The way of the spirit

by H. Rider Haggard

Although the sun showed through it like a yellow Chinese lantern, not till ten o’clock in the morning did that mist lift, with the result that it was four in the afternoon when they dropped anchor in Plymouth harbour.

Two and a half more hours were taken up in transhipping baggage, silver bullion, and passengers to the tug, and in passing the Customs, so that the special train did not steam out of Plymouth Station until after sunset. Rupert, a person quite regardless of appearances, and one to whom money was valuable, took a second-class ticket, and, as a result, found that he had a carriage to himself. Here, in the south of England, the evening was mild, and letting down the window he looked out. A soft, fast-falling rain gave to the autumn ruin of the landscape a stamp of peculiar sadness. Melancholy cattle stood at the gates of sodden fields, leaves fell from the trees beneath puffs of wind, women under umbrellas hurried to their cottage homes, and, unlighted as yet by lamps, unwarmed by the glow of fires, the grey stone farmsteads appeared deserted. To one accustomed for years to the sun of the East, and to its solemn, starry nights, the scene seemed desolate indeed, and its gloom sank deep into Rupert’s heart.

He wished that he had not come to England. He wondered what awaited him there, and whether his mother were alive or dead. It might well chance that the latter was the case, for since the letter which he received at Abu-Simbel, he had no tidings of her, and although he had telegraphed his arrival from the steamer, of course there was no time for him to receive an answer. He had hoped, indeed, for news at Plymouth, and had stood twenty minutes waiting his turn at the purser’s window, only to be told that there were no letters or telegrams for him.

At first Rupert was alarmed, then remembered that as he had neglected to wire the name of his ship from Port Said, he could scarcely expect to hear from his mother on board of her. Therefore, the absence of them meant nothing. And yet he was frightened, he knew not of what, much more frightened than ever he had been at the beginning of a battle, or when entering on any other risky enterprise. Danger, real danger, seemed to be nearer to him.

At Exeter Rupert bought some evening papers, the first he had seen for years, and in reading them forgot his indefinite anxieties. So the time went by somehow till at length, stretched out endlessly around him, he saw the lights of the squalid suburbs of London whereof they do but seem to accentuate the dreary sameness; a whole firmament of fallen stars relieved here and there by the tawdry constellation of a gin-house.

Paddington at last! Into the great, empty station runs the double-engined train. Still although it is half-past eleven at night a number of people are standing upon one of the platforms, that at which it halts. These are friends and relations who have come to greet sundry of the passengers on their return to England. There, for instance, is a young wife, who, catching sight of her husband’s face, runs along by the carriage door heedless of the remonstrances of the porters with whom she collides violently, until it comes to a standstill. Then in an instant that long-divided pair are in each other’s arms again, and Rupert turns his head away so as not to spy upon their happiness, muttering to himself: “Lucky fellow, who has someone to care for him,” and descends on to the platform, looking for a porter to help him with his hand baggage. As it chances he has to wait a while, since all the men available have gone to the aid of the first-class passengers, leaving the few “seconds” to look after themselves.

While Rupert stood thus patiently he became aware of a tall lady wearing a long cloak who was searching the faces of the crowd. Disappointed she began to walk past him towards another group by a saloon carriage further down the train, and their eyes met.

“Surely,” he said, starting and lifting his hat, “you must be my cousin Edith grown up.”

“Oh, Rupert, there you are!” she exclaimed, in a low, pleasant voice and holding out her slender hand. “Yes, of course it is I, grown up, and old too.”

“One moment,” he interrupted, for her dark cloak and hat suggested to him that she might have come to break bad tidings. “Tell me how—what is the news of my mother?”