'I was never so happy or so sorry in all my life before, and I thank
Heaven that I'm enough of an Irishman still to say so without being
afraid of being laughed at.'
He stood at one end of the table looking his best, as a gentleman
always does in his evening dress--a curious fact, since there is no
more cruel test for the least lack of good breeding. But this man stood
it triumphantly, and not one of those other men seated that night round
the long table but carries to his grave a remembrance of Dan
Fitzgerald's look when he was bidding good-bye to his friends. The
eager vitality of the man, always his strongest characteristic, seemed
to have reached its climax.
'I'm not going to say anything of her,' he went on, the rich, round
voice softening. 'There isn't any need, since you all know her.
Besides, though you have all come here to-night--why, I can't for
the life of me tell--to wish us good luck in the future, it isn't so
much of the future I'm thinking as of the past. It has been so happy,
thanks to you all. And it's over. That is the worst of it. I suppose it
isn't quite what a man is expected to say on these occasions; but the
ladies--God bless them!--would, I'm sure, agree, if they could only be
made to understand that marriage is the end of a man's youth. It
doesn't alter the case at all that it may be the end of the woman's
also, or that we get something that may be as good in exchange. What
has that to do with the past?--the merry, careless past, which I've
enjoyed so much, and to which I'm now saying good-bye. Well, Heaven
help those who say good-bye to it without a solid reason, or have a
sneaking intention of not really saying good-bye to it at all? for
their lines are in evil places. And that sounds like a sermon, and you
never heard Dan Fitzgerald preach before, and you never will again. It
isn't only that I'm off with the morning to the other end of the
world--to a new world, if it comes to that, worth this old one and the
past and all of you put together, if you'll excuse my saying so--it is
because even if I were stopping here I should be out of the old life as
surely as if I were dead and buried. To begin with, I shall have to
think of every penny I spend, so that I may have enough to pay for
paradise! The world is full of paradoxes for me to-night; and I'm the
greatest of them all myself; for I don't want to say good-bye, and yet
I wouldn't miss having to say it for the world. Then it seems to me
to-night as if I'd solved the puzzle; and there's Doveton--the old
bachelor--grinning as if he knew I was a fool, and that I was making
the biggest mistake of my life. I don't think so--I don't think I ever
shall think so; I hope not, anyhow. And so, good-bye to you--goodbye!
And may none of us, married or single, live to know the pain of a
"heart grown cold, a head grown grey--in vain!"'
Down the disordered table with its litter of glasses and flowers, its
atmosphere heavy with the odours of dinner and drink, a hush lay for a
second; not more. Then some one laughed, and with a roar of applause
the general tone--varying from concert pitch to normal diapason
according to the taste of the owner--struck into the old chorus; the
refrain which, touching as it does the lowest and the highest ideals of
humanity, has provoked more mixed sentiment and emotion than any other
in the language:
'_For he's a jolly good fel-low. For he's a jolly good fe-el-low_.'
Love, admiration, assent. But to what? That lies in the creed of the
singer.
And Dan, as the chorus went swaying and surging about in the discords
and harmonies, was left alone, silent--as it were on a pinnacle.
Lewis Gordon, feeling responsible for his man, and noting his growing
excitement, inveigled him out after a time for a quiet cigar on the
verandah, and then suggested he should go to bed; whereat Dan laughed
softly. Did not his best man see that the idea was palpably absurd when
life itself was a dream--a dream that only came once to a fellow? When
you hadn't a wish ungratified, save of course that some others he wot
of might have as good luck as he.
'If you mean me,' replied Lewis stolidly, 'I'm all right. I'm going to
marry Rose Tweedie whenever she can spare five minutes from your
wedding to arrange mine.'
'You don't say so! By the powers, what a good matchmaker I am! And so
it's settled. I say, Gordon, do you think there is any chance of her
being up still?' put in Dan all in one breath.
'Couldn't say; she had a lot of favours to make and remake when I last
saw her, certainly,' replied Lewis, with an inward smile at the
remembrance; 'but you can't go and call on her now; it's half-past ten
at least.'
'Can't I? There is nothing I couldn't do to-night, it seems to me. And
_you_ are yawning. Oh, go to bed, old man! or you will spoil the show
to-morrow.'
'And you?'
'I'm off too, but not to bed! No, you needn't be afraid. I'll turn up
again in time.'
