full winter seemed to have come in a night; everywhere rime lay white upon the land, every blade was a frosted silver spear. not a leaf yet kept the summer green; shrunken, brown and yellow, they hung by their brittle stems; it was a still morning, and he who had ears to listen to nature sounds, all through the woods could have heard ever and anon the sigh of one, falling here and there. a dim blue winter sky held the world; the sunshine was serene and faintly warm, like the heart of a good old man. the air was like iced wine to drink, invigorating, tingling through the veins. it painted aspasia's cheeks a splendid scarlet. it filled her with the spirits of all young things, foals and kittens and cubs; so that she could hardly keep from prancing down the iron path, from cutting steps on the stiff grass to hear it crackle beneath her feet.
as bethune looked at her, he thought she was as pretty as a winter robin in her brown furs. her eyes glistened as she flung quick glances at him; her dimples came and went; her teeth flashed as she chattered at headlong speed. they were going to sunday service at the village church, a couple of miles away, and baby was setting forth with a delightful sense of vigour and freedom.
those whose fate binds them to cities can have no idea of the delicate joys of the country walk, with the beloved one—him or her—who fills the thoughts. alas! for the poor wench that has no better pleasure than to tramp along the crowded street. what does she know of the loveliness of "solitude for two," of the dear sympathy of nature, perfect in every season with the heart that is of her clay?
not, indeed, that miss cuningham acknowledged even to herself that raymond bethune was the present lord of her mind, much less her beloved. nevertheless, the glamour of that hour that strikes but once in a lifetime was upon her. love, first love, the only love, comparable but to the most exquisite mystery of the dawn, of the spring; happiness so evanescent that a touch will destroy it, so delicate that the scent of it is obliterated by fulfilment; so utterly made of anticipation, of unrealised, unformed desire, that to shape it, to seize it, is to lose it—is it not strange that we, to whom such a gift is granted, receive it, nearly all of us, not as we should, on our knees, but grossly, greedily, impatiently, ungratefully, hurrying through the golden moments, tearing apart the gossamer veil, grasping the flower from the stem before its unfolding? no wonder that to most the day that follows on this dawn should be so full of heat and burden; the fruit of this blossom so sour to the parent that the children's teeth are set on edge; that, behind the veil, the vision should prove dull, flat, and unprofitable!
now aspasia, though a very creature of earth and one that knew no transcendental longings, had kept the pure heart of her childhood; and therefore this hour of her first love, all vague, all unacknowledged, was wholly sweet.
they knelt, bethune and she, side by side, in the small bare church. she flung him a look of comical anguish over the grunting of the harmonium and the unmelodious chants of the village choir. she struck into a hymn herself, in a high clear pipe, as true as a robin's song. a pale young clergyman, with protruding eyeballs, led the service with a sort of an?mic piety; grand old bible words were gabbled or droned; grand old church prayers, with the dignity of an antique faith still resounding in them—who, that heard, seemed to care? it was the sunday routine, and that was all.
bethune saw the girl's fingers unconsciously practising musical exercises on the ledge of the pew; when their eyes met once, she made a childish grimace. she, for one, was frankly bored. as for him, had he any faith? he had hardly ever thought even of putting the question. he went to the church service of his country as a matter of course, as his grandfathers had done before him. it was part of the etiquette of his military life. now and again he had been moved to a solemn stir of the feelings during some brief soldier's ceremony: the hurried funeral perhaps of an english lad far away from homeland. but so had he been moved by the bugle-call, by the hurrah on the field. life and death, love and religion, what did they mean? what are we, when all is said and done, but the toys of a blind fate?
there is but one thing sure in the uncertainty, he told himself, but one staff in the wilderness, one anchor in the turmoil—duty.
the damp-stained wall at his side was starred with memorials. he began to contemplate them, idly at first, then with an enkindling interest. here was an old stone slab commemorating, in half-obliterated words, some son of a dorset house who had died for the country in far peninsular days. "in the twentieth year of his age." a young existence, to be thus cut short! yet, had he lived, and given life, his own sons would now be well-nigh forgotten.
under this was a black marble tablet. the blood rushed to his face as he read, and then ebbed, leaving him cold:
to the memory of
captain henry english,
of her majesty's indian staff corps,
killed on service in the pamirs. aged 28.
thus ran the sober inscription; followed the text, more triumphant than sorrowful:
he that loseth his life shall find it.
and then the words:
this tablet was erected by his mother.
