what fate does, let fate answer for.
one afternoon joseph had his wish. moreover he had it given to him even as he desired, which does not usually happen. we are given a part, or the whole, so distorted that we fail to recognise it.
joseph looked up from his work and saw jocelyn coming into the bungalow garden.
he went out to meet her, putting on his coat as he went.
“how is mr. meredith?” she asked at once. her eyes were very bright, and there was a sort of breathlessness in her manner which joseph did not understand.
“he is a bit better, miss, thank you kindly. but he don't make the progress i should like. it's the weakness that follows the malarial attack that the doctor has to fight against.”
“where is he?” asked jocelyn.
“well, miss, at the moment he is in the drawing-room. we bring him down there for the change of air in the afternoon. likely as not, he's asleep.”
and presently jack meredith, lying comfortably somnolent on the outskirts of life, heard light footsteps, but hardly heeded them. he knew that some one came into the room and stood silently by his couch for some seconds. he lazily unclosed his eyelids for a moment, not in order to see who was there, but with a view of intimating that he was not asleep. but he was not wholly conscious. to men accustomed to an active, energetic life, a long illness is nothing but a period of complete rest. in his more active moments jack meredith sometimes thought that this rest of his was extending into a dangerously long period, but he was too weak to feel anxiety about anything.
jocelyn moved away and busied herself noiselessly with one or two of those small duties of the sick-room which women see and men ignore. but she could not keep away. she came back and stood over him with a silent sense of possession which made that moment one of the happiest of her life. she remembered it in after years, and the complex feelings of utter happiness and complete misery that filled it.
at last a fluttering moth gave the excuse her heart longed for, and her fingers rested for a moment, light as the moth itself, on his hair. there was something in the touch which made him open his eyes—uncomprehending at first, and then filled with a sudden life.
“ah!” he said, “you—you at last!”
he took her hand in both of his. he was weakened by illness and a great fatigue. perhaps he was off his guard, or only half awake.
“i never should have got better if you had not come,” he said. then, suddenly, he seemed to recall himself, and rose with an effort from his recumbent position.
“i do not know,” he said, with a return of his old half-humorous manner, “whether to thank you first for your hospitality or to beg your pardon for making such unscrupulous use of it.”
she was looking at him closely as he stood before her, and all her knowledge of human ills as explored on the west coast of africa, all her experience, all her powers of observation, were on the alert. he did not look very ill. the brown of a year's sunburn such as he had gone through on the summit of an equatorial mountain where there was but little atmosphere between earth and sun, does not bleach off in a couple of months. physically regarded, he was stronger, broader, heavier-limbed, more robust, than when she had last seen him—but her knowledge went deeper than complexion, or the passing effort of a strong will.
“sit down,” she said quietly. “you are not strong enough to stand about.”
he obeyed her with a little laugh.
“you do not know,” he said, “how pleasant it is to see you—fresh and english-looking. it is like a tonic. where is maurice?”
“he will be here soon,” she replied; “he is attending to the landing of the stores. we shall soon make you strong and well; for we have come laden with cases of delicacies for your special delectation. your father chose them himself at fortnum and mason's.”
he winced at the mention of his father's name, and drew in his legs in a peculiar, decisive way.
“then you knew i was ill?” he said, almost suspiciously.
“yes, joseph telegraphed.”
“to whom?” sharply.
“to maurice.”
jack meredith nodded his head. it was perhaps just as well that the communicative joseph was not there at that moment.
“we did not expect you for another ten days,” said meredith after a little pause, as if anxious to change the subject. “marie said that your brother's leave was not up until the week after next.”
jocelyn turned away, apparently to close the window. she hesitated. she could not tell him what had brought them back sooner—what had demanded of maurice gordon the sacrifice of ten days of his holiday.
“we do not always take our full term,” she said vaguely.
and he never saw it. the vanity of man is a strange thing. it makes him see intentions that were never conceived; and without vanity to guide his perception man is as blind a creature as walks upon this earth.
“however,” he said, as if to prove his own density, “i am selfishly very glad that you had to come back sooner. not only on account of the delicacies—i must ask you to believe that. did my eye brighten at the mention of fortnum and mason? i am afraid it did.”
she laughed softly. she did not pause to think that it was to be her daily task to tend him and help to make him stronger in order that he might go away without delay. she only knew that every moment of the next few weeks was going to be full of a greater happiness than she had ever tasted. as we get deeper into the slough of life most of us learn to be thankful that the future is hidden—some of us recognise the wisdom and the mercy which decree that even the present be only partly revealed.
“as a matter of fact,” she said lightly, “i suppose that you loathe all food?”
“loathe it,” he replied. he was still looking at her, as if in enjoyment of the englishness and freshness of which he had spoken. “simply loathe it. all joseph's tact and patience are required to make me eat even eleven meals in the day. he would like thirteen.”
at this moment maurice came in—maurice—hearty, eager, full of life. he blustered in almost as joseph had prophesied, kicking the furniture, throwing his own vitality into the atmosphere. jocelyn knew that he liked jack meredith—and she knew more. she knew, namely, that maurice gordon was a different man when jack meredith was in loango. from meredith's presence he seemed to gather a sense of security and comfort even as she did—a sense which in herself she understood (for women analyse love), but which in her brother puzzled her.
“well, old chap,” said maurice, “glad to see you. i am glad to see you. thank heaven you were bowled over by that confounded malaria, for otherwise we should have missed you.”
