Little blue wavelets were lapping on the pure white coral dust at his
feet; above his head little white cloudlets were sailing upon the pure
blue of the sky as Ned Blackborough lay on the flat of his back
looking out over the soft southern sea. He had edged himself away from
the turf beyond the sand for fear of crushing the great drifts of tiny
iris which everywhere grew encircled by their bodyguard of grey-green
scimitar-shaped leaves. Whether they were actually of the same sort as
the one which Aura had dubbed "the most beautiful thing in the most
beautiful place in the world," Ned was not botanist enough to know;
but his heart warmed to them because of their likeness to it.
But then his heart went out to almost everything in this wonder island
of the Sporades group, which he had purchased for a mere song from the
Turkish Government. A mere song indeed! It filled him with awe to
think of becoming the possessor of so much pure loveliness, when he
had spent hundreds--nay! thousands of times as much--in trying to make
one house fit for children to die in!
Even as it stood, it was an earthly paradise. When he had finished
spending a little more money and a good deal more leisure on it, when
the white marble ruins on it were restored, when books and music came
to its pleasant pavilions, above all when Love came to take up her
abode there, it would be a veritable fragment of the heavenly
Jerusalem chipped off and dropped here by chance in the still, deep
blue sea.
Yes! it was extraordinarily beautiful! It satisfied the soul!
Straight away from the water's edge, save where here and there a
coral-sanded creek broke the clear cut of the cliff, the land rose
steadily, cleft by sharp ravines, to a central peak, not high, yet
high enough to hold, on this early morning in February, a dusting of
frosty dew upon its summit, which shone evanescently, like snow, then
disappeared before the rising sunbeams as they fell.
The ilex woods were already green and bronze in their new, soft, yet
spike-set shoots; the olives grew sturdily amongst the burnished
leafage of the wild lemon and the wild orange, and down the ravines,
where trickled scantily among the stones tiny streams of water, the
oleanders were already preparing their blaze of red and white.
And the flowers! Ye gods! what flowers! It would take Aura a lifetime
simply to find out their names! Every thicket showed them aburst with
coming blossom; and, the open spaces, even thus early, were carpeted
with fritillaries and narcissus.
And the birds! A pair of tiny sun-birds flitted past him twittering,
playful, a flash of scarlet wheeling wings and ruby throats. On the
rock yonder, an emerald and sapphire kingfisher sat silent, looking
with large, piercing eyes out to sea.
So indeed might Halcyon have sat looking for her Ceyx! And as he
watched the bird, immobile, mournful, the full beauty of the far-way
Greek legend struck Ned Blackborough's mind with new force.
Ay! So must all those who love the Something they know not what, which
they find, or seem to find, in some woman's beauty, some man's
strength--so must they watch and wait, flitting ever over the waves of
life seeking the Beloved. Not even the halcyon days when Zeus gives
the wisdom of calm, could end that ceaseless quest. Aura had been
right. Behind love was the "Something better" which he had felt, in
which both he and she had been lost, as they had sat together, hand in
hand, listening to the robin as it sang on the holly-tree.
The sun-birds flitted past again less playfully, more lovingly, and
Ned Blackborough started up remembering that it was the 14th of
February--St. Valentine's day! Naturally the birds were pairing.
Naturally there was spring in the air. Naturally his blood seemed to
race through his veins; he also could have made love!
_Fautes de mieux_, why should he not send Aura a valentine? He
had not written to her, he had virtually said he would not; but a
valentine--especially a valentine by wire as this must be--was a very
impersonal affair.
He strolled over to the rocky point, behind which, in a natural
harbour, lay a fair-sized English sailing-boat. Beyond, at anchor,
rode a steam yacht; but its fires were out--its crew had gone off
that morning in a double lateen-sailed felucca to Rhodes for some
festival--St. Valentine's day, no doubt.
But for this it would have been easy to steam over to the telegraph
office.
There was the sailing-boat, however, and the weather was perfect. He
looked out seawards critically. There was a certain hardness of
outline in that deep blue horizon; otherwise the calm of fourteen days
might well be beginning.
It would be a lovely sail. Twenty miles or so over these ripples, with
just enough warm southerly wind behind one to blow the boat straight
to the telegraph office without a tack! As for the return journey the
felucca's crew would have to make that, and bring the yacht for him
next morning. He liked Rhodes; it was a quaint old town full of
memories, pagan and Christian.
Five minutes afterwards he was afloat, the sheet looped within reach,
the tiller set steady towards a pale-blue cloud which lay upon the
north-west horizon.