behind him, by just turning his head, he could see another memorial. a plate of flaming brass, this one; large, for it had to hold many names, and very new. it was scored in vermilion tribute to those yeomen—gentlemen and peasant—who, at the first breath of disaster, had hurried overseas from the peaceful district to uphold the mother country in a point of honour and had found quick honour themselves. in a little while these blood-red letters, too, would fade, but not so quickly as the memory of grief in the hearts of those who had sent their lads off with such tears, such acclamations. bethune thought to himself, with a bitter smile, that there was not one of the churches dotted all over the wide english land where some such brand-new memorial had not been nailed this last year, and how, sunday after sunday, the eyes of the congregation would sweep past it, with ever-growing dulness of custom, until the record came to mean no more than the grey stones of the walls themselves. no less quickly than england, the moment of peril past, forgets those who rose to her call and fell for her name, does the thought of the brother, the comrade, the son, pass from the home circle! not that he pitied the forgotten; not that he wished it otherwise with his country. it was well for england that her sons should think it a matter of course to give their lives for her. and it was what he could wish for himself, to die where his duty was, and be obliterated. who, indeed, should remember him who had no ties of kinship and had lost his only friend? ... who should be remembered when harry english was already forgotten?
his lips curled, as he flung a glance along the aisles and wondered if any heart, under these many-coloured sunday garments, still beat true to the lost lover; nay, how many comfortable widows had already brought a second mate to worship under the tablet that commemorated the first? hold! yet the mothers remember—this was the church where harry english had worshipped, beside his mother, the grand tender silent woman whom bethune, too, had loved: the mother who had been alone, with himself, to mourn!
when he had set out on his way this morning he had been moved by the thought that to kneel where his friend had knelt was the last and only tribute he could pay that memory. the mountain torrent had robbed them of his grave; but in the shrine which sheltered his tablet, in this church of a communion that had rigidly severed the old fond ties between the living and the departed, no service could yet now be held that would not be in some sort a commemoration.
as the thoughts surged through his mind like wreckage on the waves of his feelings, he seemed to go back, with a passion that almost had something of remorse, to his old sorrow for english and to his old bitterness against the woman who had put another in his comrade's place.
in vision he placed the two men before him: harry, stern, eager, true, with his rare beautiful smile—eagle of glance, clear of mind, unerring of judgment, swift of action; harry english, the unrecognised hero of the deep strong heart; he whose courage at the crucial moment had maintained the honour of england; who, in saving the frontier stronghold, had, as bethune knew, saved india from gathering disaster! and sir arthur gerardine, the great man, with his fatuous smile, his fatal self-complacency, his ignorant policy. sir arthur gerardine, in his high place, working untold future mischief to the empire with inane diligence. bethune almost laughed, as he pictured the lieutenant-governor to himself, one of the many of his order, busy in picking out stone by stone the great foundations planned by the brains of lawrences, cemented by the blood of nicholsons.
and yet, this rosamond gerardine, who had borne the name of english, could not be dismissed merely as one who, light-natured, had found it easy and profitable to forget. sphinx, she had haunted his thoughts that indian night as he had walked back from her palace, carrying with him her image, white and stately in the flash of her diamonds and the green fires of her emeralds ... the great lady, who knew the value of her smiles and gave the largess but with condescension. sphinx she was even more to him now, whether hurrying from her walk to receive him, wide-eyed in the firelight, with the bloom of a girl on her cheek and an exquisite gracious timidity; or wan in her black robes—widow, indeed, it seemed—drinking in with speechless tenderness of sorrow every memory of the lost friend, as if no sir arthur gerardine had ever stepped between her and her beloved.
was this attitude but a phase of a sick woman's fancy, to be dropped when the mood had passed? was not, in truth, lady gerardine in this freakish humour as false to sir arthur, who had given her affluence and position, as she had been to him who had given her his love and faith? deep down under his consciousness there was a little angry grudge against her that she should not have accompanied them this morning. were she now sincere, she would have felt the same desire as he himself to pray where the walls heralded harry english's name. bethune did not know, so little do even the most straightforward know themselves, that had she knelt by his side to-day it would have been perilously sweet to him: that had her footsteps gone with his along the frosted roads between the brown hedges, that way, to him, would have remained in fragrance as with a memory of flowers.
