"You have returned with your face so fair,Your sweet blue eyes and your golden hair,Again to cherish--again to shareThis life of mine with its joy and care."Alas, my dearest, the days were long,When memories came in a countless throng,To sing to my heart such a haunting song,Of things once right that had changed to wrong."You have returned just to heal the smartThat Sorrow made with her cruel dart,Never again will we sigh and part.You once more are my leal sweetheart."
"You have returned with your face so fair,Your sweet blue eyes and your golden hair,Again to cherish--again to shareThis life of mine with its joy and care.
"Alas, my dearest, the days were long,When memories came in a countless throng,To sing to my heart such a haunting song,Of things once right that had changed to wrong.
"You have returned just to heal the smartThat Sorrow made with her cruel dart,Never again will we sigh and part.You once more are my leal sweetheart."
The Hon. Angus Macjean's experiences of early married life could hardly be called pleasant, seeing the demands made upon himself and his bride by their mutual friends. Shortly after their marriage, Aunt Jelly had died, thereby causing them to return to London before the end of the honeymoon, then, during their visit to Lord Dunkeld, Mrs. Macjean had been summoned south in order to console Lady Errington for the loss of her child, and now as Eustace had telegraphed Alizon to come over to her sick husband at San Remo, it was necessary that Otterburn should escort her, for it was impossible, in her present state of grief, that she could travel alone. The young couple, therefore, did not get so much of each other's company as they desired, and it said a great deal for the good nature of both, that they were so ready to comfort the mourner, at the sacrifice of their own desires, and the upsetting of all their plans.
Life at Errington Hall was very dreary after the death of the heir, as Victoria was constantly with the unhappy mother and Otterburn was left to wander about with nothing but his own thoughts, which were not particularly cheerful in the present aspect of affairs. Then came the funeral, which Macjean had to look after entirely by himself, as Eustace and Errington were both absent. The young man had received a letter from Gartney, stating that Guy was too ill to travel, and Victoria had shown it to Alizon, but, wrapped up in the selfishness of grief for her great loss, she had made hardly any remark about this new blow.
Then came the peremptory telegrams summoning the wife to the bedside of her sick husband, and Otterburn, through his wife, delicately offered to accompany Lady Errington to San Remo as soon as she was ready to start.
Alizon was a long time making up her mind about going, as she considered that her husband had grossly insulted her by his openly-displayed passion for Mrs. Veilsturm. Still, on calm reflection, she saw that she was to a great extent blameable for his folly, and as the death of Sammy had considerably softened her heart towards his wrong-doing, she determined to fulfil her duty as a wife and go across to the Riviera at once. The child's death had left a blank in her heart, and she felt that she must have someone to love and console her, or she would go mad in the loneliness of her grief; so with these thoughts in her heart she sent a telegram to Eustace, announcing her departure, and prepared for the journey.
She accepted Otterburn's escort as far as San Remo, but promised that as soon as she was established by Guy's sick bed, Angus should return to his wife, who was to be left behind at Errington Hall. Angus agreed to this, and in company with the young man and her maid, she left Victoria Stationen routefor the Italian Riviera.
The whole journey seemed to her like a dream; the bright English landscape, which she knew so well; the breezy passage across the Channel, with the tossing waves and blue sky; Calais, with its bustling crowd of natives and tourists; the long journey through the pleasant Norman country, and then Paris, gay and glittering, where they stayed all night. Next morning again in the train rushing southward, past quaint, mediæval towns, with their high-peaked houses, over slow-flowing rivers, through ancient forests already bearing the touch of Autumn's finger--still onward, onward, till they reached Marseilles, sitting by the blue waters of the Mediterranean. Afterwards they continued their journey through smiling Provence, along the sunny Riviera--Cannes, Mentone, Nice, all passed in their turn; a glimpse of Monte Carlo, where the Goddess of Play sits enthroned on high--palm-crowned Bordighera--deserted Ospedaletti, with its lonely Casino--and at last San Remo, amid her grey olive-groves, at the foot of the blue hills.
Eustace was waiting for them at the railway-station, looking very grave, and bowed silently to Lady Errington, as she stepped out of the carriage.