It was the most perfect of mornings. The boat lay over a trifle to the
wind, which was stronger beyond the lee of the island, and sent a
little half-apologetic tinkling, bubbling laugh of water along the
side as it slid through the waving lines of ripple.
"Let me pass! good people," it seemed to say. "Let me laugh! I have a
purpose--you have none. Ha--ha--ha!"
So, unheeding of the ripples, might the unchanging Purpose behind all
things break through the little waves of the world and laugh at their
disturbance.
Ned Blackborough lit a cigarette--a good sound, opium-soddened
Egyptian cigarette such as his soul loved--and set himself
deliberately to day-dreams. It was becoming more and more a temptation
for him to do this, for he was only just beginning to realise the
intense pleasure he derived from it! A sensual, purely Esthetic
pleasure for the most part, though every now and again.... Yes! every
now and again he left even the super-sensual part of him behind, and
lost himself utterly. In what, he did not know. He only knew that _It_
was there, and _He_ was forgotten.
To-day, however, he was in no mood for the infinite; the finite was
quite sufficient for him, so he amused himself by looking steadily at
the shining dark surface of some bilge water which lay by the tarred
keel of the boat, and trying to imagine that he would see visions in
it, as the little Cairo boys see them in a drop of ink.
He had tested this often, and knew that they did see strange things,
just as Helen apparently had seen the fire on Cam's point in the
crystal. Truly there were many mysteries!
It was, of course, not hard to conjure up Aura's face, or see her
seated in the sheep shelter listening to the bird, or standing in the
moonlight among the cedar shadows on the lawn holding out the
sovereign, or on her knees beside the little purple iris while the
sphinx looked down on her.
But beyond all these tricks of memory, what could he see? Nothing. Yet
what was this? A wide stretch of blue--blue everywhere. Bah! it was
only the reflection of the sky; it was the floor of heaven!
His eyes narrowed themselves from dreaminess to thought. It was
strange that that inner eye, which could produce things from the past
with such absolute accuracy, should be so helpless in regard to the
present except in negation. It could make one forget that altogether.
As for the future? Truly the mind of man dreamt idly when it sought to
discover what lay beyond; possibly because it sought to recognise
itself in conditions in which Self should have been merged in
something beyond Self.
So as he sat idly looking at the drop of dark water, he felt for a
moment--aided, no doubt, by the opium in his cigarette!--as if he were
sailing on over a sea that vibrated ceaselessly with a soft quiver
which brought no sensation of light to his eyes, no sense of feeling
to his touch, no sense of sound to his ears.
And the old Indian definition recurred to him--"A bubble upon the
Ocean of Bliss."
The sharp rug of a running rope recalled him to the present; the loop
of the sheet was slipping as the breeze freshened.
It was freshening indeed. Behind him lay quite a squall, crisping the
ripples to little indignant waves, and over in the south-east a cloud,
pale-grey but threatening, already showed as a widening arch from the
horizon. One of the swift spring storms was coming up apace, and he
must run for it for all he was worth. There was no more time for
dreams; every ounce of the squall that goes before the storm must be
made use of if he was to send his valentine.
But he would send it safe enough, unless the wind shifted. After a
while, during which the boat, hard held, flew through the waves, and
the blue cloud to the northward rose higher and higher on the horizon,
the wind did shift just at a point or two towards the south, and
he in his turn had to shift his tiller so as to keep that extreme
north-eastern headland before him. So it became a harder tussle than
ever between him and the wind to keep full way on the boat. She was
carrying more sail than was safe, but he could not afford to lose a
moment of time; although, all things being equal, he had still a fair
chance of making the land.
Another slight shift! and now before him--a gleam of light on the land
that was already shadowed by the coming storm--he saw a creek of white
sand slightly to westward of him, where he could at least have a
chance of beaching his boat, where, for the matter of that, if the
worst came to worst, he would at least have a better chance of not
being dashed to pieces if he tried to swim. Beyond, the coast was
cliff-bound, rock-bound.
Would she take so much? He let the sheet slip through his fingers half
inch by half inch, gauging the wind's pressure on the sail cautiously.
Yes! she would take it. He could make the creek if all went well.
But he had reckoned without the current which here, close to the land,
began to gather itself for a headlong race round that eastern cliff;
so inch by inch the boat's prow slid from the white streak of safety
to the rocks.
Would she stand another inch of rope?
