Aura, however, felt bruised and broken, as with slower, heavier foot
than usual she crossed the drawbridge, and choosing the back way, went
through the cottage to the kitchen.
Her first look at that sanctuary of shiny saucepans showed her that
something in the nature of a domestic cataclysm had occurred during
her absence; for the kitchen-table was littered with cake-tins, and
the materials for making cakes, a savoury smell telling of cakes rose
from the oven, and Martha herself, with a hot flushed face, was
beating viciously at the whites of eggs which were to go towards a
further making of cakes. Now such activity was Martha's invariable
method of showing that she had what she called "a bit o' time" to
herself; therefore her invariable habit when she found herself once
more monarch of all she surveyed and so presumably rather pressed for
time.
"Has Parkinson gone?" asked Aura swiftly.
"Yes! Miss H'Aura," replied Martha, pausing to make a dive into the
oven and come up therefrom still more flushed and still more
determined. "She's gone. Bad barm won't never bake 'ouseholds as my
mother used to say; and glad was I to be rid of her, for I shud a' put
her past afore long, yes! I shud, and a' got 'ung for it I s'ppose--it
ain't any good lookin' shocked, Miss H'Aura, for a body can't 'elp her
feelin's, and put her past I shud, for Bate, he began to pity her shet
up alone! 'If you says much more,' says I, 'it's to the pigstyes
she'll go'--an' the only proper place for 'er, Miss H'Aura, and me
havin' to black my tongue tellin' master it was the sow as was
squealin' so! But there! Them as 'as no 'eads takes it out in 'earts,
and Bate is that soft about wimmin, 'tis all I can do to keep from
kneadin' more flour to him as if he was a silly batch o' bread! But
we'll do all right without 'er caps an' aprons; and _so I told Bate_."
Martha's face, indeed, wore a determination which augured well for
domestic comfort.
"But grandfather--" began Aura anxiously, "he ought not to be
disturbed."
"Who's a disturbing of the good gentleman?" snapped Martha, "Pore
dear, 'e'll have 'is shavin' water 'ot in future. How they can
stand, brazen, an' ask wages beats me! An' she talkin' o' the waste o'
water being a crime against the company--a water company, winter time,
in Wales! Lord sakes!--if she run the cold off, as I bid her do;
though 'er pantry tap was spoutin' into the pail a good 'arf hour
while she was beguilin' Bate. No! Miss H'Aura! I wasn't goin'
to lie for 'er more'n I cud 'elp, so I told master the stric'
truth-an'-no-one-a-penny-the-worse, as the sayin' is."
"What did you tell him?" asked Aura rather wearily, for even Martha
was getting on her nerves.
"I told him as revivals havin' bin too much for her body _an_' soul
she was stoppin' at the inn, where she is, Miss H'Aura, and if she
screech there as she screeched here some one 'll be in Bedlam before
mornin'--_an' so I told Bate_."
This was the invariable epilogue to all Martha's diatribes.
"I suppose Mr. Cruttenden has returned?" asked Aura.
"As nice as nuts, an' is in with Master. I reely don't know, now I
come to think on it, what we shud a-done this last week without 'im!
Not but what 'is lordship----" she shot a quick glance at Aura--"Lord
sakes! deary," she cried, "you do look weary-like. Go up to your bed,
there's a duck, an' have a lie down--one can't never forget the face
o' death till one's asleep."
'Death, and his brother sleep!...'
The words were in Aura's brain as she went upstairs, wondering why it
was that now Ned was no longer beside her she felt far more disturbed,
far more, in a way, ashamed about him, than she had done when he was
beside her. Yes! even when he had been masterful and told her that it
was all foolishness, that she knew she loved him.
The house seemed so familiarly quiet and peaceful that the turmoil of
her mind became all unreal to her. Surely the least honest effort must
suffice to bring back her old fearlessness of outlook.
Her birthday presents lay on the table, amongst them Ted's Shelley,
open, curiously enough, at the "Adonais." Her eye glanced at the
verses, became fascinated; she stood reading until with a sigh of
infinite satisfaction she closed the book over those words:
'The One remains, the Many change and pass!'
That was beautiful. That calmed the soul. Gwen's dead face came back
to her now without any terror in it. The Sting of Death was gone.
But Love--the love that Gwen had felt, of which she herself was not
all unconscious, what of that?
