Volume Two—Chapter Four.
“So the Face before her Lived, Dark-Splendid...”
And what of her to whom this long, weary period had been so many years and so many months of terrible self-reproach? To her, though Time had brought no solace, it had brought a certain amount of resignation; and she had been able to school herself to face the future as best she might. Then suddenly, without so much as a moment’s warning, this man whom she had mourned as dead, whom she had wept and prayed for, night and morning, as one whom she would never again behold here on earth, stood before her. She had looked up, expecting to see a stranger—and there he stood! No wonder the blood forsook her ashy face and her heart stood still.
And now, in the dark, silent hours, she can scarcely realise it. It must be a dream—such a one as she had many and many a time awakened from to find her pillow wet with tears. Would she now awaken to find herself once more the dupe of one of those cruel hallucinations? No, this was real, she told herself; and looking back upon that meeting, awful in its suddenness, she wondered how she had so preserved her calmness. And he—he had shrunk from her—stopped short as soon as he recognised her. No wonder. She had sent him away with bitter words, with hard, cruel words, as a last recollection. How could he tell the agonies of remorse, of repentance, of vain, passionate yearning, which her life had since undergone? Time had gone by—perhaps he had eradicated from his heart the image of her who had made a plaything of it, as it must seem to him; perhaps some other image had taken its place. Better she could have continued to mourn him as dead than that. She forgot, in her anguish, how he had been wandering ever since they two parted—wandering afar in the wild interior, among its wilder inhabitants, alone with his own thoughts and her memory. She forgot all this as, the night through, she lay and tortured herself with these and kindred reflections.
And even if things were not so, and he had come back as he went, was there not the same barrier between them? Now that she was face to face with it once more, could she be false to her word any more now than then? Did not the old obstacle once more arise? No, it did not. From that fatal promise she had been absolved since then, absolved by the inexorable hand of Death—not always a merciless enemy—and at this moment she was free, absolutely free. But what availed her freedom now? Years ago it would have meant everything—life, love, and happiness—but now—
One by one the stars paled overhead, a faint glow suffused the eastern sky, and, with a chill tremor, the dawn swept clearer and clearer over the sleeping earth. Very soothing to Lilian’s tired brow was the fresh, cool air as she leaned out of the window, restless and fevered, after a sleepless night. For a few moments thus she stood, watching the shadows lightening upon the hills around, then, dressing hurriedly, she descended, intending to enjoy the early freshness before any one should be astir.
Noiselessly unlocking the front door, she passed out; and never had the pure morning air seemed more grateful or invigorating. She walked to the gate at the end of the stoep and turned the key—tried to turn it, rather, for it was firm. Then she tried again with all the strength of her two hands; but no; the wretched instrument moved not a hair’s breadth, and she stood contemplating a deep-blue imprint on her own delicate palm—the sole result of her attempt.
“Allow me,” said a voice, and immediately the recalcitrant key yielded, with a creak and a snap, to the vigorous turn of a strong hand. “There,” said the new arrival, swinging open the gate. “Are you taking an early stroll?”
Upon what a startled ear had that voice fallen! Her first impulse was to disclaim all intention of early exercise, and to go back indoors; but she answered in the affirmative.
“I wonder if my company would bore you greatly?” went on Claverton. “Singularly enough, I turned out early with the same intent, and Fate seems to have thrown us together.”
Did he say this with a meaning? she wondered. Fate had indeed thrown them together.
“It would be very ungrateful of me to refuse it,” she answered, with a smile, “when you have just overcome such an obstacle in the way of my going out at all.”
They walked along in silence for a few moments, side by side—those two, who had been so long parted.
“Do you find this place as pretty as Seringa Vale?” he asked.
The question somewhat took her aback. Why did he wish to recur to the past? “No; I have never seen anything like that,” answered she. “Still this is very beautiful in its way. Mr Payne thinks it the most perfect spot on earth.”
“And—are you happy here, Lilian?”
“Yes; I have no right to be otherwise. In fact, I consider myself very fortunate.”
“Oh.”
They had reached the little wooden bridge whence he had first caught the notes of the old, familiar ballad the evening before. Crossing it, they turned down a path between two high pomegranate hedges. Beyond was a garden—cool, leafy, and inviting—where birds twittered and chirped in the morning air. A gleam beyond the Kei hills betokened the advent of the sun.
“It’s marvellously warm for daybreak at this time of year,” began Claverton after a pause. “I hope it doesn’t mean a storm in the afternoon, because that isn’t exactly an auspicious opening to a journey.”
“A journey!” echoed Lilian, blank dismay in her face and in her tone. “You are not going away—to-day?” And moved by an uncontrollable impulse she looked at him, and in that look was a world of entreaty, of despair, and of love; such a look as would be with him to his dying day.
