Esmeralda lay in her hammock slung in the shadow of the hut. It was
a lovely evening with the day’s heat lingering in the air, and as
she lay back, in perfect comfort, she could look over the superb
tract of country upon which the sun was beginning to shed a glory
of crimson and gold.
It is good to lie in a hammock at most times, it is peculiarly and
particularly good so to lie on the brow of an Australian hill with
an Australian view to look at; and if you happen to have just come
through a dangerous and trying illness, it is about the best thing
you can do.
Esmeralda looked very fragile, as if a violent puff of wind would
blow her clean out of the hammock and into the valley below. She
was pale still, the freckles had nearly disappeared, her hands were
white and thin, but the light was beginning to return to her eyes,
and though they were still wistful and touched with melancholy,
they had lost that wild and despairing expression which the doctor
had watched for so many weeks. A bunch of flowers lay in her lap
beside a book, but she was not reading, and she was scarcely
thinking; she was just gazing across the valley to the opposite
range of hills, in that dreary state which the invalid alone seems
able to manage. Her mind had worked so hard through her delirium
that it was taking a rest now; it declined to worry her, or, in
fact, to execute its usual functions in any way whatever. She was
just capable of feeling that it was rather good to be alive still,
that it was decidedly good to be lying in a hammock with the murmur
of multitudes of insects in her ears, the perfume of the flowers
stealing over her senses. She was not even thinking of Trafford.
Though neither the doctor, nor her two women nurses had mentioned
his name, she had a vague idea that he was not very far from her.
But she had not inquired for him; she was not quite sure that she
wanted him; not so sure as that she should want her beef-tea in
an hour’s time. She had seen Varley for a minute or two, and by a
look and a kiss had granted him full absolution for his misdirected
shot; she had asked after Taffy and MacGrath, and the rest of the
boys; had even seen some of them at a distance, but she had made no
mention of Trafford.
As a matter of fact, she was living in a kind of dreamland, in
which all the characters of her past history were so vague, so
intangible as to seem more like persons in some story she had read,
than real living beings with whom she had lived and loved and
suffered. Most invalids feel like this, and it is a very good thing
for them that they do; for while the mind is asleep and dreaming,
the body has time to look around and grow strong.
Mother Melinda came out of the hut presently, with a pitcher and a
can in her hand, and stood beside the hammock to regard her patient
with critical affection.
“How do you feel now, dearie?” she asked.
Esmeralda looked up at her with half-closed eyes, and the smile
which repaid Mother Melinda for all the weary and anxious nights.
“Delightful,” said Esmeralda in a voice that was not so feeble as
soft and sleepy. “I feel as contented as a fraud always does. And
I am a terrible fraud, Melinda! I wouldn’t admit it to everybody,
but I don’t mind telling you--because you know it very well
already--that I am quite well, and quite strong enough to get up
and go about as usual.”
Mother Melinda shook her head, and laughed.
“I should like to ketch you at it,” she said, with tender sternness.
“At any rate, you won’t,” said Esmeralda, with a soft echo of a
laugh. “I’ve just discovered that lying here in the cool, doing
nothing, and thinking of nothing--except whether I shall get
two pieces of toast or one with my beef-tea--is just what I was
intended for; and I give you fair warning, ’Linda, that I mean to
lie here, and gaze about generally, as long as you’ll stand it.”
Mother Melinda looked at her lovingly.
“I think as how you are looking better and stronger, Ralda,” she
said.
“Don’t you believe it,” said Esmeralda, closing her eyes with an
obvious affectation of extreme weakness. “I’m not fit for anything
but what I’m doing, and I mean to keep so for--oh, ever so long.
Why, you silly old goose,” she continued, opening her eyes and
flashing them suddenly upon the wrinkled face with one of her old
looks, “I could take you up in my arms and carry you down to the
stream and back; and I would if I weren’t so beautifully lazy.”
Mother Melinda laughed, and looked down at the ground with a
curious little expression.
“The doctor’s gone down to the camp,” she said. “He said you might
have anything to eat you fancied. Is there anything you’d pertikler
like, dearie?”
“Yes,” said Esmeralda; “I should like a beefsteak, a big one, and
some potatoes, and a custard pudding, _with_ currants in it, and
any little trifle of that kind suited to an invalid with a huge
appetite; but I suppose it will be the usual beef-tea and the piece
of toast. You wait a little while. I’ll have my revenge. I’ll shut
_you_ up in a hut, and feed you on beef-tea for a few weeks, and
then I’ll ask _you_ if there is anything you fancy, you cruel old
woman!”
Mother Melinda laughed again--chuckled, rather.
“We’ll see what I’ve got,” she said. “I’m going down to the stream
for water; I sha’n’t be long, and I shall hear if you call. You
won’t feel lonely, will you, dearie?”