Dimly, darkly, as in a glass, the girl saw that to be noble it must be
the antithesis of Death--it must be Birth. But that was not the Love
of the world. What had Mervyn, what had Gwen, thought of Birth?
Nothing. If anything they had hoped to evade it. They had tried to
take the Pleasure without incurring the Pain. They had not thought of
anything but themselves.
She passed on to the window-sill and looked down once more on the
"most beautiful thing in the most beautiful place in the world."
But what was that really?
Was it Love standing between Birth and Death, or was it something
better? Something beyond both. Something of which but a glimpse could
be caught during that journey between the Cradle and the Grave?
So, for one brief moment as she stood looking at the iris she saw that
Something, beyond Birth, beyond Death, beyond even Love. A shimmer
came to the air, her pulses caught the rhythm, and lo! she was no
more, the One was All, and from the uttermost end of Space came back
the ceaseless Wave of Unity.
And then?...
Then the fear of death re-asserted itself. Surely the flags of the
iris showed limp! The dear thing must not stop there without due
foothold on the round world, else would it lose the immortality of new
birth.
So, tired as she was, she lifted it up, saxifrage and all, in both her
hands, went downstairs, and so across the lawn to a place she wotted
of where it might grow undisturbed by fear of old Adam's meddling
fork. There was a certain solemnity about her necessarily slow
movements, and she felt almost as if she were conducting a funeral.
And so in truth it was; a funeral of her careless girlhood. She was a
woman now; she had begun to understand herself. Yet as she laid the
flower on the spot where she intended to plant it and went for her
trowel, the pity of the funeral hit her hard, and when she returned
Ned's blue eyes seemed to look at her appealingly from the iris's
broad face. His were such beautiful eyes!
She dug furiously, forgetful of everything but her desire to bury,
until a step sounded beside her, and she looked up to see another pair
of blue eyes broader, bolder, looking down at her.
"What are you digging," said Ted with a ring of aggrievedness in his
voice; "a grave? Oh! I beg your pardon, dear, I oughtn't to have said
that, I oughtn't to have reminded you--but I've been expecting you to
return for such a long while--and--oh! my poor little girl--I'm so
sorry for it all--it must have been horrible."
His normal sympathy brought her back to normal. She realised as she
had not realised with Ned, that after all she was but a mere girl who
needed cossetting and comforting after the terrible shock of the
morning.
"It was horrible," she replied, with a little shiver; "you can't think
how horrible--somehow, after it all, it is good to see you just--just
yourself."
She felt indeed grateful to him for his size, his solidity, his
undoubted affection: perhaps unconsciously she was grateful to him for
his failure to disturb her inmost soul.
"It must have been awful," he said, his blue eyes showing all the
kindness in the world. "I can't think how you got through with it as
you have; but you are so brave--far braver than I should be--but come,
don't let us talk or think of it any more. Don't let us spoil my last
afternoon."
She stood up startled. "Your last!" she cried, in quick concern. "Oh!
Ted, why is it your last?"
He took a step nearer to her, his face lit up with content. "I'm so
glad you care--I suppose it's selfish--but I am glad. Yes! I have to
go. Hirsch has business for me in Paris--most important business, and
I must leave by the mail to-night."
Even as he spoke, his mind running on ahead, thought with a different
content of what this visit to Paris might mean to them both, if things
turned out as he hoped they might.
"Must you?" she echoed wistfully. It seemed to her as if every friend
she had had was leaving; and Ted had been such a help to her during
the last few anxious days. "How shall we manage without you?" she went
on doubtfully; "grandfather will miss you so much--and I----"
There were almost tears in her voice, and Ted felt a wild desire then
and there to come to explanations. But he knew it was wiser to wait.
"I will come back at once if I am wanted," he replied; "but I hope I
shan't be wanted--at least not in any hurry; for of course I shall
come back again soon--and then--but I really haven't time now. I have
to put up my things you see. I stayed as long as I could with him
thinking you would be sure to come in at once----" there was the
faintest reproach in his tone.
An instant pang of remorse shot through the girl. She had stopped
talking sentimental rubbish to Ned while he--Ted--was doing her duty.
"I will go in to him in a moment," she said hurriedly, "I have only to
plant this flower."
She set to work hurriedly, Ted lingering to look down superciliously
at the iris.
