FAIRYLAND
Madeline did not put in an appearance the next day or the day following
that. But on the third day she came into the room like a ray of
sunshine.
"Well, I'm here," she said, in her bright, eager fashion; "but I was
just terribly afraid I wasn't going to get--there now, isn't that a
sentence to be remembered?"
Rufus showed his welcome in every line of his face. It was a dull, rainy
day, with a blustering wind from the west and a sky that had not
revealed a speck of blue since morning. He had lain mostly in one
position, looking through the small window, watching the trees on the
other side of the road swaying in the wind, and listening to the fitful
patter of the rain.
His thoughts had not been always of the most cheerful kind. The days and
weeks were passing surely, if slowly, while the great scheme on which he
had set his heart and his hopes was at a standstill. He was conscious,
too, of a new and terrible hunger that was steadily growing upon him--a
hunger for companionship, for sympathy, for love. The coming of Madeline
had changed his life, changed his outlook, changed the very centre of
gravity. Nothing seemed exactly the same as it did before. Even death
had changed its face, and the possibility of a life beyond forced itself
upon his brain with a new insistence.
To win success had been his ambition--the one dream of his life. The
only immortality he desired was to live in a beneficent invention he had
wrought out. Now a new desire possessed him. There was something better
than success, something sweeter than fame. If he could win love. If he
could know the joy of a perfect sympathy. If--if----.
His thoughts always broke off at a certain point. It seemed so hopeless,
so foolish. Until he had won some kind of position for himself it was
madness to think of love. At present he was working on borrowed capital,
and there was always before him the grim possibility that he might fail,
and failure meant the end of all things for him. Felix Muller should
never have reason to doubt his courage or his honour.
Then he would start again, dreaming of Madeline. The two preceding days
had seemed painfully long. He had listened for her footsteps from noon
to night. He had watched for her coming more than they who wait for the
morning. He had pictured her smile a thousand times, and felt the warm
pressure of her hand in his.
When at length she glided into the room his heart was too full for
speech. How bright she was, how winsome, how overflowing with life and
vivacity! The gloom and chill of autumn went out of the room as if by
magic, and the air was full of the perfume of spring violets and the
warmth of summer sunshine.
She pulled off her gloves and threw them on the table and seated herself
in a chair near him.
"Have you been very dull these last two or three days?" she questioned.
"Rather," he answered. "You see, the fine weather has come to a sudden
end."
"But I guess it will soon clear up again, though I am told your English
climate is not to be relied upon."
"The only certain thing about it is its glorious uncertainty."
"Well, there may be advantages in that; there's always a certain
interest in not knowing. Don't you think so?"
"Most things have their compensations," he said, with a smile.
"Then there's a chance of your being compensated for this long spell of
suffering and idleness."
"As a matter of fact I have been compensated already."
"No! in which way?"
"Ah, that is not easy to explain," he said, turning away his eyes. "And
you might not understand me if I tried."
"Am I so dense?"
"I don't think you are dense at all. But I am not good at saying things
as they ought to be said. You will sympathise with me in that, I know."
"Oh, that is mere equivocation. You simply don't want to tell me."
"I would tell you a lot if I dared."
"Dared?"
"Yes. I should not like to drive you away or make you angry. Your
friendship is very sweet to me--that is one of the compensations."
"The friendship of a mere girl is worth nothing to a grown, busy man,
who is fighting big problems and aiming at great conquests. If I could
only help you that would be just fine. But it is of no use hankering
after impossible things, is it? So I am going to read to you."
"What are you going to read?"
"A piece called 'Snow Bound.' Now listen," and for half-an-hour he did
not speak. Her voice rose and fell in musical cadence. He closed his
eyes so that he might catch all the melody of her voice. The lines she
read did not interest him at first. All his interest was in the
sweet-eyed reader.
But he grew interested after awhile, and was touched unconsciously by
the beautiful faith and tender humanity that flashed out here and there.
When she reached the end he opened his eyes and looked at her, her lips
were still apart, her eyes aglow with emotion. She was no longer the
bright, merry irresponsible girl. She seemed to have changed suddenly
into a strong, great-souled woman.
"Would you mind reading a few stanzas over again?" he questioned, after
a pause.
"With pleasure."
"Beginning, 'O time and change.'"
"Yes, I know," and she opened the book again. He listened with intense
eagerness. She dropped her voice a little when she came to the words:
Alas for him who never sees
The stars shine through his cypress trees!
Who, hopeless, lays his dead away,
Nor looks to see the breaking day
Across the mournful marbles play!