“And is it not better so?” he said, gently. “Believe me, I did not come here to make it uncomfortable for you—darling.” Then, seeing the imploring look deepen in the white face, he went on in a strangely altered tone: “What? It cannot be! Oh, Lilian—tell me—am I to—?”
“Stay.” The word was spoken in a low, thrilling voice. “Stay! unless you want to break my heart. It is only what I should deserve,” and a great sob convulsed the beautiful frame, which was instantly locked fast in Claverton’s embrace; and heart beat against heart as he covered the shrinking face and the soft hair which lay against his shoulder with wild, delirious kisses.
Then the great, golden chariot of day mounted majestically above the eastern hills, and flamed from the azure vault, darting a bright beam upon those two happy ones as if in benediction, and flooding the valley with light and gladness; and the bleat and low of the flocks and herds sounded from the fold, and the voices of humankind echoed cheerily through the morning air—and the day was begun. And in that quiet garden the birds fluttered and piped, bees droned in the sunlight as they winged their way in search of the luscious store, and now and then the leaves would tremble in a faint breeze. Birds, insects, whispering trees, all seemed but to echo one voice, one glad, joyous refrain—“We will never part again, love, never, never.”
Lilian was the first to break the silence.
“Oh, Arthur, is this, too, a dream?” she murmured. “Shall I wake up in a moment and find you vanished, as I have so often done?”
“Have you, sweetest?” he replied in a tone of reverent tenderness, as if he could not speak too softly, or too gently, to her. “It is reality now—if ever anything was—sweet reality;” and at the picture which her words opened up before his mind he clasped her again to his heart as though he could never let her go.
“Let me have a look at you, darling,” she said, suddenly raising her head with a bright, lovely blush, and gazing into the firm, serious face bent over hers. “You have become so brown, and you are looking ever so much older, and—”
“And am quite a battered and hardened campaigner.”
“And are looking ever so much better—ever so much better than you used to. There, you don’t deserve that for interrupting me,” she added, with one of her most bewitching smiles.
“Let’s sit down here,” he suggested, as, with his arm still round her, he drew her towards a rustic seat which might be twin brother to the one under the pear-tree where that dread parting had taken place those years ago. “Now tell me all about yourself—about everything.”
She did so. She told him of her life since they parted, and previous to their first meeting; told him the story of that promise which had entailed such misery upon both of them. It was the old story—a former suitor—and the promise had been most solemnly given beside her mother’s deathbed. The man was worthless to the core, selfish, dissipated, and unprincipled, but he was fascinating both in manner and appearance; and Lilian, at any rate, fancied him genuine. Over her mother he had cast the spell of an extraordinary infatuation, and Mrs Dynevard had not a little to do with the bringing about of her daughter’s engagement. Certain it was that nothing else prevented that daughter from breaking it, for when—her stepfather dying shortly afterwards—Lilian could no longer make her home at Dynevard Chase, this fair-weather suitor kept aloof. He was obliged to leave England, he explained, in order to better his fortunes, which were in a very bad way. By this time, however, Lilian had gained some insight into his real character, and then the weight of that rash promise began to make itself felt. Once she appealed to him to release her from it, but met with a decided refusal, and, as though to rivet the bond still tighter, the man reminded her that her promise was not only given to him but also to her dead mother. So poor Lilian clung fast to her only hope, which was that he might not think it worth his while to claim its fulfilment. Meanwhile she sacrificed herself to sentiment—as men and women have so sacrificed themselves at the faggot pile, or helpless and defenceless before ravening beasts in the arena. Then, like a lightning flash, had come the consciousness of real love, but still she immolated herself to the sacredness of a rash promise.
Let us leave them there, those two, in the sunny garden, amid the unclouded glory of the new-born day. Their cup is full—full and brimming with such happiness as this world rarely affords. Let them revel in it while they may, for a dark cloud is rolling up, gathering as it rolls—a cloud whose edges are red with blood, and whose gruesome shadow is fraught with desolation, with ruin, and with Death.
“Payne,” quietly remarked Claverton, two hours later, as he and his host were standing at the gate of one of the sheep-kraals, the latter counting: “I wonder if I shall succeed in astonishing you directly—by what I’m going to tell you.”
“Twenty-three—five—seven—thirty-two—six,” counted Payne. “Don’t speak to a man on his stroke—or count. Nine—forty-one—forty-four—seven hundred and forty-four. Right, Booi. Now, off you go, and keep away from old Smith’s boundary. He’s a cantankerous beggar, and I don’t want to have a tiff with him. What were you saying, Claverton?” he continued, making a playful cut at a native urchin with his whip, which the boy dodged, and gambolled away swinging his sheepskin kaross and grinning from ear to ear.
“I was saying—would it surprise you greatly to learn that I am about to perpetrate matrimony?”