The glamour of the soft Indian night was on Lewis also; even on those
who one by one drifted from the laughter within to stand for five
minutes, arrested by the peace without, before going on their way. And
if this were so to men in the slack-water of life, what must it have
been to Dan on the flood-tide of his threescore years and ten? To Dan
with his vivid imagination, his soft heart, his excitable, impulsive
nature. As he rode along noiselessly at a foot's pace through the sandy
dust which looked hard as marble in the glare of the moon, he and his
shadow were the only moving things in that world of light. No darkness
anywhere! Not even in the distant arcades of trees. Only a soft grey
mist of moonlight blending all things into the semblance of a mirage
seen from afar. A fire-fly or two showed against the flowering shrubs
in intermittent glimpses of light. Here, and then gone, as it were,
upon the soft quiver of the insistent cicalas in the air.
Was not life worth living, indeed if only for such a night as this!
'_On such a night did young Lorenzo!_'
But Dan Fitzgerald had passed beyond that flood-mark on the shore.
Passion counted for much in the elation of mind and body which was the
apotheosis of both; but love counted for more. The memory of a thousand
griefs and pains with pity hidden in their hearts came to fill the
mystic cup of life which the Unseen, Unknown Hand held out to him from
Heaven--the Sangreal of Humanity--the sacraments of Birth and Death.
The child dying of the potter's thumb-mark in the dust--that other in
loving arms with the ice chilling even death's cold touch--George with
the bullet piercing the friendship in his heart--Rose with her pure
wisdom fearless and unashamed--these and many another remembrance
seemed to blend sorrow and joy into peace, even as the moon-mist blent
the world around him into vague beauty.
And there was Rose herself! He could see her, as with the easy
friendliness of India he paced his pony through the open gates of the
garden, and so passed the house. She was still at work among the white
flowers beside the door which was set wide upon the warm balmy night.
'Is that you, Mr. Fitzgerald?' she called, pausing at the faint sound
of his coming to look out into the flood of moonlight clear as noonday.
'It is I, Miss Tweedie.'
He had slipped from his pony and stood beside it welcoming her with
outstretched hands as she came forth, eager with some message for the
morrow which he might deliver.
'Lewis has told me, and I'm so glad,' he said, breaking in on her
words. 'It is the best wedding present I've had yet, and I came along
on the chance of seeing you. I've something to give you. I meant it for
to-morrow, as a parting gift--just a remembrance of your kindness to us
both. But I'd rather give it to you with our best wishes.
He unfastened something from his own wrist and put it, soft and warm,
into her hand. It was a native amulet cunningly twisted of silk thread
and pearls, with a triangle of some blue stone strung in the centre.
''Tis only a glorified ram-rukhri,' he went on half-jestingly, 'the
bracelet sisters give their brothers to bring them good luck. Only it
is the other way round with you.'
Rose looked at the blue of the triangle doubtfully, then at his kindly
face.
'Yes! it's a bit of the Ayodhya pot--the only bit that wasn't in
pieces. And it has my name on the back, and--and George's.'
'And George's?' echoed Rose softly.
'Ay! He would have liked it, I know--for you were kind to him--kind to
us both, always'--Madr-mihrban, as the old potter called you. And we
two, George and I, are one part of the story; I was thinking of it as I
came along just now----'
She put out her hand with a sudden gesture. 'Don't think of it, Mr.
Fitzgerald! Forget all about it. Go away and forget.'
He gave a happy laugh. 'Why should I? I don't want to forget anything
to-night--except my sins. The rest is all good. Let me put that on for
you--so--goodnight! We'll say good-bye to-morrow.'
So out on the deserted roads with the same happy unrest in his heart.
He would go down and see the old familiar places in the garden opposite
once more--even the pond where the ducks and geese had quacked and
gabbled him into silence! Then through the hanging tassels of the grey
tamarisk trees, round the gleaming white road to the blue-tiled
minarets of the old watch-tower standing causelessly upon the level
plain where four ways met, and so back station-wards to the stunted
dome of the church. The throbbing of tom-toms proclaimed the nearness
of the bazaar, but the building itself stood unassailably silent and
deserted on its high white plinth, save for some one lying on a string
bed set in a shadow by the door. Dan slipped from his pony again, and
hitched the reins to a broken iron clamp in the stone-work of the
steps. The door, he knew, would be open to let in the cool night-air,
so he would look in--'go round the course' as a horsey friend of his
had said when discovered doing the same thing before his marriage. The
remembrance made him smile as he stepped into the dark building and
paused, arrested by the strangeness of what he saw. For the dome was
full of fire-flies brought hither in the flowers; full of a causeless
glimpsing of pale green fire showing every instant the white heart of
some blossom. And the air was burdened with scent; distinct, through
all, a faint, deadly smell of bitter almonds. That must be from the
lotus Gwen had mentioned, and there they were, in the upper shaft of
moonlight through the upper window, standing like sentinels over the
lectern.
