The way of the spirit

by H. Rider Haggard

The worst of it was that she could not be as angry with him as she ought, perhaps because she knew that his outrageous talk and behaviour sprang from the one true and permanent thing in the fickle constitution of Dick’s character—his love for her. That love, indeed, was of the most unsatisfactory kind. For instance, it did not urge him on to honest effort, or suffice to keep him straight, in any sense. Yet it existed, and must be reckoned with, nor was she upon whom it was outpoured the person likely to take too harsh a view even of its excesses. She could ruin Dick if she liked. A word to Lord Devene, and another to Rupert, would be sufficient to turn him out to starve upon the world, so that within six months he might be sought for and found upon the box of a hansom cab, or in the bunk of a Salvation Army shelter. Yet she knew that she would never speak those words, and that he knew it also. Alas! even those insolent kisses of his had angered rather than outraged her; after them she did not rub her face with her handkerchief as she had done once that day.

Again, it was not her fault if she shrank from Rupert, whom she ought to, and theoretically did, adore. It was in her blood, and she was not mistress of her blood; for all her strength and will she was but a feather blown by the wind, and as yet she could find no weight to enable her to stand against that wind. Still, her resolution never wavered; she had made up her mind to marry Rupert—yes, and to make him as good a wife as she could be, and marry him she would. Now there were dangers ahead of her. Someone might have seen her go into that library with Dick at near one o’clock in the morning. Dick himself might drop hints; he was capable of it, or worse. She must take her precautions. For a moment Edith thought, then going to a table, took a piece of paper and wrote upon it:

1st January. 2 A.M.
To Rupert,—A promise for the New Year, and a remembrance of the old, from her who loves him best of all upon the earth.

E.

Then she directed an envelope, and on the top of it wrote that it was to be delivered to Colonel Ullershaw before he left, and took from her breast the lilies she had worn, which she was sure he would know again, purposing to enclose them in the letter, only to find that in her efforts to free herself from Dick, they had been crushed to a shapeless mass. Almost did Edith begin to weep again with vexation, for she could think of nothing else to send, and was too weary to compose another letter. At this moment she remembered that these were not all the lilies which the gardener had sent up to her. In a glass stood the remainder of them. She went to it, and carefully counted out an equal number of sprays and leaves, tied them with the same wire, and having thrown those that were broken into the grate to burn, enclosed them in the envelope.

“He will never know the difference,” she murmured to herself, with a dreary little smile, “for when they are in love who can tell the false from the true?”

CHAPTER IX.
RUPERT ACCEPTS A MISSION

The interval between the 1st of January and the 13th of April, the day of Rupert’s marriage, may be briefly passed over. All the actors are on the scene, except those who have to arrive out of the Soudanese desert; their characters and objects are known, and it remains only to follow the development of the human forces which have been set in motion to their inevitable end, whatever that may be.

The choosing of this date, the 13th, which chanced to be a Friday, was one of the grim little jokes of Lord Devene, from whose house the marriage was to take place; a public protest against the prevalence of vulgar superstitions by one who held all such folly in contempt. To these Rupert, a plain-sailing man who believed his days to be directed from above, was certainly less open than most, although even he, by choice, would have avoided anything that might suggest unpleasant thoughts. Edith, however, neglectful as she was of any form of religion, still felt such ancient and obscure influences, and protested, but in vain. The date suited him, said her cousin. There were reasons why the marriage could not take place before, and on Saturday, the 14th, he had to go away for a fortnight to be present in Lancashire at an arbitration which would be lengthy, and held in situ as to legal matters connected with his coal-mines. So she yielded, and the invitations were issued for Friday, the 13th of April.

Meanwhile things went on much as might be expected. Rupert sat in Edith’s pocket and beamed on her all day, never guessing, poor, blind man, that at times he bored her almost to madness. Still she played her part faithfully and well, paying him back word for word and smile for smile, if not always tenderness for tenderness. Mrs. Ullershaw, having shaken off her preliminary fears and doubts, was cheerful in her demeanour, and being happy in the happiness of her son, proclaimed on every occasion her complete contentment with the match. Lord Devene appeared pleased also, as indeed he was, and lost no opportunity of holding up Rupert as a model lover, while that unfortunate man writhed beneath his sarcasms.