East of the Shadows

by Mrs. Hubert Barclay

"My aunt was a woman rather hard to describe. My father used to say that she had the brains of a rabbit and the tongue of a viper, and perhaps that best explains her. She meant to be kind, I think, but she was without exception the silliest and most empty-headed person I have ever known. I do not say this unkindly; she gave me what she could, and it was very little—just clothes and food; but of sympathy or human understanding not a particle. And so it followed that I was very lonely, which may in part account for what I have to tell.

"Francis Heathcote and I were about the same age, and during the holidays we played a great deal together, and all the happiness of those childish years I owe to him. We were allowed a good deal of freedom, and there is hardly a stone or a tree in the park that does not hold some memory of delight for me.

"Then of course came his college days, and he was more seldom at home, but even so something of the old comradeship remained to us. And then—one summer—circumstances threw us more closely together again. I was at the age for dreams, and as I told you before, more than half a fool, and God knows what ropes I wove out of gossamer—until—Phil came.

"She was very beautiful, and I expect you know the rest. One thing I can honestly say, I was never jealous of her—I could not wonder that Francis loved her. Every one revelled in her beauty, even I who watched my ropes melt away into nothingness as the dew of the morning before the sun's rays. I watched their courtship. It was some time before he won her, and—Francis used to tell me all his hopes and fears—I think I was some use to him at that time—a sort of safety-valve." She gave a little whimsical smile. "It wasn't always quite easy to listen to his rhapsodies about the girl he loved, but, after all, it meant that we were together, and that was a great deal to me. I do not think the world ever held any one more keen, more eager than he was—so full of the joy of living, so ardent in his love. How his whole face used to light up when he spoke of her! Every one loved him, rich and poor alike. And then came his accident—you know all about it?" Philippa made a gesture of assent. "And there, so far as I am concerned, the story ended. All my remembrance lies in the happy days when we were boy and girl together—when we grew to manhood and womanhood almost before we realised it. I never spoke to him again—I cannot say I did not see him, for I saw him driving once with Lady Louisa. He did not know me."

"Have you never been to the High House since?"

"Only once. It was after I heard that Phil—that his engagement was broken off. It is not a visit that I care to remember. I think I was half crazed with grief for him. Anyway, I felt that I could bear it no longer, and I went and practically forced myself into Lady Louisa's presence. I did not know her very well, she was not the sort of woman any one ever knew well—very cold in manner and reserved—and I had always been afraid of her, but I forgot my fear that day. I have a horrid recollection of being very foolish—of begging her upon my knees to let me do some little thing, even the smallest, for him—and finally of creeping out of the house humbled and despairing, with my whole world in pieces. It had been pretty well shattered before that. I don't know that Lady Louisa was unkind to me, but if she was she had every excuse; and, poor soul, I know how she must have felt—like a tigress defending her young. For it was then that all sorts of rumours were rife about him. People said that he was hopelessly mad—that he had tried to murder her—that he had been taken away to an asylum—and heaven knows how many more lies. And of course she must have thought, and with good reason, that I was an hysterical idiot. Well, I quarrelled with my aunt over it—not the interview, she knew nothing of that, but over the gossip. You can imagine what food for talk in the village, and most of it was her fault, and I was maddened by it.

"This went on for two years. I could not bear to go away, and yet there was no use in staying, for little by little all news of him ceased. Those servants who were known to have gossiped were dismissed, and their places filled by others who could be trusted to be silent.

"The old nurse, who would, I know, have told me, never went outside the grounds, and all the talk had so disgusted me that, with all my longing to know, I don't think I could have questioned a servant.

"Then my aunt died suddenly, and I had to leave. I had no money, and in consequence no choice in the matter. I joined my father, who was at that time in Canada, and remained with him, travelling all over the world wherever his fancy took him until his death three years ago. By that time I had made enough money by my books to know that a livelihood was assured to me, and I came here.

"I could not discover for some time whether he was alive or dead. I heard that Lady Louisa had died a few months before, and I wouldn't ask any direct questions out of respect for her. If she had managed to keep the whole pitiful story a secret, to bury it in oblivion, what right had I to drag it to light again—to make her and him the subject of idle tittle-tattle, for that was what it amounted to? She was at rest beyond the reach of tongues, and in a way that made it worse, for she wasn't there to guard him from lies.