Book Two—Chapter Seventeen.
“To revisit a familiar spot is like walking among tombstones. Every point recalls a memory, and memory belongs to the past.”
Very vividly, like something heard long ago but never before realised, these words which Hallam had uttered on the morning she left the Zuurberg all those weary months before, echoed in Esmé’s thoughts when she made her second journey up the mountain road. The truth of them struck her like a thing which hurts. Her memories came back to her, as he had said they would, with the dust on them. And there was no evading them; they obtruded at every point.
At Coerney there was the same wait under the trees before the cart was ready to start; the same languid stillness brooded over the place, the same enervating heat. Here was the first tombstone. She looked about her with reminiscent eyes, marked the spot where she had sat with Hallam while they waited for the train to come in, realised the crowd of new impressions which jostled the memories in her brain, and fell into thought.
The children were busy exploring. The sound of their gay, excited voices came to her distantly on the languid air. But she could not see them; their figures were hidden among the trees.
Everything was much the same as on her former visit. There were two other travellers beside her party: they had gone into the hotel for refreshments. Presently they came out. The horses appeared with the driver, and the business of inspanning began. The children wandered back and became actively interested in these proceedings. John wished to drive: a compromise was effected by his being allowed to sit beside the driver and hold the whip. Then began the toil upward.
With every mile of the journey memories came crowding back into Esmé’s mind, a dismal procession of pale ghosts that came and went and left a feeling of greater loneliness when they passed. These memories of her first glowing impressions, when excitement and a sense of adventure had coloured her imagination, gave to the present occasion a sort of flatness: the wonder of romance was missing from the picture. She looked about her with intent, mystified eyes. Everywhere there were tombstones; they met her all along the route.
Yet the beauty of the place remained unchanged. The wild grandeur of the scenery, the magnificent solitude, the almost terrifying depths of the chasm which lost itself in the froth of green below, these things impressed her as they had impressed her before with a wondering admiration that held something of awe in it; but whereas before, though she had believed herself to be lonely, hope had travelled with her as a companion; on this occasion there was no joyful anticipation in her heart, only a sense of disappointment that the finish of the journey promised nothing more than the usual holiday offers—rest and change from the ordinary busy life.
She wished, with an urgency no less insistent because of its futility, that she had decided on some other place—any other place—in which to spend her holiday. The mountain road was haunted with the ghosts of dead pleasures; the gorge was haunted; its secret places were the repositories for the thoughts of yesterday, for the dreams which pass with the night.
She gazed down into the black-green silences and felt her despondency deepen. These familiar things linked up her life so completely with the one brief romance it had ever known. She could not disentangle her thoughts from the past. Everywhere her eyes turned, each fresh curve in the road, brought back recollections of Hallam, and of their drive down the mountain together. What was he doing now? Where was he, while she was being borne higher and higher up the steep ascent?
Every now and again the children turned in their seats to flash some question at her, or to point out some amazing novelty which caught their eager attention. The big tree across the road, which cut through its giant trunk, was a source of wonder and delight to them. John forgot his dignity and allowed himself to be impressed by its dimensions.
“Man! but they can grow trees up this way,” he remarked to the driver.
Whereat the driver unbent so far as to permit him to drive under the tree. Whatever his aunt thought about it, John thoroughly enjoyed the experience of that journey up the mountain road. But when the hotel broke first upon his sight he was a little disappointed by its unpretentious appearance.
“It isn’t very big. It’s just like an ordinary house,” he complained.
“I expect you’ll find there is room enough for you inside,” Esmé said.
“Gimme my suit-case. I’ll go and find out,” John replied.
The cart drew up before the entrance. John scrambled down and waited impatiently for his luggage. He had never owned a suit-case before. He insisted upon carrying it. This delayed the party. Esmé was obliged to wait while the cart was unloaded, until John’s baggage came to light and was given into his care. Declining assistance, he struggled with his burden manfully up the short path, and, flushed and a little short of breath, deposited it on the stoep with an air of satisfaction. Some one came forward and offered to carry it inside for him; but John was distrustful of these overtures.
“I can manage,” he said politely, to the amusement of a man who was seated on the stoep, “if you’ll show me the way, please.”