Payne whistled. “N-no—I don’t know—most fellows fall victims sooner or later. And after all the knocking about you’ve had it’ll do you good to settle down for a bit. By the way—if it’s not an impertinent question—who’s the lady?”
“Lilian Strange.”
“Eh?”
“Lilian Strange.”
“The devil!”
“No—nothing of the kind. That’s deuced uncomplimentary of you when I tell you a piece of news before I’ve imparted it to any one else. In fact, I call it downright shabby,” replied Claverton in a tone of mock remonstrance, while his eyes sparkled with suppressed merriment. For Payne was staring blankly at him as if he distrusted his sense of hearing.
“But—but—Hang it all, how do you know she’ll have you? Why, you never set eyes on her till yesterday.”
Claverton laughed. “I know it because I have it from the very best authority—her own lips. And I knew her—well, long before I had the advantage of first beholding the light of your supremely honest and genial old countenance,” he said, quietly. “Come, don’t stare at a fellow as if you thought him a candidate for a glass-case, but say something decent. Make us a speech, you know.”
“Why, of course, I congratulate you, old chap, and all that sort of thing; but you’ve taken one a little aback. Hang it, it’s as good as a play. Aha! that’s what we get up so dismally early for, hey?”
And, indeed, honest Payne was so taken aback by the announcement that he walked beside the other speechless, with his hands in his pockets, and whistling.
Never before had the duties of the schoolroom seemed so irksome to Lilian as this morning. The warm, sunny air streamed in at the open windows, and just audible was the hum of male voices in conversation, and her heart thrilled as every now and then her ear caught a low, gleeful laugh, which she had learned to know so well. Once, indeed, she went to the window, in the hope of catching a glimpse of the talkers, or rather of one of them; but the result was lamentable, for she found herself dogmatically asserting to her pupils that Pekin, not Paris, was the capital of France—they staring the while as if they did not quite know what to make of her.
“Miss Strange,” exclaimed the eldest girl, “do let’s have the map of this country instead. France and Germany, and all those, are so stupid. We can see where all the Kafirs live, who are coming to fight us.”
“They’re not going to fight us,” struck in Harry, somewhat indignantly. “Pa says they’re not. They’re funky.”
Lilian smiled at this retort, and nipped in the bud an argument, which promised to wax warm, by producing a large map of the Eastern Province.
“Now look here, Harry,” she said; “here’s the River Kei, and here are we. Here are all the Kafirs and—”
“But where’s Fountain’s Gap?” inquired Rose, aged nine.
“It isn’t marked. Look. We’ll put a pencil spot for it. Here’s King Williamstown.”
“What, all that way off?” said Harry.
“Yes. It is a long way off.”
“But we should have to run there if the Kafirs came,” protested that doughty youth.
“Aha! Who’s funky now? Who wants to run away now—eh?” jeered his sister.
“Hush!” said Lilian, in that sweet, soothing way of hers, that stood her in far better stead than any amount of sternness. “You mustn’t quarrel now, you know.” Suddenly the urchin fixed his gaze upon her, and, with mischief gleaming from his blue eyes, exclaimed:
“I saw you this morning—you and that man.”
Lilian felt herself flushing all over. She tried to direct his attention to the lesson, but the imp, with that mixture of mulishness and malice which seems the invariable attribute of the infant prodigy oft-times petted, continued:
“I did. I saw you ki—”
“Harry!” cried Rose, making as if she would rush upon the delinquent. “I’ll go and tell mamma about you, at once. Send him out of the room, Miss Strange—do!”
Poor Lilian! Her delicate, sensitive nature was indeed undergoing acute laceration at the tongue of this urchin, on whom she had lavished nothing but tenderness and care. Whether from perversity, or with a savage enjoyment of the pain he was inflicting, the cub went on:
“I don’t care, Rose! I did see them. They were—”
What they were or were not doing remained unsolved, for the door opened, and Mrs Payne entered.
“I want you to give them a holiday to-day, Lilian,” she said. “Now then, children, run away out into the garden. You can put your books away after. Out you go—quick.”
They obeyed with double alacrity. For their mother, in spite of her warm-heartedness, had a very decided will of her own at times. And Rose, taking into consideration all the circumstances, deemed it advisable to say nothing about Master Harry’s ill-conditionedness.
“Lilian, dear!” exclaimed the good-hearted little woman, as soon as the children had gone out, “I’m so glad about this. Directly I heard of it I came straight here. I couldn’t let you remain drudging in here another moment, to-day. You must go out, and at once, or a certain person will be getting so impatient that he’ll be wanting to quarrel with George, which would be a pity, as they have always been such good friends.”
And then Lilian, somewhat unnerved by the recent juvenile disclosure, cried a little, and there was a good deal of kissing.
“By the way,” exclaimed Mrs Payne, ruefully, “of course, I shall lose you very soon, now; and I don’t know how I shall get on without you at all, dear.”