The Shadow of the Past

by F. E. Mills Young

“By Jove!” he muttered, and struck the arm of his chair twice in rapid succession with his open palm, and continued to stare at the sunlight. “I wonder what has set my thoughts in this direction? I can’t remember that these things ever troubled me before.”

He passed his hand over his eyes; then he took the hand from before his face and contemplated it with interest, looking at it with a sort of surprised curiosity, as though until that moment he had not appreciated its strength. He opened and closed the fingers deliberately, attentively regarding the prominent knuckles that showed white against the sunburnt skin. It was a large hand, and broad, the hand of a mechanic; and it was covered, as were his arms and chest, with fine gold hairs. Evidence of strength was not lacking here, or in the long legs stretched out on the rests of his chair. He turned his attention to his legs, brought his feet deliberately to the stone floor, and sat up straighter.

“I suppose it amounts to this,” he reflected, “that I’m something of a rotter, and am only now awaking to the fact.”

It may have been the state of his finances, which were low, that was responsible for rousing him, or it may have been simply the criticism in a girl’s eyes. It was of the latter he thought more often as he sat wakeful in the sultry afternoon, with a mind in alert contradiction to the repose which his attitude suggested. He saw always in imagination the look of wonder and perplexity shadowing their brown depths, the hint of disapproval behind their surprise. He felt inexplicably desirous of justifying himself in this girl’s opinion, of winning her approval, even her admiration. An almost boyish enthusiasm gripped him to do great things, splendid things, to force her into a generous acknowledgement of his worth. He knew it to be absurd, but the conceit held him, despite his realisation that in all probability the girl had ceased to think of him. Their meeting was but an episode in life; possibly he had made less impression on her mind, notwithstanding all that her features had seemed to express, than she had made on his. He doubted that he had gripped her imagination.

It annoyed him to discover that he was more alive to her disapproval than to any other emotion she may have shown. There had been only disapproval, he believed; and he resented this thought, as he resented the feeling of his own insufficiency, futilely and yet with vehemence. He had got to make that right somehow. He could not let it rest at that. He was going to prove that he was not such a waster after all—prove it to the girl, until the disapproval in her eyes was banished entirely.

It was odd how the memory of that look stuck in his mind and exasperated him. He could not recall that he had ever been so deeply affected by a gaze before. It was as though he had turned a corner sharply and come unexpectedly up against some barrier he had never suspected of being there; it disconcerted him. But behind the embarrassment he was conscious of an immense curiosity, and coupled with the curiosity was an agreeable sense of adventure that coloured everything with the magic of romance.

Not since he had attained to manhood had he felt particularly interested in any individual woman. As a boy girls had interested him; but of late years he had come little in contact with women, and had fallen into the habit of avoiding their society when it was available. Therefore the encounter of the morning was the more significant. He recognised that his action in accosting the girl was the outcome less of impulse than of volition—an instinctive, compelling sympathy which had given him readily to perceive and resent the criticism of her look, and had made it easy, and indeed imperative, for him to speak to her. The same urgency impelled him to seek her again, some power outside his will yet not in conflict with it.

The afternoon wore slowly away. The brazen sun sloped to the hard blue horizon, sinking into the waves victoriously with its golden challenge flashed in the reluctant face of oncoming night. Along the shore the little waves were breaking gold-tipped, and lengthening shadows, the heralds of approaching dusk, lay along the sands. Matheson, while he sat at dinner, was thinking of the sea—the sea with the evening light upon it, and the restful shadows darkening cliff and sand. He dined alone. Holman was spending the evening with friends—a matter of business, he had explained, and had referred vaguely to the club. It did not concern Matheson that he should be dining at the club rather than at his friend’s house; he was not particularly interested in his arrangements. In his present mood he was only conscious of relief at being left to himself. He was out of tune with life, and desirous of keeping the discord unsuspected. He had a strong objection to the cause of his despondency being misinterpreted: Holman would naturally conclude that his losses were weighing unduly on his mind: they certainly sat there heavily, and caused discomfort; but he had an idea that he could bear up in face of these reverses. It was not the first occasion that he had been unlucky with the cards.

He left the dinner table with the picture of the dusk and the quiet sands exciting his imagination, luring him on to the committal of amazing follies. He resisted successfully for over half an hour the seductive call of the sea; and then went up to his room and changed into flannels, and did what for thirty odd minutes he had been resolving he would not do—tramped out along the road to Three Anchor Bay. He had not the smallest hope of seeing Brenda Upton on the beach, or elsewhere; nevertheless he walked down to the beach, and peered about him, searching the dusk vainly for a sign of the small slender figure. He knew that it was not in the least likely that she would be walking about; but he looked for her none the less, with the dogged yet purposeless air of a man pursuing consciously an illusion.

When he had satisfied himself that she was not on the beach, he regained the road, and deliberately turned his steps in the direction he had taken with her that morning. The house where she was staying loomed large in the darkness; and, as he strolled up the sandy roadway, he was conscious of the scent of the oleanders, tall trees of which, in a pink and white confusion, leaned over towards the road. The air was heavy with their fragrance, and warm and still. In the stillness the murmur of the sea followed him, resembling in its muffled monotony the almost outdistanced murmuring of a large concourse of people, uttering an insistent complaint. Lights gleamed fitfully from the open windows of the house, and upon the stoep and balcony people were grouped in small parties of twos and threes, contented, after dinner groups, enjoying the restful dusk which succeeded the heat and glare of the day. If Miss Upton had been there he could not have judged; it was not light enough to distinguish clearly, and the view he got was interrupted and shadowed with the trees.