“Oh, go away,” said Esmeralda. “You know that I know that you only
want to steal away and talk to the boys; I heard some of them in
the wood a little while ago. Go and stay as long as you like,” and
she turned her head away and closed her eyes.
A quarter of an hour elapsed, and she heard footsteps ascending the
hill and stop beside her. She did not open her eyes, but waited
for Mother Melinda to speak; but when a minute had passed, and the
exquisite silence remained unbroken, she turned her head and opened
her eyes to find not Mother Melinda, but Trafford, standing beside
her.
She did not utter a cry, but lay placidly gazing at him, as if
she considered him a part of her waking dream. And as she looked,
she thought, in a vague way, how handsome and tall and strong he
looked, and how bronzed he was, and she thought that the expression
in his eyes, as they dwelt upon her, was like that which they had
worn the night of their marriage, just before they parted. Of
course it was a dream; but the look drew the blood gradually to
her face, and made her heart beat with a queer little throb. Then
suddenly, very gently, and with a quiver in his voice, as if he
were trying not to frighten her, he said:
“I have brought the water, Esmeralda.”
At the sound of his voice, her eyes opened wider, the color
deepened in her face, and then left it paler; so that she looked,
with her red-gold hair and her long lashes contrasting with the
olive clearness of her face, and the deep tint of her eyes, like
some exquisite tropical flower, with its wonderful harmony of hues
and shades. She began to understand that she was not dreaming, but
that this strong man was Trafford himself--her husband. But she did
not quite realize his presence until he whispered her name again.
Then she trembled a little and her lips quivered, as if she were
panting.
“Esmeralda,” he said, very gently, very fearfully, as if he were
afraid that the sound of his voice might frighten and trouble her.
“Have I startled you? Mother Melinda said I might come. I have been
waiting all this weary time--but I will go again if you wish it, if
you are not strong enough to see me.”
She did not speak for a moment or two, then she whispered:
“Why--why have you come?” Had he come to upbraid her, as he had
done the night they parted? She looked at him with her brows drawn
together.
“Are you frightened of me, Esmeralda?” he asked, with a world of
remorse and self-reproach in his voice.
“I don’t know,” she breathed. “Are you going to be angry with me
again? Is it of any use?”
He knelt down beside the hammock, and his hand went out toward
hers; but he drew it back; he did not dare to touch her.
“I have not come to be angry with you, Esmeralda,” he said. “I have
just come to look at you--to hear you speak, I won’t say another
word to you; I will go away now, this moment, if you wish it, if my
being here is too much for you.”
She looked at him questioningly. Her brows were still straight, her
lips slightly apart.
“I am not tired,” she whispered. “What is it you want to say to me?”
“Only one sentence, Esmeralda,” he said. “And see, dearest, I say
it kneeling at your feet. It is: Forgive me!”
She breathed quickly.
“Forgive you?” she said, wonderingly, her heart beating faster.
“Yes,” he said, his eyes eloquent with imploration. “I scarcely
dare ask you, there is so much to forgive! Ever since we first
met, I have wronged you, have cruelly misjudged you, have proved
unworthy of you.”
She looked at him with a sudden dread in her eyes, a dread which
gradually disappeared as he went on.
“But ever since we first met, I have loved you very dearly, though
I did not know it at the beginning, and I have been true to that
love.”
“Been true?” she murmured.
“Yes,” he said, earnestly; “there has been no other woman in the
world for me since I saw you.”
There was truth in his accents, and the blood rose to her face as
her heart throbbed with a joy which had long been absent from it.
“Not--not Ada?” she breathed, almost inaudibly.
“Not Ada,” he said, solemnly. “She passed out of my life when you
entered it, Esmeralda.”
Her eyes closed, and a little tremor, born of her new joy, ran
through her.
“I have enough to answer for,” he said, “without that. I have
wronged you very deeply. I know now how innocent you were, how
vilely I was blinded by my own jealousy, and the malice of a wicked
woman.”
“You know?” she whispered.
“Yes,” he said. “Norman has told me everything; the scales have
fallen from my eyes; I see now that you were as pure as a lily, and
incapable of what I deemed you guilty.”
She closed her eyes again, and when she opened them she looked at
him through a mist of tears.
“I have come to ask you to forgive me, Esmeralda,” he said, “to
tell you that I love you, have loved you from the beginning. But
do not be afraid. I know how easy it is to kill love; that though
you may have loved me, my cruelty to you may have slain that love
outright.”
She did not speak; and, after a moment, he went on, with bent head
and eyes fixed on the ground, as if he dreaded to read his sentence
in her face.
“If you wish it, I will go away again, and leave you in peace. I
could not go until I had told you with my own lips--until I had
confessed to you, and tried to obtain your forgiveness. I know that
I do not deserve it, but I know, dear, how tender your heart is,
and that you will not let me go without your forgiveness.”