'_Om mani padma hom_.'
What did it really mean, that invocation used by so many millions? What
was the mystic jewel in the lotus? Something fair but far, no doubt,
such as all religions promise. And then with a rush came the thought
that Gwen would stand beside them on the morrow, fair and near!
The echo of his pony's galloping feet made that throbbing in the bazaar
pause an instant as if to listen. Pause and go on when he had passed.
The darkened houses of his friends rose up beside him and were left
behind; the Club with its still twinkling arches, the garden where
Chandni sat gossiping and waiting her chance to kill his faith
wantonly. All these he passed. Awake or sleeping he must be near Gwen
for an instant--must bid her goodnight before the day came.
The chiming, echoing gong from the secretarial office rang twelve,
clear; then the others began. Here and there from the various centres
of law and order, many-voiced from the massive pile of the distant
city. He was too late then, yet not too late; for there was a light
still in the little front room, despoiled of its prettiness now and
littered with boxes. She was awake, busy like Rose over the morrow.
'Gwen!' he called to her softly, for the chick was down, the door half
closed.
'My dear Dan!' Her voice, as she opened it and came hurriedly into the
verandah, was full of amused horror and half-vexed kindness. 'Do go
away, there's a dear! I never heard of such a thing, never! And the
hotel is crammed full of people!'
'It's only to wish you many happy returns of the day, dear!' he
whispered fondly. 'When I've done that I'll go content. Who wouldn't be
content with you, Gwen? And yet I wouldn't spare an inch of it all--I
couldn't. Gwen! do you remember the day your bearer was cleaning the
lamps out here, and we were sitting on the sofa?--odd, isn't it, how
one remembers these things all in a jumble, the one with the other--and
I said to you--the very words come back to me, dear, every one of
them--"You might be bankrupt of everything, Gwen, of everything save
yourself, and I'll give you credit for it all the same." Do you
remember, dear? Well, I've come to take the promise back. You've spoilt
me, Gwen, I can't do it.'
'I--I don't understand,' she said faintly. 'I wish you would go, Dan.
We can talk of it to-morrow--afterwards.'
'To-morrow! Why's it's to-day already, our wedding-day! And if I can't
keep the promise, am I not bound to take it back while I can? Not that
I'm afraid--that is why I've come, to tell you, selfish brute that I
am--that is why I want it all--every scrap of your beauty, your
goodness. I'll take nothing else, dear, now; for I know it's yours, and
what is yours is mine by right!'
She had grown very pale, and a sort of terror came into her eyes.
'Ah Dan! what is the use of talking? I give you all I can. My best--I
can't do more--it isn't kind----' she broke off almost impatiently, and
yet she did not move from his clasp.
'Not kind, when I know what the best means? And yet, Gwen, it just
comes upon me now that I couldn't stand it--if--if it were not so--not
after this midsummer night's dream--of madness, if you will! Yes, dear,
I'm going--I am indeed. But, Gwen--it's an idle fancy--and yet if there
was anything it would be better to tell me now. You're not angry at the
thought--it's only a thought. See, give me one kiss--just one, to be an
answer for always.'
What right, she asked herself fiercely, had she to hesitate? What
possible right, standing as she did on the threshold of a new life,
_where no one could possibly know?_ And so she was back on the low
levels among the ordinary considerations of convenience and safety as
she kissed him. But the touch of her lips sent his blood surging
through his heart and brain; and without another word, another look, he
turned and left her--content, absolutely content. Love, pity,
friendship, passion, had all combined to raise him to the uttermost
limit of vitality. He might come near it perhaps in the future; he was
not likely ever to reach it again--not even without Chandni waiting to
tell him the truth on his return to the odd little house at the other
end of the station.
He neither knew nor cared where he was going; but his pony, tired of
these incomprehensible wanderings, set its galloping hoofs on the
shortest road home--that is to say, through the densely-wooded grounds
of the Residency. Along a grassy ride or two, across a short cut they
sped. Dan forgetting even his joy in the keen effort of steering a
runaway through the trees; a runaway unheld, free to go as fast, nay,
faster than it chose, yet obedient to that grip to right or left. It
was a mad ride, a mad rider--yet a masterful one, wrestling imperiously
with that other will, when the gloom grew as the trees thickened, and
darkness and danger came together in the hot night, prisoned by the
dense foliage above. Dan, looking down at the pony's heaving flanks as
it paused, wearied by its short, sharp, unavailing struggle against his
strong hands, felt flushed and hot. Not wearied,--he could not be that
on such a night,--but glowing, palpitating, excited; drunk almost as if
with wine. But yonder stood a remedy in that long, low-thatched roof,
supported on brick pillars, and hung round with heavy bamboo screens.