"Is he better?" she asked, looking haggardly at him, a tall slender figure in her sweeping black robes.
"I'm afraid not--still we hope for the best."
She made no reply, so after greeting Otterburn, Eustace conducted them to a carriage, and they drove to the Hotel de la Mer. Alizon lost no time, but asked to be taken at once to her husband's room. Eustace tried to prepare her mind, so that the shock of seeing him should not be too much, but she disregarded all his entreaties, and went up to the darkened apartment where her husband was lying. One question only she asked Gartney before she entered:
"Is that woman here?"
"Do you think I would have sent for you had she been?" he replied, deeply hurt. "No I She has left San Remo, and will trouble you no more."
"Your doing?"
"Yes."
She gave him her slender, black-gloved hand for a moment, and then passed to her husband's bedside, where her place was henceforth to be.
The next morning Otterburn, having discharged his duty, returned to his wife, and Lady Errington was left alone with Eustace to nurse the man whom she never thought to meet with kindly feeling again.
Guy was terribly ill for a long time, but as out of evil good sometimes comes, there was no doubt that this illness was beneficial, inasmuch as it showed Alizon the true state of her husband's heart. In those long, dreary hours, as she sat beside the bed listening to his incoherent ravings, she heard sufficient to convince her that Guy had always tenderly loved her--that his apparent infidelity was the result of despair, and that a word of forgiveness from her would have saved him from the misery he had suffered. No explanation on the part of Eustace Gartney--no explanation from her husband, had he been in good health--would have convinced her of the truth, and there would always have lurked in her heart a terrible suspicion that she had been sinned against, which would have embittered her whole life. She would have perhaps forgiven her husband, but she nevertheless would have believed him guilty, and his presence would have been a constant regret and reproach to the purity of her soul. But these wild mutterings, these agonised ravings, revealed the true state of things--revealed at once his weakness and his strength; so little by little the scales fell from her eyes, and she saw how noble was this nature, how weak was the soul, and how needful to its well-being was love and tenderness.
Again, since the death of her child a terrible sense of utter loneliness had fallen upon her, and now that she saw her mistaken judgment of Guy's character all her being yearned for his love, and this woman, who had only respected and admired him when he was well and strong, now that he was prostrate and weak, passionately loved him with all the intensity of her nature. The coldness of her nature had departed, the frozen heart had melted, and often, overcome with terror and dread, she flung herself on her knees beside the bed, praying to God to spare her the husband she had never understood nor loved till now. She never spoke to Eustace about Mrs. Veilsturm--all she knew or cared to know was that this obstacle that had stood between herself and her husband had been removed, and that the true feelings of that husband had been revealed to her by the hand of God.
During all this time Eustace acted the part of a brother, and never by word or deed betrayed the true state of his feelings. Heaven alone knew how he suffered in maintaining a cold, patient demeanour towards the woman he loved, and his life, from the time of her arrival till the hour he left San Remo, was one long martyrdom. Often she wondered at his stoical calmness and apparent forgetfulness of the words he had spoken to her at Errington Hall, but neither of them made any reference to the past, and she thought that he was now cured of his passion. Cured! Eustace laughed aloud to himself as he divined her thoughts and contentment that it should be so, and he counted the hours feverishly until such time as he could leave her with a convalescent husband and depart from her presence, where he had to hide his real feelings under a mask of cynical indifference.
Owing to the unintermitting care of Dr. Storge, the careful nursing of his wife, and the watchful tenderness of Gartney, the man who had been sick unto death slowly recovered. The long nights of agony and delirium were succeeded by hours of peaceful slumber, the disordered brain righted itself slowly, and the vacant stare of the eyes and babble of the tongue were succeeded by the light of sanity and the words of sense. He was weak, it is true--very weak--but the first moment of joy she had known since the death of her child came to Alizon when one morning, while kneeling beside his bed, he called her faintly by her name.
"Alizon."
"Yes, dear!--your wife."
His wife!--was this his cold, stately wife who knelt so fondly beside him? Were those eyes--shining with love, wet with tears--the cold blue eyes that had so often frozen all demonstrations of affection? Was that face, full of joyful relief and emotion, the marble countenance that had never smiled lovingly on him since he had first beheld it? No!--it could not be Alizon--it was some deceptive vision of the brain, painting what might have been and yet---- She saw his state of bewilderment, and, bending over, kissed him tenderly.
