The Rustle of Silk

by Cosmo Hamilton

He had slept late that morning, put newspapers aside, and allowed the telephone to ring unanswered. He was determined, at least for a few days, to cut himself off from London and especially from the new and futile turn that was taking place in politics. It didn’t seem to him to matter that, because his chief had boxed the political compass again and, like Gladstone, talked with furious earnestness on both sides of every question only to leave anger and stultification at every step, the papers were making a dead set at him, holding him up to ridicule and abuse and working with vitriolic energy against his government at every bi-election. If this man were dragged at last from the seat that he had won by a trick and held by trickery, another of the same kidney and possibly worse principles would be put into his place to build up another and a similar rampart about himself with bribes and honors. It was the system. Nothing could prevent it. Professional politicians had England by the throat and they were backed by underground money and supported by politically owned newspapers. What use to struggle against such odds? He wanted to forget Ireland for a little while, if it were possible to forget Ireland even for so short a space of time as his holiday would last. He wanted to put out of his mind, the horrible mess in Silesia which was straining the entente cordiale to the breaking point, and the bungling over the coal strike, and so he had been wandering among his rose gardens, hatless, with the breeze in his hair, and the scent of new-mown hay in his nostrils, listening to the piping of the thrush, to the passionate songs of larks, and watching bees busy themselves from flower to flower with a one-eyed industry and honesty which he did not meet in men.

He had lunched out on the terrace and looked down with a great refreshment upon the sweeping valley of Aylesbury, peaceful beneath the sun. He had slept again in the afternoon, out of doors, lulled by the orchestra of birds, and had then gone forth to walk behind those high walls into the forest of beech trees, the dead red leaves of innumerable summers at their roots, and to listen to the tramping feet of the ghosts of Roman armies whose triumphs had left no deeper mark on history than the feet of sea gulls on the sands. And as his brain became quiet and the load of political troubles fell from his shoulders, he began to imagine that he was a free man once more, and a young man, and the old aspirations of adolescence returned to him like the echo of a dream,—to love, to laugh, to build a nest, to wander hand in hand with some sweet thing who trusted him and was wholly his. O God, how good. That was life. That was truth. That was nature.

And when, after dinner, he strolled out once more to look at the sky patterned with stars, dominated by a moon in its cold elusive prime, he was no longer the London Fallaray, round-shouldered, anxious, overworked, immeshed like an impotent fly in the web of the bad old spiders. His chin was up, his shoulders back, a smile upon his lips. That gorgeous air filled his lungs and not even from the highest point of vantage could there be seen one glimpse of the little light burning in the tower of the House of Commons. He was nearer heaven than he had been for a very long time. Exquisite lines from the great poets floated through his mind and somewhere near a nightingale poured out a love song to its mate.

And when presently he took a stand on that corner of the terrace which overlooked the Italian garden, it seemed to him that the magic of the moonlight had stirred some of the stone figures to life. The arm of Cupid seemed to bend and send an arrow into the air and where it fell he saw a shimmer of silver and heard the rustle of silk. And he saw and heard it again and laughed a little at the pranks which imagination played, especially on such a night. And not believing his eyes or his ears, he saw this silver thing move again and come slowly up along the avenue of yews like a living star; and he watched it a little breathlessly and saw that it was a woman, a girl, timid, like a trespasser, but still coming on and on with her head up, and the moonlight in her hair,—golden hair wound round her head like an aureole. And when at last, born as it seemed of moonlight and poetry, she came to the edge of the terrace and stopped, he bent down with the blood tingling in his veins, hardly believing that she was there, still under the impression that he had brought her to that spot out of his never realized longing and desire, and saw that she was not a dream of adolescence but a little live thing with wide-apart eyes and red lips parted and the white halo of youth about her head.

X

A bat blundered in between them and broke the spell.

And Fallaray climbed over the parapet and dropped on his feet at Lola’s side. All that day, as indeed, briefly, in the House, at his desk, at night in dreams, ever since the introduction at the Savoy, the eyes of that girl and the thrill of her hand had come back to him like a song, to stir, like the urge of spring. And here, suddenly, she stood, moonlit, but very real, in answer to his subconscious call.

“This is wonderful,” he said, blurting out the truth like a naïve boy. “I’ve been thinking of you all day. How did you get here?”

His eager clasp sent a rush of blood through Lola’s body. His alone among men’s, as she had always known, was the answering touch. “I’m staying with Lady Cheyne,” she said. “I saw the gate in the wall and it wasn’t locked and I tiptoed in.”

“You knew that I was here?”