suez—nay, of going out to Zanzibar itself; but somehow the reading of those words at the dose of the letter, which were meant for his brother's eyes alone, had left an impression on her from which she could not easily free herself.
That was how she came to feel that she was about to meet a stranger, and that the idea of waiting on the dock side for the arrival of the steamer seemed repugnant to her.
Then the day which was notified to her as that on which the steamer would be due, arrived, and found her awaiting with almost breathless excitement whatever should happen. It was midday when the telegram was brought to her: it was addressed, not to her, but to the family lawyer.
“Arrived. Shall be at the Court in time for dinner.”
These were the words which she read while her heart beat tumultuously at the thought that she would see him in a few hours. She stood opposite his picture, feeling that in future it would possess only an artistic interest for her. She would be left wondering how it had ever been so much to her. But what was on her mind now was the question, “Will he drive here on his way to the Court?”
Well, she would be prepared to meet him: but how was she to welcome him? She had heard of girls who had been parted from their lovers for years, putting on the dress which they had worn on the day of parting, so that it might seem that the time they had been apart was annihilated. She actually hunted up the old dress that was associated with her parting from Claude. It was still fit to be worn, for she had paid her maid compensation for allowing her to retain it. But when she looked at it she laughed. It was made in the fashion of nine years before, and every one knows how ridiculous a fashion seems nine years out of date.
Annihilate time! Heavens! to wear a dress made in this style would be the best way that could be imagined of emphasising the space of years that had passed. She laughed and laid the funny old-fashioned thing, with its ribbons fastened in ridiculous places over it where ribbons are now never seen, back in its drawer.
Alas! the girls about whom she had read had not been separated from their lovers for nine years; or the lovers must have been even blinder than the majority of men are in regard to the details of dress, otherwise they would have looked ridiculous instead of gracious.
She put on her newest dress—it was all white; and when her maid asked her what jewels she would wear, she said suddenly:
“All my diamonds.”
But before her jewel case was unlocked she had changed her mind.
“On second thoughts I will wear only the Wedgwood medallion with the pearls,” she said.
The medallion was his last gift to her. She had never worn it since he had pinned it to her shoulder. He would remember that; and in spite of the protest of her maid, who feared for her own reputation as an artist, she fastened it on her shoulder, where never a medallion had been worn within the memory of woman.
It was when she was alone, however, that she put her face close to a looking-glass and plucked from her forehead another grey hair that had put in an appearance. She had never plucked one out before; she had never thought it worth her while; but now she felt that it was worth her while.
Looking out from her dressing-room window she saw that the windows of the Court were brilliant; for months they had been dark.
The hour for the arrival of the train at Bracken-hurst went by. She only felt slightly disappointed when he did not call upon her on his way to the Court. But she found this evening, the last of all her days of waiting, the longest of all. He had come—she felt sure of that, and yet though only a mile away, he was as much separated from her as he had been when thousands of miles away, with the barrier of the terrible forests imprisoning him.
She waited in vain for him until it was midnight; and when he did not come, her disappointment changed to anxiety, and her anxiety to alarm. She felt sure that he must be ill. The reports that had been telegraphed to England regarding his health must have been misleading: he could not have recovered so easily from the effects of those awful years spent in savagery. It was she who should have gone to meet him; no matter what people might have said. People—what were people and their chatter to him or to her? He was perhaps lying at the point of death, and her going to him might have saved him, but the next day might be too late.
She spent hours in the restlessness of self-reproach, and when she went to bed it was not to sleep but to weep. Only toward morning did she close her eyes and then for no longer than a couple of hours. The London paper arrived while she was at breakfast, and she found on an inner page a two-column account of the arrival of Mr. Claude Westwood, with particulars of the voyage of the steamer from Zanzibar, and a snap-shot portrait of the distinguished explorer. Of course there was nothing in the portrait that any one could recognise. The picture might have been anything—a map of Central Africa or a prize vegetable. It contained no artistic elements.
She read in the first paragraph of the account of the arrival, that Mr. Westwood had been in excellent health, the progress that he had made toward recovery when on the cruise in the gun-boat having been apparently completed by the voyage to England. He had started for his home, Westwood Court, Brackenhurst, almost immediately, seeing only a few personal friends in the meantime, the newspaper stated.
Although the reflection that her worst anticipation had not been realised brought her pleasure, she could not avoid feeling disappointed that he had not come to her before he had slept. It seemed so ridiculous to think that although they were within a mile of each other they were still apart. When they had parted it was with such words as suggested that neither of them had a thought for any one except the other. Then through the long years she at least had no thought except for him; and yet they were still apart.
It seemed, too, as the morning advanced, that he had no intention of coming to her this day either.
But if such a thought occurred to her it was soon proved to be an unworthy one, for he came to her shortly after noon.
She was sitting in the room where he had said his good-bye to her long ago. She heard a step on the gravel of the drive and knew it at once. In a moment all the dreary years had slipped away from her like a useless garment. Once more she felt like that shy girl who had listened in dreadful secrecy and with a beating heart for the coming of her hero—her lover. She felt now as she had felt then—trembling with joyous anticipation, not without a tinge of maidenly fear.
She buried her face in her hands, saying in a whisper:
“Thank God—thank God—thank God!”
And then he entered the room.