her eyes always--always--to the lovely prospect that was like a mighty
ocean in which the waves were blue, mystical kopjes; and over which
the first clouds, that heralded the approach of the rainy season, shed
entrancing lights and shadows. Ailsa sat a little behind, and her eyes
roved back from the view that had grown into her being and become part
of her life to the face of the young heiress. She noted at once its
instinctive charm; the charm of a woman blessed with most of the
traits that hold and bind men for ever. Strength was there without
masterfulness; sweetness that would never cloy; a dreamy elusiveness
that meant a closed book it would be a joy to study chapter by
chapter; and some of the chapters would surprise with their lightness
and mirth, while others would surprise with their depth of sympathetic
understanding, and yet others would bewilder alluringly with their
whimsical, irresistible uncertainty. She knew that society papers
sometimes spoke of the well-known millionaire's daughter as beautiful,
but to her it seemed the word was hardly the right one. Meryl's face
had in it something too strong and too distinctive for actual beauty;
and yet Ailsa thought of all the lovely women she had ever seen none
were quite so attractive. And because she was a tender-hearted woman,
the thought crossed her mind to wonder if perhaps, out of the dark
shadow that she knew hung ever over Peter Carew's life, there might
yet be a way of escape; a gracious healing, and a final joy. Could two
such humans meet and not love? Could anything truly separate them if
once the love were born?
She mused a moment or two happily, sublimely ignorant of all the
forces that warred between; of what caused the shadow; of the power of
a dead face; of the pride of a resolute man; of that attractive
Huguenot Dutchman biding his time down south.
At last Meryl broke the silence. As she sat gazing through the open
doorway her mind had lingered unconsciously over that last sentence.
"Major Carew, when he is here, loves just to sit and look at it," and
in her fancy she saw the silent, watching form of the grim
soldier-policeman.
"He is an interesting man," she said simply. "I think I understood he
was some connection of yours?"
"You mean Major Carew? Yes; he is a distant sort of cousin, but we are
two entirely different branches of the family, and had drifted widely
apart until we three met out here. Yet it was not surprising we should
meet like this. The Carews were always wanderers and adventurers, like
Drake and Frobisher and the other fine old pirates. A humdrum career
in the Blues would hardly have continued to satisfy Major Carew, any
more than the conventions and hide-bound prejudices of the Established
Church could hold my husband."
"Yet, if you will forgive my seeming rudeness, both of them apparently
took a decided step downwards from the social point of view."
"That would not trouble either of them for a moment. They sought
Freedom, and found it."
"Yet it meant, in a sense, what some people call being buried alive."
"Ah, those people do not understand. That is how I took it at first.
Shall I tell you a little, or will it bore you?"
"Please tell me. I think it is kind of you to trust me so soon with
your confidence."
Ailsa smiled. "One always knows. Anyone with insight would trust you
instinctively. But there isn't much to tell. Only that when I married
my husband he held a living in Shropshire, with a sure promise of
quick promotion; and then Doubt crept in which he could not overthrow,
and after a long struggle he gave it up because his conscience would
not let him be a hypocrite."
"But he is still a Church missionary, is he not?"
"In a sense; but he is not paid by any society, and works on his own
lines entirely. He had a little money of his own, and I have also, and
out here it is ample. But at first I was very bitter with him, and let
myself be influenced by my people who were still more bitter, and I
would not join him. I went back home and lived the old life of my
girlhood. He never uttered one word of reproach, although he was just
breaking his heart for me, and--for which I bless him every day of my
life--he wrote every mail telling me about the country and his work.
At first I scarcely read the letters, and often did not reply; but he
wrote on patiently and waited. And at last my mood changed. The
endless tea-parties began to pall, and the insipidity of my home life.
Week after week, week after week, the same round of social gatherings;
the same people, the same conversations, the same everlasting tea,
buns, and gossip. In each parish around, so many, many unmarried
women, so many empty, monotonous lives. I think the condition of
England's country villages is becoming almost a tragedy; all the men
seem to have gone away to a bigger and wider world, and all the women
to have been left behind to feed on emptiness. There are the
clergyman's daughters, the doctor's daughters, the solicitor's
daughters, and perhaps a few retired veterans and their daughters; all
struggling through the same old empty round; while the men go out to
conquer the earth." She paused a moment, but seeing Meryl's rapt
attention, went on uninterruptedly, "And one day I awoke to the fact
that I had a special right to one of the finest men who had gone out
to do his share, and a special place at his side. To cut a long story
short, I won through the frantic opposition of my family, cut myself
adrift, and came out here to see for myself what Billy was doing that
gave him a satisfaction he had never found in his peaceful easy
living; in spite of the hunger I had always known was wearing out his
soul for me." She looked out across the country dreamily, before she
finished. "I shall never forget when I first saw this," motioning to
the sunny prospect. "We arrived here in the dusk, owing to a
breakdown, and so I had a long night's rest before Billy first showed
it to me. I must tell you I was already tremendously impressed, on the
quiet, with my brown, stalwart, khaki-clad husband in place of the
decorous, black-coated parson I had parted with; and although the
journey had been very exhausting, for I had to travel in the
post-cart, my interest in him and the country had never abated. Then
he opened the door wide about sunrise, and said casually, 'Sit up and
look at my view, Ailsa.' I sat up, and for a moment I could not speak
at all. Do you know, Miss Pym, the country looked positively hung with
diamonds that wonderful morning. I shall never forget it. Just outside
the door, forming a sort of framework to the scene beyond, was some
tall, dry grass, thin and straggly enough to let the light through.