Before following his conductor he looked round for his aunt and sister; and the man who had shown amusement looked in the same direction, and then stood up. John was not interested in the stranger’s movements; he was anxious to go inside and unpack; but the others were so slow in coming. Mary had halted in the path to fondle an amazingly fat white cat. John was not keen on cats; he preferred a dog. He wished they would hurry up.
“John,” Mary’s shrill voice called on a note of enthusiasm, “it’s the darlingest thing, and it’s called Snowflake.”
“Oh, come on!” John returned.
Mary came on at a run, and Esmé followed leisurely. And then another delay occurred. John’s patience was exhausted. Girls were all alike, he reflected scornfully; they made a fuss over everything they met. He did not understand why his aunt should stop to speak to the man who had been seated on the stoep, and who now stepped off the stoep and went to meet her. It seemed as though she had forgotten that he was waiting for her to go in with him.
She had stopped still in the path and was talking to the man. She had forgotten John and his suit-case altogether; she had forgotten everything. The weary months of waiting had slipped out of the picture; the present had rolled back into the past. She was back in the old spot with the man beside her whose presence made for her the magic of the place. The ghosts which had met and mocked her on the journey were finally laid to rest.
Hallam had come down the path quickly, and stood in front of her and blocked her way. She stood still, flushed and wondering, and looked at him with eyes which told a tale.
“I began to think you hadn’t come,” he said.
“Oh!” she said, and held out a hand with a slightly nervous laugh. “I never expected to see you. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was coming to the station to meet you,” he said, “but the cart went away fairly loaded. I have been sitting here waiting for you for the past two days. What do you suppose I meant, you dense little thing, when I advised you to take your holiday here? Do you think I’d have left you to wander alone among the musty relics you dreaded? ... I am going to take you to-morrow morning to see the sun rise,” he added in a lighter tone.
Esmé laughed happily.
“I haven’t seen the sun rise since the last time we saw it together,” she said, and scrutinised him for the first time with unwavering eyes.
She thought him looking extremely well and fit. He appeared younger and altogether more sure of himself. And the stoop of the shoulders was less noticeable; he carried himself better. He met her eyes and smiled.
“I rather suspected your early morning activity was a cultivation,” he said. “It is possible, I have found, to discard habits as well as to cultivate them.”
That was the only reference he made to the long months he had spent fighting his baser self. He did not know whether she caught the drift of his remark. It did not seem to him to matter much. There was manifestly very little need for explanations on either side. They took one another for granted. They took their love for one another for granted; it stood revealed, a thing which needed no words, which expressed itself mutely in their satisfaction in one another. They gazed into each other’s eyes, and there was no shadow of doubt in their minds at all.
“You are looking well,” she said.
“Yes,” he said; “I feel well. I feel amazingly, extravagantly well. So do you. You’re radiant. That’s because we are feeling so extremely pleased, both of us, with life and with ourselves,—particularly with ourselves. We are going to have the best of times together. I have been looking forward to this for months. And now you’re here... It is almost as if we had never parted. It’s better, really; the break brings us nearer. It’s just good.”
The happiness which she felt shone in her face. She looked about her at the familiar little garden, at the homely comfortable hotel, and the small stoep in front of the house, where John and Mary waited, John seated on the steps with his precious suit-case beside him. Then she looked back into the man’s face, and her eyes were grave and tender when they met his.
“I had forgotten the children,” she said.
He glanced over his shoulder.
“The little chap with the suit-case,” he said. “And the girl—yes. Who are they?”
She explained them.
“I brought them with me to keep away the ghosts,” she said.
He laughed.
“Well, they are here. I wish they weren’t; but we’ll make the best of it. It doesn’t very much matter. The sooner they get used to me and the situation, the better. If there is any one sufficiently good-natured to foster them we will shift our responsibilities. I am going to monopolise you. I’ve been lonely ever since I said good-bye to you at Coerney.”
He turned and walked beside her up the short path to the stoep.
“I’m glad to have you back,” he said.
John and Mary, staring with round-eyed curiosity at the pair as they advanced, wondered why their aunt looked so shy, and why she coloured suddenly from neck to brow and looked down and spoke softly.
“It’s good to be back,” she replied.
They came to a halt at the steps; and John, remembering his manners, stood up, but continued to stare, unabashed.
“This is John,” Esmé said with greater confidence; and John held out a small, hot hand.
“How d’ye do?” he said, as one man to another.