"It's rather pretty," he said; "did you find it in the woods?"
Aura's blush was hidden as she hastily filled in to proper dimensions
the perfect grave she had previously dug.
"No. Ned gave it me as--as a New Year's gift."
Ted half smiled, thinking that if he had had as much money as Lord
Blackborough he would have known better how to spend it on the girl he
loved; but, of course, if Ned chose to be so niggardly in some things,
so lavish in others, it was his own lookout.
"I hope you liked the book; the binding wasn't quite so nice as I
should have wished," he began.
Aura interrupted him heartily.
"I liked it ever so much--thanks so many! And I shall always like it.
That is the best of books--summer and winter they are always the
same"--she became taken with her own thought and pursued it--"they
aren't like flowers--you haven't to watch for their blooming time--you
haven't even to smell their scent--you haven't to think for them of
storms or slugs or frost and field mice"--here she smiled at her own
alliterations--"but if you want them, there they are, ready to make
you happy. Do you know, you've been a regular book to me lately, Ted?"
He flushed up with pleasure. "Have I?" he said frankly; "that's good
hearing. I--I wish I were your whole library----" Once more he paused,
obsessed by that idea of the night-mail to Paris.
As he went off to pack his things he almost wished that she had come
in a little earlier; but then he would not have had such an eminently
satisfactory talk with her grandfather. So far as he, at any rate, was
concerned it was all plain sailing, for the old man, distressed at
hearing of Ted's sudden departure, had for the first time taken him
into his confidence. It was not exactly a pleasing confidence, but it
was only what Ted had expected. Aura would be penniless, since years
before Sylvanus Smith had sunk all his money in an annuity which would
cease with his death. Under the circumstances, Ted had felt that both
the kindest and the wisest thing was to allay anxiety--that tardy
anxiety which was in itself but another form of selfishness--by
speaking of his own love for Aura, and his earnest desire to marry
her, if she would have him.
"Of course she will marry you!" Mr. Sylvanus Smith had said with calm
shrewdness. "Who else is there for her to marry?"
Whereupon Ted, divided as to whether he was doing a magnanimous or a
mean thing, had suggested Lord Blackborough. It had produced a perfect
storm of incredulous irritation. The bare idea was absurd.
Blackborough, like all in his rank, was merely amused by a pretty
face. He, Sylvanus Smith, had only tolerated him as Ted's friend, and
he would forbid him the house in future; no granddaughter of his
should marry a lord!
Briefly, the old man whose life had been spent in preaching socialism
and liberty in the abstract, who denied the existence of social rank,
and proclaimed the right of the individual to independent action, was
ready to forswear both tenets, and pose as a relentless parent of the
good old type.
Ted had forborne to smile, and, feeling really magnanimous this time,
had attempted to smooth over the old man's irritation, which none the
less he knew to be points in his favour.
So, as he packed his portmanteau, he whistled lightheartedly.
Aura, meanwhile having finished her burial, went off to the book-room
where she found her grandfather, as usual, busy with pen and paper,
the writing-table drawn up to the fire, the solitary extra chair in
which Ted had been sitting looking lone and outcast, camped away in
the open beyond the leather screen which in winter always surrounded
Mr. Smith's socialism and the fire.
He was looking a little flushed, and she paused, ere sitting down on
the floor by the hearth to say anxiously, "You haven't been vexing
yourself, I hope, grandfather, while I was away--I--I had rather a
headache--so I went up the hills. Martha----"
"Martha has been excellent, as usual," he replied, "on the whole she
does Parkinson's work fairly well; though I could wish----" here he
sighed--"the absence of a suitable cap and apron is certainly to be
deplored, but she makes an excellent omelette." He turned again to his
work of writing a pamphlet on the Simple Life.
Aura sat watching him, as she had watched him as long as she could
remember. She was very fond, very proud of him. Extremely well read,
curiously quick in mind, he had taught her everything she knew, and
she was but just beginning to find out that this everything was more
than most women are supposed to know. She had found no difficulty in
holding her own with Ned and Ted, and Dr. Ramsay and Mr. Hirsch,
except so far as mere knowledge of the world went, and that was not
worth counting.
To her mind grandfather had had the best of any argument she had ever
heard; but then Ned would never argue with him.
Still he had not taught her all things. He had never mentioned love or
marriage, or birth or death, though these surely were the chief
factors in life--in a woman's life anyhow.