She was silent for a moment, then she whispered: “I forgive you.”
Her heart was throbbing with this new delicious joy, but perhaps
because of the very depth and intensity of her emotion, her tone
sounded constrained and even cold. And he had been hoping against
hope for just a hint of tenderness, of love.
He stifled a sigh, and rose. He would steal away now, and leave
her; he would not harass her and make her ill again by an emotional
leave-taking. She had forgiven him, it was true; but it was evident
by the tone of her voice that he had slain love outright. He forgot
at that moment, or, in his timidity and self-reproach, did not
attach significance to the fact that she had thrown herself between
him and Varley’s avenging bullet. When a man loves as passionately
as Trafford loved, he is always doubtful and despairing; it seems
too much to hope that his love should be returned. He stood beside
the hammock looking down at her--looking at the face with its
downcast lids, with its flower-like mouth, the lips apart as if she
were breathing painfully. The murmur of the bees filled the silence
with a subtle harmony, the scent of the flowers in her lap stole
over his senses; he thought that for all the years he should live,
that Providence should lay upon him as a burden, he must think of
her as she lay there in her beauty; and that the sound of the bees,
the scent of the flowers, would ever be with him, to torment and
torture him with a mocking reminder of all that he had lost. She
was his wife, his lawful wife, and yet as divided from him as if
she were a perfect stranger!
She had moved slightly, and the pillow had slipped a little. He
noticed this, and instinctively he stretched out his hand to put it
in its place, to make her more comfortable, as he would have done
in the past; then he remembered, and let his hand fall to his side
again; but the displaced pillow harassed him. Surely, he might put
it straight before he went? He would do it very gently--perhaps she
would not shrink from him.
“Your pillow has slipped,” he said, trying to speak calmly, and,
indeed, in quite a casual way.
“It does not matter,” she said; and, for the same reason as before,
her tone was constrained and cold.
“Will you not let me put it right for you?” he asked.
She raised herself on her elbow, her eyes still downcast, the long
lashes sweeping her cheeks, one hand grasping the edge of the
hammock.
He lifted the pillow to its proper position, and, thinking that he
had finished, she leaned back; but he was smoothing the pillow, and
she rested on his arm. An electric thrill shot through him, and his
face went white; hers grew crimson, and she raised her head and
looked at him.
Only for a moment did her eyes meet his, but something passed from
them to his very heart--something that made him utter a short,
sharp cry. His arm tightened around her, and he drew her up to
him and pressed her to him in a grasp that was steel and velvet
combined. She made no effort to free herself, but hid her face upon
his breast and lay there panting--and satisfied.
“Esmeralda!” he breathed. “You not only forgive me, but love me?”
“I have always loved you!” she whispered; and he could feel her
lips move.
It seemed too wonderful to be true; that even a woman’s love could
survive the blows he had dealt it.
“Say it again, dearest,” he said, “again! again!”
“I love you! I love you!” she said.
He let her fall back slowly in the hammock, his arm still round
her, and as he knelt, he hid his face on her bosom.
“Poor Trafford, poor Trafford!” she said, with a faint and tender
smile and a loving woman’s true insight.
“Yes, dearest, pity me!” he said. “Pity me for all my blindness has
cost me!”
She laid her cheek against his head.
“I will make it up to you, Trafford,” she whispered in so low a
voice that, but for the movement of her lips, he might have fancied
that she had not spoken.
They remained thus for who shall say how long or short a time; not
they. Then she said, very sweetly:
“I must go in now, dearest! Help me out of the hammock.”
He rose and lifted her in his arms. How light she was! It was as if
he carried one of the flowers upon his bosom.
“I can walk,” she murmured. “I am quite strong again. I can walk;
put me down!” But her arm did not unwind itself from his neck,
and her head nestled closer on his shoulder, and he laughed as he
pressed her tighter to him and carried her--as gently as if indeed
she were a flower, some precious lily he had gathered on his life’s
path--to the hut.
As he laid her on the bed, and bending over, kissed her not once
only, and looked into her eyes, something cooking in front of the
fire began to fizz. She looked beyond him at it, and laughed--the
laugh of a happy child.
“It’s the steak!” she said.
He went to the fire and laughed also, as he dished up the steak and
lifted the lid of the saucepan containing the coveted potatoes.
“It’s my supper,” she said. “You have come just in time, Trafford.”
“Yes,” he said, looking at her, “just in time!”
Half an hour later Mother Melinda came up the hill and glanced in
at the window; the door was closed. She just glanced, then, with a
silent chuckle of satisfaction and delight, turned, and went down
the hill again. And not until she had reached the bottom did she
laugh outright, and, with tears in her eyes, exclaim: “God bless my
dearie! Oh, God bless my dearie!”