"It is I--your wife!--wife not in name only, but in love and trust."
A smile of joy flitted across his worn face, and he strove to put out one weak hand.
"Forgive," he said faintly, "forgive."
"It is I who should ask forgiveness," she replied in a broken voice; "I was harsh and cold, my dearest, and I do ask your forgiveness. Hush do not say a word--you are very weak, and must not talk. Let me nurse you back to health again, and then I will strive to be a better wife to you than I have hitherto been."
He said nothing, but lay on his pillows, with eyes shining with love, a contented smile on his lips, and fell asleep, still holding his wife's hand in his own.
After this he mended quickly, for with the return of Alizon's affection the desire of life had come back, and each day he grew stronger because the vexed brain was now at rest, and the love of his wife was a better medicine than any drugs of the doctor.
"You see," said Storge to Eustace on leaving the chamber one day when Guy had been pronounced convalescent, "what has cured him is not my medicines, but his wife's affection. Ah, Shakespeare was a wise man when he said, 'Thou canst not minister unto a mind diseased.' Love is the only cure there."
"Lucky mind to have such a cure," replied Gartney with a sigh; "some minds have to bear their diseases till the end of life with no chance of being mended."
Storge said nothing, but he looked at him curiously, for he half guessed the real state of the case, and sincerely pitied Eustace for his unhappy passion.
"Poor fellow," he thought as he departed, "he has wealth, health, fame and popularity, yet he would give all these for what he will never obtain--the heart of that woman."
Guy's complete recovery was now only a question of a few weeks, so Eustace, feeling that he could not keep up the pretence of indifference much longer, made up his mind to depart. With this idea he produced a letter from Laxton one evening when he was seated with Alizon by the bed of the convalescent.
"I've just got a letter from my friend," he said cheerfully, "and he wants me to come back to England at once."
"What for?" asked Guy quickly.
"Oh, our African expedition, you know," replied Eustace, smoothing out the letter. "I put it off because of your illness, but now you are on the way to recovery I can leave you with safety in the hands of Alizon."
"I never saw such a fellow," said Guy, fretfully. "Why on earth can't you stay at home, instead of scampering all round the world?"
Eustace laughed, yet his mirth was rather forced.
"I'm afraid I've got a strain of gipsy blood in me somewhere," he said, jokingly, "and I can't rest; besides, I really and truly prefer savages to civilized idiots of the London type. They're every bit as decent, and much more amusing."
All this time, Lady Errington had remained silent in deep thought, but at the conclusion of Gartney's speech, she looked up with a grave face.
"When do you start?" she asked quietly.
"To-morrow morning."
"So soon?" she said, with a start.
"Hang it, Eustace, you might have given us longer notice," remarked Guy, in a displeased tone of voice.
"Cui bono?" said Gartney, listlessly. "Long leave-takings are a mistake, I think--the opposite of 'linked sweetness long drawn out.' I always like to come and go quickly, so I'll say goodbye to-night, and be off the first thing in the morning."
Neither Guy nor his wife made any further remark, as they both felt dimly that it would be happier for Eustace to go away as soon as possible. It was not ingratitude, it was not a desire to lose his company, but what he had said to the wife, and what he had said to the husband, recurred to both their memories, and they silently acquiesced in his decision.
"Before I go," said Eustace, after a pause, "there is one thing I wish to say. Can I speak to you both without offence?"
"Certainly," replied Guy, wondering what was coming. "We both owe you more than we can ever repay."
"You can repay it easily," said Gartney, quickly, "by accepting the proposition I am about to make."
"Let us hear what it is first," observed Alizon, looking up for a moment with a faint smile on her lips.
"It will not take long to explain," answered Gartney, in a matter-of-fact tone. "You know I am rich enough to indulge all my whims and fancies, so this new access of wealth from Aunt Jelly, is absolutely useless to me. It ought to have been left to Guy, and had I spoken to Aunt Jelly before she died, no doubt I would have made her see this. As it is, however, it has been left to me, and I do not want it. Guy, however, does so. I wish to make him a free gift of all the property before leaving for Africa."