Suddenly, out of the almost bewildering ramifications of her thought,
she put, almost thoughtlessly, a question.
"Grandfather, was my father fond of me?"
Mr. Sylvanus Smith looked up startled, and distinctly pale. "I had not
the honour of your father's acquaintance," he said icily, "therefore I
cannot say." Then he, as it were, pulled himself together. "And you
will oblige me," he continued, "by not asking any more questions of
the sort. I cannot answer them."
He went on writing, but his hand trembled a little. She had heard this
formula more than once, but after a time, moved thereto by the new
stress in her thoughts, the girl rose, and going up behind him stood
looking over his shoulder.
"Grandfather," she said, "I am not going to ask any more questions
about the past. I don't see that it matters at all. I should like to
have known that my father was--was glad of me; my mother must have
been, I think, though she died so soon. But I should like to know what
is in the future. What--what do you expect me to do? Do you wish me to
marry?"
He turned round in his chair, and looked at her helplessly.
"That is rather a peculiar question, my dear," he said feebly, "but,
of course----"
"Don't answer it if it worries you, please," she urged quickly; "but
if you could speak of it--it would be a great help."
Vaguely she felt choky over the last words. It did seem so hard to be
left all alone in the wide world to face these dark problems.
"It--it is not a usual subject for discussion, even between parent and
child, Aura," he replied; "but if you ask me--yes. I am extremely
anxious for you to marry."
"Why?" The question came swiftly.
Mr. Sylvanus Smith put down his pen finally, and turned his feet to
the fire. He thought for a moment of quite a variety of reasons.
Because it was the natural end of woman; ... but for years past he had
laboured in vain to convince the world that marriage was slavery.
Because he wished her to be happy?... but so many marriages were
unhappy. Because he would have liked to see grandchildren about
him?... but in his innermost heart he knew that a few months of life
was all for which he had any right to look.
He decided finally on the real reason.
"Because--because when I die, my child, and that cannot be far
off----"
"Grandfather, don't!"
Her voice became poignant with fond reproof.
He heaved a sigh, and honestly felt himself heroic.
"My dear," he said grandly, "there is no use in deceiving ourselves--I
may live--but on the other hand," he waved his pretty white hand
gracefully. The conversation was beginning to interest him, and though
he had acquiesced in Ted Cruttenden's desire to let the question stand
over for the present, he felt there could be no harm in diagnosing
Aura's attitude. "The fact is, my dear, that when I die you will be
very badly off, in fact, it is a source of the very greatest anxiety
to me, Aura, you will have nothing--I mean no money--and unless you
are married--happily married--I do not see how you can earn your own
livelihood."
"Then I should earn it by being married!" she asked.
"Well! hardly so; but--it would be a great weight off my mind, Aura.
So--if you have the chance----"
She stood still for a moment or two, then once more seating herself on
the floor, this time at his feet, she turned her face to the fire. "I
have the chance," she said at last in a clear voice, "Lord
Blackborough asked me to marry him to-day. I refused--but----" Her
face was still hidden, but a curious expectancy came to her whole
attitude. She seemed on the alert.
Sylvanus Smith who had sat up prepared to curse, sank back in his
chair to bless with a sigh of relief. "You refused him! Thank God! My
dear child, you--you caused me the most painful alarm; though I might
have trusted your good sense to see that it would have been--a--a most
unsuitable marriage."
The alertness had gone. "Would it?" she said indifferently, "Yes! I
suppose it would." She said no more, though all unconsciously the iron
was entering her heart, the young glad animal heart which clamoured
for pleasure. Still, what her grandfather had called her good sense
had shown her this unsuitability at once, though his grounds for his
opinion were most likely very different from hers. At the same time it
was her decision. She had made it of her own free will. There was no
coercion about it. She had made it, and it was as well that others
endorsed her action.
So she essayed a smile and turned towards him. "Then I don't
think I have any other chance of getting married just at present,
grandfather," she said lightly, "but if anybody 'comes along----'" She
paused, joking on the subject being a trifle beyond her.
The old man sat looking at her with real affection overlaid by the
quaint sense of magnanimity which pursued him in every relation of
life, the result no doubt of his unquestioning acceptance of himself
as philanthropic benefactor to the race. Should he or should he not
tell her what he had just heard from Ted?