Who hath not learned in hours of faith
The truth to flesh and sense unknown,
That Life is ever Lord of death,
And Love can never lose its own!
She closed the book again and waited for him to speak.
"It is a beautiful thought," he said, without opening his eyes. "If one
could only be sure it is true."
"Be sure that what is true?" she asked, in a tone of surprise.
"That Life is ever Lord of death. That Love can never lose its own."
"Why do you think there can be any doubt about it?"
He opened his eyes again and looked at her, and his heart smote him. It
would be a cruel thing to disturb her serene and simple faith with his
own doubts. Almost for the first time in his life he felt the utter
futility of the agnostic's creed. It had nothing to offer but a
catalogue of negations. To the parched and thirsty lips it placed an
empty cup, and before tired and longing eyes it held up a blank canvas.
He had grown out of his religious creed as he had grown out of his
pinafores. His heart and his intellect alike had revolted against the
narrow orthodoxy of his grandfather. He had been driven farther into the
barren desert of negations by the pitiful parody of religion exhibited
by ecclesiastical organisations, and to complete the work Felix Muller
had inoculated him with the views of German materialists. He fancied,
like many another man who had followed in the same track, that he had
got to the bed-rock at last, that after much delving he had found the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Yet it was truth that brought no hope, no comfort, no inspiration. He
was not eager to proclaim it to others. Men would be just as well off if
they never reached this _ultima Thule_--perhaps, better off. To persuade
men that there was no God, nor heaven, nor immortality, that this life
was all and the grave the end, was not the kind of thing to inspire men
to great deeds or heroic achievements.
His intellect might mock at the simple faith of the sweet-eyed maiden.
He might honestly believe that she was living in a fool's paradise. But
if it was a paradise and there was nothing beyond it, why disturb her?
If death ended everything, let her enjoy her paradise as long as
possible. If it was the only paradise she would ever have, it would be
sheer cruelty to drive her out of it.
If he destroyed her faith, what had he to give her to fill its place?
There was nothing in a string of negations to satisfy the hunger of a
human soul. Granted that her faith was folly, that her religion was pure
superstition, there was no denying that it was a very beautiful
superstition, that it invested life with a grandeur that nothing else
could give to it.
And, after all, was he so sure that he had found the ultimate truth? He
had inscribed on his little banner _Ne plus ultra_, but had he any right
to dogmatise more than others? There might be a farther "beyond" which
faith could pierce. There might be truth which flesh and sense could
never apprehend. There might be spirit as well as matter.
"I should like you to read me more from the same book," he said, at
length.
"Oh! I will do that with pleasure," she said, eagerly. "I knew you would
like my dear old Quaker poet."
"He has the gift of expression," he answered, cautiously.
Then she began to read "The Eternal Goodness," slowly and reverently.
He closed his eyes again, and listened with wrapt attention. The
beautiful faith of the poet seemed to strike a new chord in his being.
Moreover, the religion in which he had been reared, and from which he
had broken away, seemed a nobler and a Diviner thing than it had ever
appeared to him before. Stripped of its human glosses and paraphrases,
released from the rusty fetters of dogma, stated in simple language, it
awoke a dormant emotion in his nature that had never been touched until
now.
"Would you mind leaving the book with me when you go?" he questioned,
when she had finished.
"Of course I will leave it," she answered.
"I am afraid I shall not see so much when I read it for myself," he went
on. "There is so much in the right emphasis being given."
"Do you mean me to take that as a compliment?" she questioned,
playfully.
"Not as an empty compliment," he answered, gravely. "You read
beautifully."
She did not reply to that, but her eyes glowed with pleasure.
During the next week or ten days he lived in a kind of fairyland. Every
now and then he had an unpleasant feeling that he would wake up sooner
or later with a start to discover that the gold was only tinsel, that
the rippling streams were dry, and the green and shady meadows a hot and
arid desert.
Every day or two Madeline came to see him--came quite naturally and
without ceremony. She did not hide from herself the fact that she liked
to come. She frankly admitted that she liked the invalid. She told
herself that she would be an ungrateful little wretch if she didn't. He
had saved her life, and saved it at terrible risk to himself and
terrible suffering, and it would be selfish, indeed, on her part if she
did not try to cheer and brighten the long days that he was enduring,
and enduring so patiently on her account.
Moreover, Rufus Sterne was no ordinary man. He belonged to a type she
had not met before. As yet she did not know how to describe him. He was
more or less of a mystery to her, and that in itself kindled and
sustained her interest. Most of the young men she had met she "saw
through" in ten minutes, and in half-an-hour had weighed them up,
classified and labelled them.