"No," said Guy resolutely, "I will not take a penny."
"Why not?"
"Because it was left to you. I do not want to rob you."
"It's not a question of robbery," said Eustace, coolly, "if the money was of any use to me, I'd keep it. But it is not. I do not even know that I would touch it, so it's far better to be employed by you than lying idle in my bank. What do you say, Alizon?"
She flushed painfully.
"What can I say?"
"That you will persuade this obstinate husband of yours to take the money."
"But suppose he won't accept?"
"Which is his firm intention," said Guy, quickly.
"In that case," remarked Eustace grimly, "I shall simply hand it over to the most convenient charity, say 'The Society for the Suppression of Critics,' or 'The Fund for Converted Publishers'--but keep it, I will not."
"You're talking nonsense," cried Guy, impatiently. "The sober truth, I assure you."
There was silence for a few moments, and at last the silence was broken by Guy.
"If I thought you were in earnest----" he began slowly.
"Dead earnest," said Eustace.
"Then I suppose it will be best to accept your Quixotic offer."
"I'm glad you look at it in such a sensible light," retorted Gartney, with an air of great relief. "You agree with Guy, Alizon?"
She raised her eyes slowly to his face, and looked steadily at him before making her reply.
"Yes, I agree with Guy," she answered frankly.
"Then it's settled," said Eustace with a huge sigh. "I can't tell you how glad I am to escape being buried under this weight of wealth, like Tarpeia under the shields of the Sabines. An old illustration, is it not, but remarkably apt. You will be able to clear the mortgages off the Hall, Guy, and live there in a manner befitting the place. I will see my lawyers as soon as I return to England, so you will have no further trouble over the matter."
"And what about yourself?" asked Alizon, impulsively.
"Myself?" he echoed, rising slowly from his chair. "Oh, I am going away to foreign parts. The land of Khem--the blameless Ethiopians--the secret sources of the Nile, and all that kind of thing."
"But when you come back?" said Errington, raising himself on his elbow.
"When I come back," said Eustace sadly, a presentiment of coming doom heavy on his soul, "then I'll see you both happy and honoured. Perhaps you'll find a domestic seat for me by the domestic hearth, and I'll tell stories of mysterious lands to future generations of Erringtons."
Again silence, a painful, oppressive silence, which seemed to last an eternity.
"Goodbye, dear old fellow," said Eustace at last, with a mighty effort.
Guy clasped his hand without a word, his heart being too full to speak.
"And you also, Alizon."
She gave him her hand also, and there they stood, husband and wife, with their hands clasped in those of the man whom they both knew had fought a good fight--and conquered.
"Goodbye, Eustace," whispered the woman at last, with a look of infinite gratitude and pity in her deep eyes. "May God keep you--brother."
And under the spell of that gentle benediction, he passed away from their sight for ever.
"I thought that our old life was over and done with,And ever apart we would wander alone,That Clotho had broken the distaff she spun with,Weaving the weird web that made my life one withYour own."Yea, but this letter unbidden appeareth,A sorrowful ghost of the sweetness of yore.Bringing dear thoughts which the lonely heart cheereth,Recalling the words which the heavy soul hearethNo more."Ah, but love's blossom can ne'er bloom again, love,Withered and brown it lies dead in my heart,There let it faded and broken remain, love,We must live ever while years wax and wane, love,Apart."
"I thought that our old life was over and done with,
And ever apart we would wander alone,
That Clotho had broken the distaff she spun with,
Weaving the weird web that made my life one with
Your own.
"Yea, but this letter unbidden appeareth,
A sorrowful ghost of the sweetness of yore.
Bringing dear thoughts which the lonely heart cheereth,
Recalling the words which the heavy soul heareth
No more.
"Ah, but love's blossom can ne'er bloom again, love,
Withered and brown it lies dead in my heart,
There let it faded and broken remain, love,
We must live ever while years wax and wane, love,
Apart."