"didn't you think," asked baby, "that mr. smith—his name is algernon vandeleur smith, he's the curate—didn't you think his eyes would drop out of his head? they make me feel quite ill!" they were walking down the flagged churchyard path, and baby was stamping her small cold feet. she was talking in a high irate voice, regardless of hearers. "did you ever listen to such a sermon?"
she opened her bright eyes very wide and made a fish-like mouth in imitation of the reverend algernon: "and now, brethren, shortly, briefly, and in a few words, not wishing to detain you longer, i will endeavour to set before you with conciseness and brevity."—she was a born mimic, and had caught the dreary young divine's very intonation.
bethune had no laugh for her: his heart was sore. for once the girl's mood jarred on him.
she was quick to feel the shadow of his thoughts. the dimple went out of her cheek, the spring from her step. the icy brilliancy of the day seemed suddenly dim to her. the walk before them, towards which she had been yearning with delicious anticipation, became instantly a grey project, a weariness.
this gossamer of early love—it needs but a breath of adverse wind to tear it apart and set it afloat in forlorn shreds, mere flecks to the caprice of the airs; it that has been a fairy bridge for the dance of the sunbeams! for a long while they trudged together in silence. but all at once, bethune looking down upon her was smitten, not by any hint of her dawning sentiments towards him, but by the consciousness that he must have seemed surly towards a mirthful child.
"god knows," he thought heavily, "the world gets sad enough, soon enough, to make it shame to cloud even one moment for the children." himself, he felt old and sad, and miles away from her happy youth.
"so silent?" said he, turning upon her that softened look she loved.
she glanced up at him, forcing a smile, but over her frank eyes there was a wet shimmer which she winked away indignantly. once again, as on that indian evening when he had seen lady gerardine fit her slender hand into the death-prints of the burnt queens, it struck him that here, in this open-hearted, sweet-natured, gay-spirited girl, a man might find a companion for life to help and comfort—a piece of charming, wholesome prose, but ...
raymond bethune, in his lonely isolated life, had had dreams—dreams that his temper had been too narrow, too severely matter-of-fact, to bring into any connection with his actions. he had dreamed his dream as he had read his book of poetry, to lay it aside without a sigh and take up the moment's duty, as one lays aside a flower, a thing of fragrance, a passing pleasure, which has no further influence on life.
now this woman, whom he despised, who had outraged the deepest feeling of his life, had become, in some inexplicable manner, the embodiment of these inconsequent dreams. her deep eyes, shadowed with sorrow as the tarn by the mountain height; the trick of her sigh, the balm of her rare smile; the melody of her voice, those low tones that seemed as charged with mystery as the wind by the whispers of the forest depths, all were as
charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
of perilous seas, in fa?ry lands forlorn....
she was a vision of poetry that could be lived, that could become part of a man's very flesh and blood!
of a sudden he realised it. his heart gave a great leap and then seemed to stand still; but the habit of years and the hard common sense of his nature asserted themselves in violent reaction. he coloured to the roots of his hair in shame at the monstrousness, the absurdity of the thought, to which his idle dissatisfied mood had led him.
the girl saw his emotion and innocently attributed it to quite another cause; connected it with the expression of his glance when it had rested upon her. the song awoke once more in her heart, circling higher and higher like a june lark. renewed joy began to bubble from her lips in laughter and talk.
when they emerged from the copse to the top of the downs, where the road dipped into the hollow, she halted, with an exclamation.
"see," she cried, "the grass looks all gold and silver! and oh! did any one ever behold anything so pale, pale, so blue, blue as the sky! oh! isn't this better than india; don't you love it; wouldn't you like to put your arm round england and kiss her?"
"england, the mother; india, the mistress," thought bethune. then, at a maddening tangent flight, his mind took wing. the words of dr. chatelard came back upon him. "cold, that woman? touch that coldness and be burnt to the bone!" he revolted from his own soul as it flamed within him. he would have liked to set off running across the frozen downs to that far violet line where washed the sea; to have plunged into the icy waves, into the bitter turmoil of the living waters, to wash the degrading madness from him.
aspasia's fresh laugh brought his spirit back to her with a renewed revulsion.
"look, look," she cried once more, "there's muhammed's turban going up and down, and up and down, the garden path! i wonder what he's thinking of? not runkle's monumental work, i'm sure. ugh! i declare it's uncanny only to look at that absurd turban in this winter land. it's bad enough to have jani chattering about the house like a human castanet, without having that creature tramping up and down outside the window, day after day. major bethune, i wish you'd speak to the creature—and find out what he is up to. i never saw anything so restless in my life."
"oh, we've had several conversations," answered bethune, following with his eyes the movement of the red head-dress in the distant hollow. "that is to say, i have done a lively bit of talking to him, and he has given me mighty polite answers and said nothing at all. those fellows, miss aspasia, are queer cattle, proud as lucifer, secret as the tiger in the jungle. that one down there, however, is of the modern school—a sort of animal i don't profess to understand, but one, at any rate, i should not care to trust, myself. sir arthur would have done just as well to have left him in india."