She stood it, and leapt forward like a greyhound, giving to the full
sweep of the storm which at that moment, with a crash of thunder,
broke over them; then righting herself and careering before it like
some mad thing, her way redoubled by the fierce wind which sang in
Ned's ears, as, clinging to one taffrail with his hand, he stood
almost on the other. There was no time now even for thought; the
feeling of fight came in its place, since to steady the tiller for the
creek one moment, and give to the huge rollers the next, was enough
for soul, and brain, and body.
Then on the crest of a wave he saw the creek in front of him, but saw
also that a giant roller just behind him must swamp the boat unless he
steered straight towards the rocks on the north-east. They were sharp,
jagged rocks, like teeth just showing above the boil of the waves. How
far out did the reef run? What length was that ravening jaw?
Who could say? The next instant, with his boots kicked off, and the
thwart, on which he had kept an eye this while past, held under his
arm-pits by his outstretched arms, as a buoy, he had leapt into the
roller as it lifted the boat. The water felt warm to him, spray and
wind-chilled as he was; warm, but rough, as it seized him, ducked him,
cuffed him, bruised him; all but broke him, ere with a mighty rush it
flung him forwards. Ye gods! what it was not to be quite sound--to
have an arm that could not stand a strain! Still that awful something
against which he had struck in the downdraw had been warded off
somehow and ...
Then once more the following roller, stronger of the giant twins which
hunt the wide wastes of water in couples, overtook him, caught him,
buffeted him, knocked him senseless, so, with a wild shrieking
scramble of pebbles and coral sand, swept him up to the very last
corner of the creek. His head, as he lay stunned, was within an inch
of a jagged needle-point of rock which would have crashed into his
skull as if it had been an egg-shell.
It was full five minutes ere another giant wave reached out for him
and felt him about the feet. But by this time that was enough to rouse
him. He stirred, sat up, and half-mechanically withdrew himself
stiffly beyond any further touch. He was bleeding from cuts in the
hands and on his knees; but that seemed to be all the damage done.
Except for the boat, of course ... What of the boat? It was matchwood
already amongst those devilish rocks to the eastward.
"That was a nearish squeak," he murmured softly as he rose, and
limping a little, sought shelter among the clefts of the cliff from
the blinding torrents of rain.
An hour or so afterwards, however, having with easy grace and some
small knowledge of Turkish and modern Greek hired a gaily caparisoned
mule from a neighbouring farmer, he rode up the Knights' Street quite
cheerfully, dried and warmed by the sun, which, after the brief storm,
had shone out again radiantly, carelessly.
He had settled what the valentine was to be from the very moment that
the idea of it had entered his head, but it took him fully half an
hour to see it safely through the hands of the Turkish officials, and
then they charged him for a message in cipher.
Yet it was only a very simple quotation:--
'Haply I think on thee, and then my state;
Like to the lark at break of day uprising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate.'
He did not even put his name to it, for it seemed impossible to him
that she should not know who sent it.
By this time it was close on four o'clock, and he computed the
difference in longitude by his watch.
"She ought to get it at latest by four," he said to himself as he
strolled off to the old church to live awhile amongst the ghosts of
the Crusaders and the Knights Hospitalliers of St. John.
As a matter of fact it was a quarter to four when the brick-dust
coloured envelope was put into Aura's hands, but she was still looking
at it with a certain scare in her eyes and a certain flutter at her
heart when Ted came down from her grandfather's room at four o'clock.
Of course she knew who had sent it. No one but Ned would have thought
of anything at once so consoling and so disturbing. To rise from earth
and "sing hymns at heaven's gate" was quite in order; but how about
the "Haply I think on thee"?
"What's that?" asked Ted kindly, as he sat down beside her on the
sofa, which had been imported into the bare, empty room for the
invalid's use. "Anything I can do?"
That again was so like him; always thinking of material help in
everything.
"Nothing," she replied, hurriedly crumpling up the paper, and
thrusting it under the sofa cushion. "Nothing, at least of any
consequence." She was wearing the diamonds now, and they flashed on
her finger, bringing the sunburn brown of her hand into greater
prominence. "You look worried, Ted," she went on. "You don't think
grandfather is worse, do you? He was very disturbed, I know, but----"
Ted shook his head. "Not worse, certainly. I left him asleep. Besides,
the doctor says there is no immediate danger of any sort. But I am
worried. The fact is, my darling"--his arm was round her, but not too
aggressively, for, in truth, though he loved her dearly, his world
held many other interests besides love--"this sort of thing cannot go
on. This is the third time I have been sent for since the New Year. I
don't grudge it, dearest, one bit. There is always the joy of seeing
you; but if Hirsch hadn't been kindness itself I couldn't have managed
it. And it doesn't really do the dear old man any good. Here he is
to-day fretting himself ill about my having to go away, about our
being married. So I was wondering, dearest----"
"Yes, Ted," she put in calmly.
