Auckland once more! The traveller, though now a confirmed roamer, was, for obvious reasons, by no means grieved to find himself again in the haunts of civilized man. He had been interested, instructed, illuminated, as he told himself, by this sojourn in woodlands wild. Face to face with Nature, untrammelled by art, he had seen her children in peace, in love and friendship. He was now, as all things portended, about to obtain a closer knowledge of them in war—a rare and privileged experience, unknown to the ordinary individual. How grateful should he be for the opportunity!
His first care was to possess himself of his letters and papers. There were not many of the former, still fewer of the latter. The county paper gave the usual information, as to poachers fined or imprisoned, a boy sent to gaol for stealing turnips. The hunting season had been fortunate. More visitors than usual. The riding of Mr. Lexington, son of the new owner of Massinger Court, had been much admired. That gentleman had exhibited judgment as well as nerve and horsemanship in (as they were informed) his first season's hunting in England. His shooting, too, was exceptional, and a brilliant career was predicted for him with the North Herefordshire hounds. A few epistles came from club friends and relatives. They were of the sort written more or less as a duty to the expatriated Briton, but which rarely survive the second year. The writers seemed much in doubt as to his locale, and uncertain whether New Zealand was one of the South Sea Islands or part of Australia. They all wished him good luck, and foretold future prosperity as a farmer, which was the only successful occupation out there (they were told) except digging for gold, which was agreed to be uncertain, if not dangerous. They concluded with a strong wish that he would come back a quasi-millionaire before he became a confirmed backwoodsman. And he was on no account to marry a "colonial" girl, when there were so many charming, educated damsels at home. This last from a lady cousin, who had with difficulty restrained herself from imparting the last South African news, as being apposite to his situation and circumstances.
These despatches were put down with an impatient exclamation, after which he sat gazing from the window of his hotel, which afforded a fine view of the harbour. Then he took up a letter in a hardly feminine hand, which he had placed somewhat apart, as a bonne bouche for the latter end of the collection. This turned out to be from his candid and free-spoken friend, Mrs. Merivale, née Branksome—a matter which he had probably divined as soon as he glanced at the rounded characters and decided expression of the handwriting.
Opening it with an air of pleasurable expectation, and observing with satisfaction a couple of well-filled sheets, he read as follows:—
"My dear Sir Roland,
"Now that I am safely married and all that, I may make use of your Christian name, with the affectionate adjective, I suppose. The adverb in the first line was part of the congratulation of my great-aunt, who evidently thought that any girl with a decent amount of go in her, who did not habitually confine herself to phrases out of Mrs. Hannah More's works and read the Young Lady's Companion, was likely to end up with marrying an actor or an artist, whose useful and more or less ornamental professions she regarded as being much of a muchness with those of a music or dancing master.
"Well, one of the advantages of my present 'safe' and dignified position is that I can have friends, even if they happen to be young men, and give them advice. This I used to do before, as you know, though as it were under protest. 'This is all very fine,' I can hear you say, 'but why can't she leave off writing about herself, and tell me about—about —why, of course, Hypatia Tollemache. Is she "safely" married (hateful word!), gone into a sisterhood, started for Northern India to explore the Zenanas, and teach the unwilling "lights of the harems" what they can't understand, and wouldn't want if they did?' None of these things have happened as yet, though they are all on the cards. She tried 'slumming' for a time, but her health broke down, and she had a bad time with scarlet fever. I made her come and stay with me after she was convalescent, and oh, how deadly white and weak she was!—she that was such a tennis crack, and could walk like a gamekeeper. I tried with delicacy and tact (for which, you know, I was always famous!) to draw her about your chances—say in five years or so. But she would not rise. Said, 'people were not sent into the world to enjoy themselves selfishly,' or some such bosh; that she had her appointed work, and as long as God gave her strength she would expend what poor gifts He had endowed her with, or die at her post; that in contrast with the benefits to thousands of our suffering fellow-creatures which one earnest worker might produce, how small and mean seemed the conventional marriage, with its margin narrowed to household cares, a husband and children! Were there not whole continents of our poor, deprived not only of decent food, raiment, lodging, by the merciless Juggernaut of inherited social injustice, but of the knowledge which every adult of a civilized community should enjoy without cost? And should any man or woman, to whom God has granted a luxurious portion of the blessings of life, stand by and refuse aid, the aid of time and personal gifts, to save these perishing multitudes? When a girl begins to talk in this way, we know how it will end. In the uniform of a hospital nurse; in a premature funeral; in marriage with a philanthropist, half fanatic, half adventurer: what Harry calls a 'worm' of some sort—the sort of parasite that preys upon good-looking or talented women.
"Dear me! as my aunt says, I am getting quite flowery and didactic. Isn't that something in the teaching or preaching line? I forget which. Harry says I am a journalist spoilt. I don't know about that, but I should like to be a war correspondent. I am afraid there is no opening for a young woman in that line yet—a young woman who isn't clever enough to be a governess, loathes nursing, would assassinate her employer if she was a lady help, but who can walk, ride, drive, play tennis, and shoot fairly. By the way, there's going to be a war in the South Island, isn't it? Couldn't you contrive to be badly wounded? and perhaps—only perhaps—she, 'the fair, the chaste, the inexpressive she,' might come out to nurse you.
"Harry says that's a certain cure for—let me see—indecision, the malady of the century as regards young women. I remember being troubled with it myself once. He says I was—whereas now—but I won't inflict my happiness upon you.
"What a long letter, to be sure! Never mind the nonsense part of it. That is partly to make you laugh. He advises you, in the elegant language of the day, to 'keep up your pecker,' which he says means nil desperandum. I say ditto to Harry, and ask you to believe me, always,
"Your sincere friend,
"Elizabeth Merivale."
Massinger put down the letter of his frank and kindly correspondent with feelings of a mixed nature, akin to pleasure, as evidencing an interest in his welfare not all conventional, but, on the other hand, recalling regrets exquisitely painful. These being partially dulled, he had mistakenly concluded that they had no further power to wound. And now, after a comparative cure, when his tastes had been satisfied and his curiosity aroused by the incessant marvels of a fantastic region, he had been recalled to the old land, resonant with the past anguish. The inhabitants of this enchanted isle, with their mingled pride and generosity, chivalrous courage and ferocious cruelty, had aroused his sympathies. There, beyond all, stood the figure of Erena, with her frank, half-childish ways, her countenance at one time irradiated with the joyous abandon of an innocent Bacchante, as she laughed aloud while threading with him the forest paths; at another time with shadowed face and downcast mien, when a presage of future ills caused the light to fade out of her luminous eyes.
The free forest life, with its daily recurrence of adventure and excitement, had sufficed for all the needs of his changed existence. And now, even by the hand of a friend, were the seeds of unrest sown. He thought of Hypatia Tollemache stricken down in the pride of her mental and bodily vigour, laid low in the conflict in which she had so rashly, so wastefully, risked her magnificent endowments. Had he been in the neighbourhood of Massinger, to cheer, to comfort, to gently question her plan of life, to offer to share it with her, to urge his suit with all the adventitious aid of predilection and propinquity, what success, unhoped for, indescribable, might he not then have gained?