At the entrance to a tent a man sat silent, watching the setting sun. A wild scene, truly, far beyond the bounds of civilization, where the foot of the white man had never trodden before, where the savage tribes had lived since the first of Time in primeval simplicity, where Nature, with lavish hand, spread her uncultured luxuriance in forest, in mountain, and in plain, under a burning, tropical sky. It was a scene far in the interior of Africa, that mysterious continent, which has yet to yield up her secrets to the dogged curiosity of European races.
The man was reading a letter, a letter that had come through swamp, through jungle, over mountains, across plains, by the hands of savage carriers, the last letter he would receive before plunging still deeper into the unknown lands beyond, the last link that bound him to civilization--a letter from home.
Inside the tent, another man was also reading letters, from friends and club companions, which gave him all the latest gossip of that London, now so far away, but he read them lightly, and tossed them aside with a careless hand. The man outside, however, had only one letter, and, as he read it, his eyes grew moist, blinding him so much that he could not see the writing, and looking up, gazed at the scene before him through a blurred mist of tears.
Undulating grass plains, a wide river winding through the country like a silver serpent, clumps of tropical trees, and a distant vision of fantastic peaks, all flushed with splendid colours under the fierce light of the sunset. And the sky, like a delicate shell of pale pink, fading off in the east to cold blue and sombre shadows, in the west deepening into vivid billowy masses of golden clouds, which tried unsuccessfully to veil the intolerable splendour of the sinking sun. A breath of odorous wind under the burning sky, the chattering of monkeys, the shrieking of brilliant-coloured parrots, and the low, guttural song of a naked negro cleaning his weapons in the near camp.
The man looked at all this with vague, unseeing eyes, for his thoughts were far away, then, dashing away the tears, he once more began to read the letter he held in his hand.
"My dear Eustace,
"I can hardly believe that it is nine months since you left us. I wonder in what part of Africa you will read this letter, that is, if it ever reaches you, of which I have considerable doubt. The papers, of course, informed us of your many months of delay at Zanzibar before you could go forward, so perhaps this letter may reach you before you get beyond the confines of civilization. I was very much astonished to hear you were at Zanzibar, as I thought you left England with the intention of going up the Nile, and getting into the inland country that way. However, I suppose you had good reason for changing your plans, and are now pushing forward into unknown lands.
"I have a great deal to tell you about ourselves and friends, which I am sure you will be pleased to hear. In the first place, both my wife and myself are completely happy--all the clouds of our earlier life have vanished, and I think that no married pair can have such perfect confidence and love for one another. I ascribe this happy state of things to you, dear old fellow, for had you not made Mrs. Veilsturm leave San Remo, and brought my wife to my sick bed, we could never have come together again. I know, good friend that you are, you will be pleased to hear we are so perfectly happy, and that every year--every day--every hour, my wife grows dearer to me. As I write these words her dear face is bending over my shoulder to read what I have set down, and she cordially endorses what I have said.
"Thanks to your kind gift of Aunt Jelly's money, all things pecuniarily are well with me. I have paid off the mortgages on the Hall, and invested the rest of the money, so what with the income arising from such investments, and my rents, now regularly coming to me instead of to the lawyers, I am quite a rich man, and the Erringtons can once wore hold up their head in the county as a representative family.
"By-the-way, I have some news to give you about our mutual friend, Mrs. Veilsturm, with whom I was so infatuated. She went on to New York, followed by Dolly Thambits, and has now married him. He is a young idiot to be sure, but then he has an excellent income, and that is all she cares about. Won't she spend his thousands for him? Well, I think you and I agree on that subject. Regarding Major Griff, she evidently found him less useful after than before she became Mrs. Thambits, so she has pensioned him off with a few thousands, and I hear the Major has gone to Central America, with a view to entering the service of one of the republics of those regions. His future fate is not hard to prophesy, as he will either become President or be shot, but in either event I don't think he'll trouble our fair friend again who has retired so peacefully into married life. Next year, I believe, she is coming to town, and is going to cut a great dash, so no doubt Mrs. Thambits will be even more popular than Mrs. Veilsturm--although, I dare say, there will not be any Sunday evenings of the Monte Carlo style.
