XVI
THE COMING OF HOPE
How they got through the dragging hours of that awful night neither of them afterwards quite knew. They spoke very little, and slept not at all. When morning came at last they were still sitting in silence as if they watched the dead, linked together as brothers by a bond that was sacred.
It was soon after sunrise that a message came for Ronnie from the colonel's bungalow next door to the effect that the commanding-officer wished to see him. He looked at Baring as he received it.
"I wish you'd come with me," he said.
Baring rose at once. He knew that the boy was depending very largely upon his support just then. The sunshine seemed to mock them as they went. It was a day of glorious Indian winter, than which there is nothing more exquisite on earth, save one of English spring. The colonel met them on his own veranda. He noted Ronnie's haggard face with a quick glance of pity.
"I sent for you, my lad," he said, "because I have just heard a piece of news that I thought I ought to pass on at once."
"News, sir?" Ronnie echoed the word sharply.
"Yes; news of your sister." The colonel gave him a keen look, then went on in a tone of reassuring kindness that both his listeners found maddeningly deliberate. "She was not, it seems, in the bungalow at the time the dam burst. She was out on the hillside, and so—My dear fellow, for Heaven's sake pull yourself together! Things are better than you think. She—" He did not finish, for Ronnie suddenly sprang past him with a loud cry. A girl's figure had appeared in the doorway of the colonel's drawing-room. Ronnie plunged in, and it was seen no more.
The colonel turned to Baring for sympathy, and found that the latter had abruptly, almost violently, turned his back. It surprised him considerably, for he had often declared his conviction that under no circumstances would this officer of his lose his iron composure. Baring's behaviour of the night before had seemed to corroborate this; in fact, he had even privately thought him somewhat cold-blooded.
But his present conduct seemed to indicate that even Baring was human, notwithstanding his strength; and in his heart the colonel liked him for it. After a moment he began to speak, considerately ignoring the other's attitude.
"She was providentially on the further hill when it happened, and she had great difficulty in getting round to us; lost her way several times, poor girl, and only panic-stricken natives to direct her. It's been a shocking disaster—the native village entirely swept away, though not many European lives lost, I am glad to say. But Hyde is among the missing. You knew Hyde?"
"I knew him—well." Baring's words seemed to come with an effort.
"Ah, well, poor fellow; he probably didn't know much about it. Terrible, a thing of this sort. It's impossible yet to estimate the damage, but the whole of the lower valley is devastated. The Magician's bungalow has entirely disappeared, I hear. A good thing the old man was away from home."
At this point, to Colonel Latimer's relief, Baring turned. He was paler than usual, but there was no other trace of emotion about him.
"If you will allow me," he said, "I should like to go and speak to her, too."
"Certainly," the colonel said heartily. "Certainly. Go at once! No doubt she is expecting you. Tell the youngster I want him out here!"
And Baring went.
If Hope did expect him, she certainly did not anticipate the manner of his coming. The man who entered the colonel's drawing-room was not the man who had striven with a mastery that was almost brutal to bring her into subjection only the day before. She could not have told wherein the difference lay, but she was keenly aware of its existence. And because of her knowledge she felt no misgiving, no shadow of fear. She did not so much as wait for him to come to her. Simply moved by the woman's instinct that cannot err, she went straight to him, and so into his arms, clinging to him with a little sobbing laugh, and not speaking at all, because there were no words that could express what she yet found it so sublimely easy to tell him. Baring did not speak either, but he had a different reason for his silence. He only held her closely to him, till presently, raising her face to his, she understood. And she laughed again, laughed through tears.
"Weren't you rather quick to give up—hope?" she whispered.
He did not answer her, but she found nothing discouraging in his silence. Rather, it seemed to inspire her. She slipped her arms round his neck. Her tears were nearly gone.
"Hope doesn't die so easily," she said softly. "And I'll tell you another thing that is ever so much harder to kill, that can never die at all, in fact; or, perhaps I needn't. Perhaps you can guess what it is?"
And again he did not answer her. He only bent, holding her fast pressed against his heart, and kissed her fiercely, passionately, even violently, upon the lips.
"My Hope!" he said. "My Hope!"
THE DELIVERER[[1]]
I
A PROMISE OF MARRIAGE
The band was playing very softly, very dreamily; it might have been a lullaby. The girl who stood on the balcony of the great London house, with the moonlight pouring full upon her, stooped, and nervously, fumblingly, picked up a spray of syringa that had fallen from among the flowers on her breast.
The man beside her, dark-faced and grave, put out a perfectly steady hand.
"May I have it?" he said.
She looked up at him with the start of a trapped animal. Her face was very pale. It was in striking contrast to the absolute composure of his. Very slowly and reluctantly she put the flower into his outstretched hand.
He took it, but he took her fingers also and kept them in his own.
"When will you marry me, Nina?" he asked.
She started again and made a frightened effort to free her hand.
He smiled faintly and frustrated it.
"When will you marry me?" he repeated.
She threw back her head with a gesture of defiance; but the courage in her eyes was that of desperation.
"If I marry you," she said, "it will be purely and only for your money."
He nodded. Not a muscle of his face moved.
"Of course," he said. "I know that."
"And you want me under those conditions?"
There was a quiver in the words that might have been either of scorn or incredulity.
"I want you under any conditions," he responded quietly. "Marry my money by all means if it attracts you! But you must take me with it."
The girl shrank.