But Rufus Sterne baffled her. He was altogether too complex for her
simple and easy method of analysis, too massive for her six-inch rule.
At times he seemed to her a huge bundle of contradictions. His face
could be as stern as the granite cliffs, his smile as sweet and winning
as spring sunshine. At times he was as silent and mysterious as the
sphinx, at other times brimming over with mirth and merriment. His
passion for truth and right filled her with admiration, his apparent
indifference to all religion struck her with dismay. He was a man of the
people in theory, in practice he lived alone, remote and friendless.
It seemed to her sometimes a wonderful condescension on his part that he
deigned to notice her at all. Like most of her sex, she did not in her
heart think much of girls. She would defend them readily enough if they
were attacked, and if driven into a corner would acclaim their
superiority over men; but in reality she thought little of them. In the
main they were small and niggling, and not particularly magnanimous.
Neither did she place herself an inch higher than the average girl. She
was as conscious of her own limitations as anybody.
Hence, that this strong, self-reliant man, who was fighting the world
single-handed, and toiling to complete some great invention, should make
her his friend, tell her that her friendship was very sweet to him, was
a compliment greater than had ever been paid to her before.
She had never placed Rufus Sterne for a moment in the same category with
Gervase Tregony. Gervase was on her own level. He was not to her a
mysterious and unexplored country. She knew him thoroughly, knew what he
was capable of; had sounded all his depths and tabulated all his
qualifications.
Hence, Gervase never over-awed her; never made her feel small or
insignificant. On the whole, she thought she liked him all the better
for that. Gervase might not be profound--that was hardly to be expected
in a soldier; he might not be morally sensitive--that also was
incompatible with the profession. But he was a good sort, so she
believed. A bit rough and over-mastering, but generous at heart. Not
vexed by social or political problems, but fond of life, and intent on
having a good time of it if he had the opportunity.
She had never doubted for a moment that she and Gervase would get on
excellently together. Indeed, they appeared to have been designed for
each other, and yet she had hesitated to accept his proposal, and every
day her hesitation grew more and more pronounced.
The fascination of Rufus Sterne's personality intensified as the days
passed away. Her admiration for his character increased. There was
nothing small or petty or niggling about him. She did not compare him
with Gervase Tregony, and yet unconsciously she found herself
contrasting the two men--contrasting them to Gervase's disadvantage.
And yet in her heart she was very loyal to the man who had proposed to
her--the man who had captivated her girlish imagination by his splendid
uniform and masterful ways.
Her feeling towards Rufus was of a different order. At first it was
merely a sense of gratitude; later on gratitude became suffused with
sympathy; but as the days passed away, other ingredients were added,
the most marked being admiration. His strength, his patience, his
reticence, all called forth her approval, till in time he became
something of a hero in her eyes.
And all this time Rufus yielded himself more and more to the witchery of
her presence, and felt in some respects a better man in consequence.
There were compensations, no doubt. Her very presence created an
atmosphere that softened and humanised him. His hard, defiant cynicism
melted before her smile like snow in spring sunshine. Their
conversations touched and unlocked springs of emotion that had been
sealed for years; the books and poems she read to him broadened his
horizon and led him to re-open questions that he imagined were closed.
Her smile, her voice, her look, set all his nerves to music, and made
life a more beautiful thing than ever it had seemed before.
But he knew all the time that there would come an awakening sooner or
later. They were like two happy children sauntering through green and
pleasant glades, screened from the storm and recking naught of the
desert beyond.
For himself he avoided looking into the future. He would enjoy the
sunshine and the flowers as long as possible. In the long intervals
between her visits he recalled their conversations, and re-read the
pieces to which her voice had given so much meaning and melody.
Moreover, he turned the pages of the books she had lent him and
committed to memory some of the passages she had marked. They were sweet
to him because she loved them.
So all unconsciously he strayed back from the hard desert of negations
in which he had wandered so long. Because he loved this sweet flower, he
loved all flowers for her sake. Indeed, love became the medium through
which he looked at all things; far distances became near, and new and
wider horizons loomed beyond.
Whatever pain might come to him later on, the memory of these days would
remain an inspiration to him. To have loved so truly was surely in
itself an ennobling thing. Nothing would ever take out of his life these
golden threads that had been woven into its texture. The song might
cease, the voice of the singer be hushed, but the echo of the song would
remain in his heart to the very last.
So he enjoyed those bright, peaceful days to the full, and tried not to
anticipate the future. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," he
said to himself. But the day of awakening was nearer than he thought.