Ted took his arm away, and sat resting his head in his hands and
looking vexedly into the fire. "It is a good deal to ask of
us--especially to ask of you," he went on; "but you see I must go off
this evening, so it wouldn't make any real difference, since we are
bound indissolubly to each other as it is--aren't we?"
He took her left hand and kissed the diamond ring as he spoke.
"Of course we are," she assented. "Go on, Ted."
"So--if you will consent--I could fetch the rector--he is a
surrogate, I find; but, as a matter of fact, I got the license at
Blackborough--and we could be married before I go. Don't look so
startled, my dearest! It shan't be if you don't wish it. And I hate
asking for it, only I believe it would really quiet the dear old man,
and give him a better chance--and me too, of course, for this sort of
thing is a little--just a little--well! limiting. And, as I say, it
would make no difference--except perhaps that I should find it harder
than ever to leave my wife."
His voice sank to almost playful tenderness, his arm stole round her
waist again, and she rose hurriedly.
"But--but is this possible?" she asked incredulously. "I thought there
was so much formality----"
He smiled tolerantly. "Not at all! a special license is all that's
required, and I have that; so if you--you dear, solemn thing!--will
really consent to do without a wedding----"
She looked at him, startled. "But surely we are going to be married?"
He laughed loudly. "Of course we are. I meant the bridesmaids and the
cake and the orange-blossoms and all that. I don't want them, darling,
if you don't. It's enough for me to have you."
She set the question and his kiss aside as of no value whatever. "Then
I think you had better get the rector if you can, Ted," she said
thoughtfully. "I expect it will make a great difference to him--to
grandfather, I mean--and to you also. And you've been so awfully good!
Will you tell grandfather?" she added with a little blush as she
released herself from her lover's thanks.
"Well, you see," he confessed, "I've half-promised him already--that
is why he went to sleep. You are always so reasonable, Aura, I felt I
might count on you----"
And then the sight of her standing there so sweet, so kind, so
absolutely unconscious, seemed to overwhelm him, and he cried
passionately, "Oh, my dear, my dear! I hope I shall make you
happy--but you are a thousand times too good for me."
He told himself so over and over again as he hurried on his bicycle to
the rectory, and he swore to himself almost incoherently that although
the rush of mere moneymaking had absorbed much of his waking life, it
should never invade the corner that was sacred to his love. And as he
said this he turned his head suddenly towards the winter woods, for in
his ears that mellow blackbird call to the wilds seemed to sound, as
it had sounded that evening when, all unwitting, he had sold his soul
to Mr. Hirsch.
When he had gone on his mission Aura drew out Ned's valentine again,
smoothed it over, and looked at it once more. For the first time in
her life she felt the need of some one--some woman to whom she could
talk. Finally she folded up the telegram, put it on the mantelpiece,
and went into the kitchen. There was always Martha, and Martha's sound
common-sense was a byword.
"Martha," she said, after standing for a few moments watching the deft
hands dab butter over paste, and roll it in with swift decision--it
was almost like watching the mill which grinds small! "I want to ask
you something; but you must promise not to mention it even to Adam."
"Even to Bate!" echoed Martha with a sniff. "If I'd my choice, Miss
H'Aura, I'd as lief mention it to the town-crier. Not that Bate
doesn't mean well. It ain't his fault being born so; but there, one
must just take holt of men as they're made, and be thankful they is no
worse."
Why this should have heartened Aura up it is hard to say, but it did.
She actually smiled. "What I wanted to ask was this, Martha. In your
experience--do you think it hurts a man very much to be in love--I
mean, of course, to be in love with some one who doesn't want--I mean
who won't marry him?"
Martha poised the rolling-pin on one hip, her hand on the other.
"Hurt 'em!" she echoed. "Lord sakes, no! It's the makin' o' them. Bate
wouldn't be 'alf so spry at his years if he 'adn't bin wantin' to
marry me any time this fourteen year back. That's why I won't 'ave him
even now, Miss H'Aura. 'Bate,' says I, 'if I was to take you now,
you'd get fat an' lazy. You wouldn't rise no more. You'd be like
whipped eggs as is let stand, all gone to froth an' water.' No! Miss
H'Aura, men is like heggs, they want beatin' 'ard all the time, else
they'll never rise to better things."