"gracious!" cried aspasia. "lord!" her mind sprang: "perhaps he's after runkle! oh, major bethune, you know what a mess poor runkle is making of things out there; i shouldn't like him to be thugged! i always told him he was laying the seed of mutiny," said miss aspasia, with tragic emphasis.
bethune gave his rare laugh.
"muhammed saif-u-din would hardly have come over all the way to england to make his private mutiny when he could accomplish the matter with more kudos in india, and have a good chance of saving his own skin besides."
aspasia shook her head, preferring to cling to her own dramatic inspiration.
"well, i'll give runkle a warning, anyhow," said she. "there's something fishy about muhammed. you may laugh at me, if you like; but the man is eaten up with some secret thought, some sinister thought. there's a look in his eyes that makes me shiver. and when he smiles—ugh! i do hate easterns."
he glanced at her reflectively, then he smiled. such a sentiment from any one else would have aroused his indignation; but it was impossible to take miss aspasia cuningham's hatreds with seriousness. only this morning he had seen her half strangle a protesting jani in vehement embrace.
"and as for aunt rosamond," went on the girl, comfortably, "it upsets her even to see the wretched being. that's the reason we keep him to the orchard, you know; her windows look out on the front. i had to tell him—it was an awful moment; he was so hurt and so grand. then i explained it was on account of poor captain english, you know. oh, you know...!"
"do i?" asked the man, with a faint raising of the brows.
"well, if it amuses you to pretend you don't," she snapped back. "anyhow, muhammed did. he may be a cut-throat, but there's something of a gentleman about it. he put his hand on his heart and bowed. 'the lady sahib's wishes are sacred,' he said. and i've seen the poor thing hide behind a tree when she is coming. rather touching, don't you think?" said the inconsequent baby.
"did lady gerardine ask you to speak to muhammed?"
"no. why do you want to know that?"
"mere idle curiosity," he answered, striking at a gorse bush with his stick and watching the melted rime fly out in spray.
"if you knew aunt rosamond better, you'd understand she'd never say such a thing as that. she keeps everything close. but we all know she does not want to be reminded of things."
he threw back his head with his mirthless laugh.
"even i know as much by this time, miss aspasia. it is perhaps a little difficult for a solitary man to understand you women; but one thing is quite evident: you never do anything heartless or selfish ... except from excess of feeling."
he could not keep the sneer from his tone, and baby's quick temper was instantly aflame.
"you never have a good word for aunt rosamond," she cried; "but you need not include me in your judgment, i think!"
bethune laughed again, harshly.
"i am very hard on lady gerardine, am i not?" then fixing his eyes upon her, broodingly; "and, as for you, i hope——"
he did not finish the sentence. but to her reading, his glance needed no word. she grew rosily shy and ran on ahead to hide it.
"well, i love the eastern," said the man, abruptly going back to the origin of the dispute. "he's my trade. he will be the death of me one of these days, no doubt. but what of that? does not the sailor love the sea that will swallow him. and besides, if they weren't always an uncertain quantity, where would be the spice of life out there? one might as well be in a broker's office. but i don't like your westernised eastern," he said, with a change of tone, and took a first long step upon the downward way.
aspasia skipped on before him.
"well, we're a pretty queer lot down there, in the old ancient house," she cried, in her high merry pipe. "what with the thug plotting—i know he's a thug, whatever you may say, and i know he's plotting," she gave her companion a challenging blink of her bright eye; "and what with crazy old mary, who's lived so long in this old hollow that she's positively part of the timber and plaster of the house, and can hear the very stones talk. by the way, she's more creepy than ever now, and swears that her pet ghosts are walking with extra vigour. and what with jani, running about after aunt, with her dog eyes and poor chattering teeth! nothing will ever make me believe that jani has got a soul. and then, my poor aunt herself, with her hyper-what-you-call-'ems, and runkle bombarding her with telegrams which she don't even notice, and which i have to answer as best i may. i say," said aspasia, stopping reflectively, "there will be a fine row, i tell you, soon! for if i know runkle, he'll pounce, one of these days. and aunt rosamond; well, you see for yourself what she is just now. positively there's only you and i that are sane."
she sprang on again, to look back at him over her shoulder and laugh like a schoolgirl.
his eyes sank before hers. could she but have guessed on the brink of what ignoble madness he—the sane man—was standing!