“that is one way of looking at it,” answered meredith. but he did not go so far as to say that it was a way which had not previously suggested itself to him.
“of course it is. the best way, i take it. well—how do you feel? come, you don't look so bad.”
“oh—much better, thanks. i have got on splendidly the last week, and better still the last five minutes! the worst of it is that i shall be getting well too soon and shall have to be off.”
“home?” inquired maurice significantly.
jocelyn moved uneasily.
“yes, home.”
“we don't often hear people say that they are sorry to leave loango,” said maurice.
“i will oblige you whenever you are taken with the desire,” answered jack lightly; “loango has been a very good friend to me. but i am afraid there is no choice. the doctor speaks very plain words about it. besides, i am bound to go home.”
“to sell the simiacine?” inquired maurice.
“yes.”
“have you the second crop with you?”
“yes.”
“and the trees have improved under cultivation?”
“yes,” answered jack rather wonderingly. “you seem to know a lot about it.”
“of course i do,” replied maurice boisterously.
“from durnovo?”
“yes; he even offered to take me into partnership.”
jack turned on him in a flash.
“did he indeed? on what conditions?”
and then, when it was too late, maurice saw his mistake. it was not the first time that the exuberance of his nature had got him into a difficulty.
“oh, i don't know,” he replied vaguely. “it's a long story. i'll tell you about it some day.”
jack would have left it there for the moment. maurice gordon had made his meaning quite clear by glancing significantly towards his sister. her presence, he intimated, debarred further explanation.
but jocelyn would not have it thus. she shrewdly suspected the nature of the bargain proposed by durnovo, and a sudden desire possessed her to have it all out—to drag this skeleton forth and flaunt it in jack meredith's face. the shame of it all would have a certain sweetness behind its bitterness; because, forsooth, jack meredith alone was to witness the shame. she did not pause to define the feeling that rose suddenly in her heart. she did not know that it was merely the pride of her love—the desire that jack meredith, though he would never love her, should know once for all that such a man as victor durnovo could be nothing but repugnant to her.
“if you mean,” she said, “that you cannot tell mr. meredith because i am here, you need not hesitate on that account.”
maurice laughed awkwardly, and muttered something about matters of business. he was not good at this sort of thing. besides, there was the initial handicapping knowledge that jocelyn was so much cleverer than himself.
“whether it is a matter of business or not,” she cried with glittering eyes, “i want you to tell mr. meredith now. he has a right to know. tell him upon what condition mr. durnovo proposed to admit you into the simiacine.”
maurice still hesitated, bewildered, at a loss—as men are when a seemingly secure secret is suddenly discovered to the world. he would still have tried to fend it off; but jack meredith, with his keener perception, saw that jocelyn was determined—that further delay would only make the matter worse.
“if your sister wants it,” he said, “you had better tell me. i am not the sort of man to act rashly—on the impulse of the moment.”
still maurice tried to find some means of evasion.
“then,” cried jocelyn, with flaming cheeks, “i will tell you. you were to be admitted into the simiacine scheme by mr. durnovo if you could persuade or force me to marry him.”
none of them had foreseen this. it had come about so strangely, and yet so easily, in the midst of their first greeting.
“yes,” admitted maurice, “that was it.”
“and what answer did you give?” asked jocelyn.
“oh, i told him to go and hang himself—or words to that effect,” was the reply, delivered with a deprecating laugh.
“was that your final answer?” pursued jocelyn, inexorable. her persistence surprised jack. perhaps it surprised herself.
“yes, i think so.”
“are you sure?”
“well, he cut up rough and threatened to make things disagreeable; so i think i said that it was no good his asking me to do anything in the matter, as i didn't know your feelings.”
“well, you can tell him,” cried jocelyn hotly, “that never, under any circumstances whatever, would i dream even of the possibility of marrying him.”
and the two men were alone.
maurice gordon gazed blankly at the closed door.
“how was i to know she'd take it like that?” he asked helplessly.
and for once the polished gentleman of the world forgot himself—carried away by a sudden unreasoning anger which surprised him almost as much as it did maurice gordon.
“why, you damned fool,” said jack, “any idiot would have known that she would take it like that. how could she do otherwise? you, her brother, ought to know that to a girl like miss gordon the idea of marrying such a low brute as durnovo could only be repugnant. durnovo—why, he is not good enough to sweep the floor that she has stood upon! he's not fit to speak to her; and you go on letting him come to the house, sickening her with his beastly attentions! you're not capable of looking after a lady! i would have kicked durnovo through that very window myself, only”—he paused, recalling himself with a little laugh—“only it was not my business.”
maurice gordon sat down forlornly. he tapped his boot with his cane.
“oh, it's very well for you,” he answered; “but i'm not a free agent. i can't afford to make an enemy of durnovo.”
“you need not have made an enemy of him,” said jack, and he saved maurice gordon by speaking quickly—saved him from making a confession which could hardly have failed to alter both their lives.
“it will not be very difficult,” he went on; “all she wants is your passive resistance. she does not want you to help him—do you see? she can do the rest. girls can manage these things better than we think, if they want to. the difficulty usually arises from the fact that they are not always quite sure that they do want to. go and beg her pardon. it will be all right.”
so maurice gordon went away also, leaving jack meredith alone in the drawing-room with his own thoughts.