Dan laughed as he slid to the ground, thinking of the twelve feet of
clear cool water running fresh and fresh into the big swimming-bath at
the one end, and out at the other to irrigate the green levels of the
garden. Fresh and fresh all through the scorching summer weather, when
life held no greater pleasure than to feel that cool water close in
round the hot limbs. Frequented then, morning and evening, though
deserted and empty through the colder months. Only the day before Dan's
smooth dark head had come up from its depths rejoicing, and now the
thought of it was luxury itself when the blood was beating in his
temples, and racing at fever heat through his veins. More than once
coming home at night, after careless, reckless enjoyment, he had
stopped here, as he did now, to try the water-cure--as he had tried it
in the canal at Hodinuggur.
'I need it to-night if ever I did,' he said half aloud. ''Tis the wine
of life has got into my head.'
It was dark--almost too dark inside; that was because the fools had put
down all the screens, when, on the contrary, they should be opened by
night to let in the fresh air. He told himself that he would speak to
the Secretary of the caretaker's neglect; yet how would that be since
he would never see him again?
Yes! it was the last time! and how many times had he not gone down
red-hot from the spring-board as he would do now, to come up out of the
dark water a new man, with all the evil tempers and the prickly heat
quenched out of him?--sure, as a regenerating element, fire wasn't in
it with water! A leap in the dark indeed! But that was what life was,
and he was not afraid of it.
The little bars of moonlight shining through the chinks between the
bamboos came so far on the smooth white floor, then the soft depth of
darkness where the cool water should be, and above it Dan poised for a
second.
'_I come! Mother of all!_'
The oft, old-repeated cry rang joyously up into the roof, followed by a
strange, dull thud, and silence--dead silence.
The bath had been emptied that morning for the cold weather, and Dan
Fitzgerald was lying face downward on the hard cement with a broken
neck.
Dead! Dead, without a word, a sigh, or a regret! And Chandni, growing
tired of patience, went home to the bazaar, grumbling at her ill-luck,
telling herself she might still write, if it were worth while.
But Dan was beyond her spite, beyond other things which, even without
that spite, might have killed the best part of him.
Yet even in romance the sixth commandment outweighs all the others. The
novelist may maim and degrade, may bear false witness against his own
creations and filch from them the very characteristics which he has
given them, in order to make degradation happy, but he must not kill;
death in the verdict of the world being the only real tragedy.
So at any rate seemed the opinion of most people when in the early
morning the gardeners coming to their work found Dan's pony drowsing,
half asleep, still tethered to a hibiscus bush, whose great
blossoms--in topsy-turvy fashion--showed rosy-red in death and
snowy-white in life.
It was terribly sad, they said; an unredeemed tragedy, cruel, needless;
altogether a manifestation needing much true Christian faith; one of
the accidents of real life, so exasperating because so causeless, so
inartistic because so unnecessary. These and many other comments the
mourners made as, when the funeral was over, they returned home; and
so, it being Sunday morning, went to church, where they sang 'Jerusalem
the Golden' piously.
Only Rose lingered, her kind, soft hands laying the half-dead lotus
like sentinels on the grave; for Gwen's pure white cross of gardenia
had, at her request, been buried on the coffin.
'I can't somehow be so sorry,' she said to Lewis, between her sobs. 'He
was so happy that last night. I seem to see his face still.'
But the man caught his breath in hard. There was a verse which would
ring in his ears, his heart; for he had helped to lift poor Dan, and it
had come to memory then--
'Broken in pieces like a potter's vessel.'
Yet, after all, what did it matter? but Rose must never know. In such
things he would stand between her and needless pain.
And Gwen? She, as the phrase goes, bore up wonderfully. Not that she
did not love the dead man dearly, but because she did love him. For
odd as it may seem--topsy-turvywise, perhaps, like the hibiscus
flowers--she had the same consolation as Rose Tweedie.
'I did not tell him,' she said to herself as she lay in her darkened
room. 'He was happy to the last. I did my best--I did my best.'
So she cried softly; and so, once more, she escaped from her own
remorse, and was comforted.