The way of the spirit

by H. Rider Haggard

Then he kissed her and they parted.

In the hall they were all waiting, Edith in the charming travelling-dress which she had designed for her going away. He said good-bye to them, Lord Devene remarking with a smile that he was afraid he was already beginning to find out that even matrimony, though it was said to have descended from on high, could not escape its share of shadow. Dick congratulated him warmly upon things in general and wished that he had his chance which, he was sure, would bring him every sort of good fortune, whereon Lady Devene muttered, “Unberufen!” and looked indignantly at Edith, and the saturnine butler, who, thrusting aside the footman, showed him to the carriage—for he was really attached to Rupert—muttered that he only hoped that he “should see him back alive out of them there savage parts.”

The door of the carriage slammed, the footman, with his wedding favour still upon his breast, touched his hat and sprang to the box, the coachman waved his white beribboned whip, and the horses started forward into the gloom, for rain was falling heavily. So at last he was alone with Edith—for about ten minutes.

She took his hand affectionately, more she could not have done had she wished, since the passers-by stared idly at the blazoned, aristocratic-looking carriage and the horses and servants decked with wedding favours. She reminded him how they had driven together from the station when he arrived from the East, and said how strange it was that now she should be driving with him to the station as his wife to see him off again to the East. Indeed she talked far more than he did whose heart felt too full for words, and who had looked forward for months to a very different departure with his bride. Suddenly he remembered that he had not given her the address to which she must write to him in Cairo, and the rest of their brief journey was occupied in his efforts to put it down as well as the jolting of the carriage would allow.

Then came the confusion of the station, where porters, thinking that they were a couple going away upon their honeymoon, and finding out his name from the coachman, rushed after him calling hi! “Colonel,” or sometimes “My lord,” and were ultimately much astonished to discover that he was travelling alone by the Brindisi mail. Everything was arranged at last, and the pair stood together forlornly at the door of his smoking carriage in which there were two other passengers. Then as the guard called to him to take his seat, the footman stepped forward, touched his hat again, and handed him a letter with the message that it was from his lordship, who said that there was no answer. Rupert thrust it into the pocket of his ulster, embraced his wife, who wiped her eyes with her handkerchief and tried to smile, and after another long minute which seemed an eternity of time, the great engine whistled and the train moved forward into the rain and the darkness.

Rupert sat still for a little, while the image of Edith standing alone upon the platform faded from his sight, waiting for the confusion of his mind to clear. Then he put his hand into his pocket to find his pipe, more from habit than from any desire to smoke, and in doing so, found something else—Lord Devene’s letter, which he had forgotten.

What was he writing to him about, he wondered, as he broke the seal of many quarterings and began to read. This was the letter:

My Dear Rupert,—When you told me that you had insured your life for £10,000 and settled the amount upon Edith, I intimated to you that I also proposed to make her a wedding present in money. (“So he did,” thought Rupert, “I had forgotten all about it.” ) I now write to say that I have carried out this arrangement. Under deed I have paid to her trustees, and settled to her separate use, the capital sum of £25,000, of which the interest will be paid to her quarterly, she having the right to dispose of the corpus by will in favour of anyone whom she may wish. In the event of her having children, however, it is to be divided in equal shares among them at her death.

“That’s a lot,” thought Rupert to himself. “I wonder why he gave her so much. Well, it will make her life easier.” Then he went on with the letter and found the answer to his question.

Perhaps you will wonder why I am so liberal, so I may as well tell you at once what possibly you have guessed; what, indeed, although she does not know it, you must learn sooner or later. Edith is my daughter.