The rolling-pin came down on the pastry with more decision than ever,
and Aura laughed out loud. Something in the very phrasing of the last
words comforted her.
Yet she was not quite content as she changed her day-dress for the
white cambric one she wore in the evening; after all, it was but
putting it on an hour or so before her usual time, and the Mechlin
lace about her throat was a concession which would please her
grandfather.
"Aura!--my dearest, you look quite bridal," exclaimed Ted, as he came
in to find her sitting by the firelight. "It seems too good to be
true--but the rector will be here in half an hour." He knelt down
beside her, and laid his head in her lap. "My dear, my dear!" he said
almost with a sob. "I don't seem able to say anything but _that_,
somehow," he added almost pathetically. Far away, dimly, he saw a
vision of something better, unattainable, incompatible with his
sensuous life. It was beautiful but--what would you? Man is but man;
and he must have money wherewith to live.
"Then there is something which I must tell you--before," she said; "it
is something which I think you ought to know. Ned asked me to marry
him on New Year's Day--and I refused."
Ted's heart gave a great throb as it had done when Ned Blackborough
had used much the same words nearly a month before.
"I--I am sorry for Ned," he said softly, "but I don't see----"
For answer she held out the telegram. "He sent me this to-day," she
said, "and I wonder--if he is waiting."
"Waiting!" echoed Ted hotly. "Waiting for what? You say you refused
him?"
"Yes! I told him I would not marry him--because I was afraid of loving
him too much; that was the truth."
For one instant the whole room seemed to spin round with Ted; he had
to steady himself by holding to the back of a chair.
"I don't understand what you mean," he said thickly.
"I don't think he did either," she replied with a lingering regret in
her voice, "for he said he would ask me again in two months, as if
that would alter anything."
Ted caught swiftly at the ray of light. "Then if he asked you
again--you--you would refuse him?"
The firelight had died down so that he could not see the flush which
surged into her face, but he could hear her voice as she replied,
"Yes! I should refuse him--more than ever."
"Then," he said slowly after a pause, "I don't see why you need
bother----"
"Oh! it was not that," she put in quickly. "I was only wondering--you
see I know so little, and I have no mother--if he would expect me to
wait."
The firelight flared up again, and he saw her with the lace about her
throat. "Let him wait!" he exclaimed passionately; "he had his fair
chance and I have mine. I am sorry, but one of us had to win. You
can't help that, you poor little dear--that is fate."
He told himself it was indeed fate: he swore to himself that he would
be the best husband ever woman had.
But for all that the ceremony damped even his joy. To begin with,
Martha wept copiously in a corner, as she had wept ever since Ted had
gone in to the kitchen and taken her away unceremoniously from her
pastry-making as a witness. At first she had sunk into a chair, and
steadfastly refused to budge (on the ground that she couldn't "'ave
sech things going on in the 'ouse,") but after a time the importance of
being in possession of a dead secret, and her perception that if his
lordship was not going to come forward--and he seemed, indeed,
inclined to play the back step--this was decidedly the next best thing
for her darling, induced her to yield.
"And if you loves 'im and 'e loves you, there ain't no fear, same as
there ain't no fear but what good barm and good flour'll make a good
batch o' bread--no fear at all my deary dear," she had sobbed
consolingly to Aura, who stood quite composed, but very white. Ted,
strong and kindly, clasped her hand, and what soul was left over and
above his bargain was in his eyes.
The rector, in biretta and cope, read the service unabridged, while
Sylvanus Smith, propped comfortably in his arm-chair, averted his face
from the sacerdotal symbols, even while he added an unctious "Amen" of
his own to "let no man put asunder."
He even essayed a burst of hilarity as he kissed Mrs. Cruttenden, but
Ted scarcely availed himself of his privileges. He only stood beside
Aura, holding her hand, divided in his heart of hearts whether he
should go or whether he should stay.
But in the end prudence triumphed and a sense of duty; for the last
month of constant interruptions had not been favourable to business,
and if Aura--if his wife--were ever to appear in that pink satin and
diamonds, it behooved him to bestir himself.
So Adam Bate, coming in after milking the cows at eight o'clock, found
the house silent, curiously silent, with Martha seated on a chair, her
feet on the fender, her eyes on the fire.
He cast a glance at the table. It was bare, so after a while he
coughed.
"Beant there no supper, Martha, woman?" he asked apologetically.
Martha rose in an instant, aflame.
"There's bin that, Adam Bate, a-goin' on in this 'ouse this day, as no
one didn't want to 'ave no supper--not if they was Christian--but
bein' a man--there's bread and cheese in the cupboard."