"I can't!" she whispered suddenly.
He released her hand calmly, imperturbably.
"I will ask you again to-morrow," he said.
"No!" she said sharply.
He looked at her questioningly.
"No!" she repeated, with a piteous ring of uncertainty in her voice. "Mr. Wingarde, I say No!"
"But you don't mean it," he said, with steady conviction.
"I do mean it!" she gasped. "I tell you I do!"
She dropped suddenly into a low chair and covered her face with a moan.
The man did not move. He stared absently down into the empty street as if waiting for something. There was no hint of impatience about his strong figure. Simply, with absolute confidence, he waited.
Five minutes passed and he did not alter his position. The soft strains in the room behind them had swelled into music that was passionately exultant. It seemed to fill and overflow the silence between them. Then came a triumphant crash and it ended. From within sounded the gay buzz of laughing voices.
Slowly Wingarde turned and looked at the bent, hopeless figure of the girl in the chair. He still held indifferently between his fingers the spray of white blossom for which he had made request.
He did not speak. Yet, as if in obedience to an unuttered command, the girl lifted her head and looked up at him. Her eyes were full of misery and indecision. They wavered beneath his steady gaze. Slowly, still moving as if under compulsion, she rose and stood before him, white and slim as a flower. She was quivering from head to foot.
The man still waited. But after a moment he put out his hand silently.
She did not touch it, choosing rather to lean upon the balustrade of the balcony for support. Then at last she spoke, in a whisper that seemed to choke her.
"I will marry you," she said—"for your money."
"I thought you would," Wingarde said very quietly.
He stood looking down at her bent head and white shoulders. There were sparkles of light in her hair that shone as precious metal shines in ore. Her hands were both fast gripped upon the ironwork on which she leant.
He took a step forward and was close beside her, but he did not again offer her his hand.
"Will you answer my original question?" he said. "I asked—when?"
In the moonlight he could see her shivering, shivering violently. She shook her head; but he persisted.
His manner was supremely calm and unhurried.
"This week?" he said.
She shook her head again with more decision.
"Oh, no—no!" she said.
"Next?" he suggested.
"No!" she said again.
He was looking at her full and deliberately, but she would not look at him. She was quaking in every limb. There was a pause. Then Wingarde spoke again.
"Why not next week?" he asked. "Have you any particular reason?"
She glanced at him.
"It would be—so soon," she faltered.
"What difference does that make?" A very strange smile touched his grim lips. "Having made up your mind to do something disagreeable, do you find shirking till the last moment makes it any easier—any more palatable? Surely the sooner it's over—"
"It never will be over," she broke in passionately. "It is for all my life! Ah, what am I saying? Mr. Wingarde"—she turned towards him, her face quivering painfully—"be patient with me! I have given my promise."
The smile on his face deepened into something that closely resembled a sneer.
"How long do you want me to wait?" he said. "Fifty years?"
She drew back sharply. But almost instantly he went on speaking.
"I will yield a point," he said, "if it means so much to you. But, you know, the wedding-day will dawn eventually, however remote we make it. Will you say next month?"
The girl's eyes wore a hunted look, but she kept them raised with desperate resolution. She did not answer him, however. After a moment he repeated his question. His face had become stern. The lines about his mouth were grimly resolute.
"Will you say next month, Nina?" he said. "It shall be the last day of it if you wish. But—next month."
His tone was inexorable. He meant to win this point, and she knew it.
Her breath came quickly, unevenly; but in face of his mastery she made a great effort to control her agitation.
"Very well," she said, and she spoke more steadily than she had spoken at all during the interview. "I will marry you next month."
"Will you fix the day?" he asked.
She uttered a sudden, breathless laugh—the reckless laugh of the loser.
"Surely that cannot matter!" she said. "The first day or the last—as you say, what difference does it make?"
"You leave the choice tome?" he asked, without the smallest change of countenance.
"Certainly!" she said coldly.
"Then I choose the first," he rejoined.
And at the words she gave a great start as if already she repented the moment of recklessness.
The notes of a piano struck suddenly through the almost tragic silence that covered up the protest she had not dared to utter. A few quiet chords; and then a woman's voice began to sing. Slowly, with deep, hidden pathos, the words floated out into the night; and, involuntarily almost, the man and the girl stood still to listen:
Shadows and mist and night,
Darkness around the way,
Here a cloud and there a star,
Afterwards, Day!
Sorrow and grief and tears,
Eyes vainly raised above,
Here a thorn and there a rose;
Afterwards, Love!
The voice was glorious, the rendering sublime. The spell of the singer was felt in the utter silence that followed.
Wingarde's eyes never left his companion's face. But the girl had turned from him. She was listening, rapt and eager. She had forgotten his very presence at her side. As the last passionate note thrilled into silence she drew a long breath. Her eyes were full of tears.
Suddenly she came to earth—to the consciousness of his watching eyes—and her expression froze into contemptuous indifference. She turned her head and faced him, scorning the tears she could not hide.
In her look were bitter dislike, fierce resistance, outraged pride.
"Some people," she said, with a little, icy smile, "would prefer to say 'Afterwards, Death!' I am one of them."
Wingarde looked back at her with complete composure. He also seemed faintly contemptuous.
"You probably know as much of the one as of the other," he coolly responded.
FOOTNOTES:
I desire to acknowledge my indebtedness to the Author—I regret to say unknown to me—of the little poem which I have quoted in this story.