Something in the slackness of her attitude as she sat crouched by the
fire, something of weariness in the young face which, as a rule, was
so buoyant with the _joie de vivre_, made him decide on telling her.
There could be no harm in finding out how she was prepared to receive
the suggestion. He drew his chair closer.
"But there you are mistaken surely. Has it never occurred to you
that--that perhaps--Mr. Cruttenden----"
"Ted!" echoed Aura. "No! Grandfather, it is you who are mistaken. Ted
and I have always been the best of friends--the very best of friends!
but he has never--Oh! I can assure you he has never been the least--
never the least like Ned--I mean Lord Blackborough."
"Perhaps that stands to his credit," remarked the old man chillily.
"Love is not shown--by--by love-making. But I am sure of what I say,
my dear, because--Ted as you call him--though in my young days--but we
will let that pass for the present--told me himself that the dearest
wish of his heart----"
At this moment the door opened and Ted himself, light-hearted, free,
eager to have what he could of Aura's company, came in.
"I've finished," he cried, "so now for something better----" he
paused, conscious that the air was full of something more important at
any rate. Was it better, or was it worse?
Mr. Sylvanus Smith essayed a discreet innocence by a warning cough to
Aura, and a hasty return to his papers; but the girl was too much in
earnest for silence. Her nerves, overstrung by the strain of the long
day, during which almost everything to be learnt in life seemed to
have been crowded into a few hours, vibrated to this new possibility.
She rose instantly, and advancing a step or two stood facing the young
man with a new recklessness in her expression. "Ted," she said, and
there was a note of appeal in her voice, "Grandfather has been telling
me something I can't believe. Is it true that you also want to marry
me?"
For an instant surprised out of balance, overwhelmed by the utter
unconventionality of the question the young man hesitated. Yes or no
seemed to him equally out of keeping. Then his passion for her came to
the rescue, and something told him that the question would never have
been asked if the girl had not staked herself, body and soul, on the
answer.
He strode across the room and took her by her outstretched hands.
"I have wanted it, Aura," he said, and his voice vibrated as the whole
world seemed to him to be vibrating, "ever since I saw you first--do
you remember--" he was drawing her closer to him unresisting,
though in her eyes there was a certain expectant dread, "you were
standing--surely you remember--" his voice grew softer--"in the garden
room--standing in the sunlight with the flowers behind you--and the
cockatoo----" the sentence ended in the first kiss which had ever
fallen on Aura's lips.
She did not shrink. On the contrary, she gave a little sigh of
satisfaction, and looked gratefully at Ted.
"Yes, I remember," she said softly, "and ever since then you have been
so good to me."
"Then you will marry me, Aura," he said--"you will really marry me?"
"If it makes you happy--if you really mean it, and--" she turned to
her grandfather--"does it make you happy too?"
He was busy with his pocket handkerchief, and blew his nose ere he
replied. "My happiness is assured if--if you--" He said no more, for
his memory was clear, and there are some things which do not grow dim
with years, and one of them is the remembrance of love.
"I am quite happy," she said gravely, "and I think I shall always be
happy with Ted."
Whereupon Ted kissed her again, and tried to realise that he was in
the seventh heaven of delight; as he was indeed, though he felt rather
rushed as he thought of the night mail to Paris.
"We have hardly time to get engaged decently and in order," he said
joyfully. "You will have to wait for your ring, my darling."
"My ring?" she echoed inquiringly, whereupon Ted laughed still more
joyfully at her entrancing ignorance of the world and its ways; but
Sylvanus Smith, who had been looking into the fire, roused himself to
touch a ring which he always wore on his little finger. "I have one
here," he said dreamily; "it holds her mother's hair."
"My mother's!" cried Aura gladly, "Oh! may I have it, grandfather?"
Ted looked with distaste at the little mourning ring; just a plait of
bronze brown hair like Aura's set in a plain gold rim as a background
to "In Memoriam" in black enamel letters.
"It is rather grisly," he whispered fondly as he slipped it on to the
girl's finger, "but it will do to--to keep the place warm! By and by
it shall be diamonds."
She shook her head. "I shall like this best," she said, "it will
remind me of----" And then she lifted her finger to her lips and
kissed the little ring. It would be hers always to remind her of Love
and Death, and Birth that came between the two.