"You will perhaps wonder at my writing so coolly about this lady, but the fact is, I now see only too clearly the danger I escaped. She would have ruined my life, and certainly made a good attempt to do so, only you fortunately intervened in time. What magic you used to force her to leave me alone I do not know, but I certainly have to thank you for extricating me from a very perilous position.
"Another item of news. Mrs. Macjean has presented the delighted Otterburn with a son and heir. By-the-way, I should not call him Otterburn, as, by the death of his father four months ago, he is now Lord Dunkeld. But old habits are hard to get rid of, and I always talk of them as Mrs. Macjean and Otterburn. They are very happy, as they deserve to be, for Dunkeld is a real good fellow, and Lady Dunkeld--well, she is all that is charming.
"Do you remember Miss Minnie Pelch, poor Aunt Jelly's companion? She is now down at Errington with us, as she was so lonely in town that Alizon took pity on her, and she is installed as companion at the Hall. Her volume of verse came out in due splendour, and was entirely overlooked by the press, at which I am not sorry, as if the poems had been noticed--well, you know the poems of old. Minnie, however, thinks this silence is jealousy, and quite looks upon herself as a shining light of the Victorian age, so neither Alizon nor I undeceive her, for she is a good little woman, though somewhat of a bore with her infernal--I mean eternal--poetry.
"I really don't think there is any more news to tell you, except that good old Mrs. Trubbles is dead--apoplexy--and her dear Harry is now on the look-out for another spouse with political influence--I wish it was 'poetical influence,' and we might manage to marry him to Miss Pelch.
"Mr. Dolser and 'The Pepper Box' have both gone under, never to rise again I hope. Some dreadful libel on a high personage appeared, at which the H.P. took umbrage, and the editor is now expiating his offence in prison. I can't say I'm very sorry, as when he is released Mr. Dolser will no doubt leave other people's affairs alone. Such men as he are the curse of the present age, and should all be sunk in the Atlantic for at least half an hour--after that I think we'd have no more trouble with them.
"And now, my dear cousin, I must close this long letter, but first, in confidence, let me hint to you that my wife is expecting an interesting event to take place shortly, which will once more render the nursery a necessity. Poor Alizon has borne up bravely since the death of Sammy, but I know she longs for a child of her own to fill the vacant place in her heart. I am no longer afraid of having a rival in my child, as my wife loves and trusts me now, and my lot is as perfectly happy a one as any mortal can hope for.
"So now goodbye, my dear Eustace. I hope we will soon see you back again at the Hall, where there is always a place for you. My wife sends her kindest regards to you, and so do I, thus closing this letter, and remaining
"Your affectionate Cousin,
"Guy Errington."
When Eustace finished reading the letter he let it fall on the ground, and laughed bitterly.
"Kindest regards," he said sadly, "and I gave her love."
The sun was sinking swiftly behind the dark hills, and Gartney, with his hand supporting his chin, sat watching it, thinking of the days that were no more.
So sad, so melancholy he felt, as he thought of the past, of the woman he loved so fondly, whom he had restored to the arms of her husband at the cost of his own happiness. Surely, if he had been selfish, vain and egotistical all his life, he had expiated these sins by his voluntary sacrifice of self--a sacrifice that had banished all delight from his heart.
And he sat there a lonely exile, with sorrow behind him, and danger before him, while the sun sank in the burning west, and the sable wings of night spread over the earth like a sombre pall.
There was darkness on the world, there was darkness in his heart, and from the midst of the shadows still sounded the melancholy chaunt of the slave.
* * * * * *
"By a telegram from Zanzibar there now seems no doubt that the two young Englishmen, who went into the interior of Africa some months ago, have been massacred. Only one survivor of the expedition escaped and managed to get safely to the coast. According to his story, Mr. Laxton was speared first by hostile natives from an ambush. Afterwards Mr. Gartney met with the same fate, although he defended himself for some time with his revolver.
"Much regret will be felt in England at this sad news, as the two deceased gentlemen were both very popular, Mr. Gartney especially being widely known as a charming poet and essayist. He, was very wealthy, and we hear that all his property, by a will executed before he left England, has been left to Lady Errington, of Errington Hall, Dreamshire."
* * * * * *
So that was the end of Eustace Gartney.