And where at the top it spread into graceful, hanging, feathery
seed-ears, it was hung with large dewdrops, reflecting all the colours
of the rainbow. Behind them was the bluest of early-morning skies.
Beyond them, what you see here, a far dream-country of untold
loveliness. I said, 'O, Billy! have you lived beside this all these
months?' And then I began to cry, because I didn't know what else to
do, and I was so glad that I had come."
A fleeting shadow of sadness seemed to cross Meryl's face. "I envy
you," she said in a low voice. "You can stay on with the man you love,
and see it every day. I must go back to the tea-parties."
"Most people pity me."
"I dare say; and they envy me," with a little forlorn smile.
"You have much power, and power is good," softly.
"Have I?... How, why, where?... What shall I do with all this money my
father makes? I wonder what I could do to take from my heart this
feeling that I am an alien and an intruder in this lovely country,
among you people who are quietly making history? If your husband
wants money for his mission, I could get him a cheque for a thousand
pounds from my father, I know; but what is that compared to giving
one's life as you do, and growing right into the heart of the country,
and feeling just that it is yours because of what you have given? I
know that is how Major Carew feels also. One can see it in his rapt
gaze. He does not care for very much else in the world. But we, my
father and I, we just take riches out, and give nothing but cheques
which we never even miss." She got up and moved to the doorway,
controlling with an effort her sudden, unexpected show of emotion.
"The others have been looking at your fowls and cattle," she said,
"and now they are coming back. I hope Mr. Grenville will show us over
the mission station."
"He will be delighted," Ailsa answered, following her lead with quick
understanding; "and another day you must come and sit in my doorway
again."
"I should love to;" and she stepped out into the sunlight to join the
gay trio Diana was still the life of.
Then Mr. Grenville took them into his workshops and his little mission
hall, and showed them how he taught the boys carpentering and
blacksmithing, and reading and writing and farming; making good,
useful labourers of them with even greater zeal than that with which
he made them Christians. Diana, the outspoken, could not resist a
surprised comment.
"I thought people who had been abroad always ran down missionaries,
and scoffed at missionary work?"
"They do very often," Grenville replied, with frankness, "and not
without reason. A great many missionaries are naturally not very
suitable men. It is almost impossible to pick and choose."
"There are some," put in Stanley disgustedly, "who just confirm all
the blacks they can, without bothering about how much they understand,
and then make communicants of them so that they can send good figures
home to their society for the missionary magazines. They don't teach
them anything useful at all, and they do a roaring trade with the
garments sent out by pious ladies' work guilds; as if the natives
weren't better in their own natural state than they are ever likely
to be dressed up in clothes and fuddled with doctrines."
Mr. Grenville, standing very upright and looking every inch a man,
said simply, "It isn't entirely their fault always. The home folk like
the figures; they imagine they stand for progress, and they know
nothing about the conditions. Many missionaries are very fine men, and
they would do even better work if left a little more to their own
initiative, and not cursed with this atmosphere of competition in
figures. It isn't fair to damn the whole flock because a few of the
sheep are black."
"And don't you ever feel you are wasting your talents?" Meryl asked
him a little shyly.
He threw his head back and squared his shoulders with a characteristic
movement. "It is better than the hypocrisy and feebleness of the
condition of affairs at home; and I am very fond of the natives. They
are most lovable, when one once gets their confidence and understands
them. And the freedom is good, and the primitive conditions. The
getting right down to the bedrock of nature, so to speak, without too
much highly developed civilisation. Yes, it is a good life for a man.
Sometime I should like to show you the mission farm. We've made
tremendous strides lately."
"And you?..." Diana turned with a winsome air to Ailsa Grenville. "Do
you find the natives lovable, and the primitive conditions?... And are
you proud of the mission farm?... Or doesn't it all sometimes make you
just long to scream?... It would me!..."
Ailsa smiled into her eyes. "One grows adaptable very quickly. I
confess I am very happy here. Certainly there are times when one feels
rather as if one had dropped off the world into space, but it doesn't
take long to struggle through it. But then, of course, it is well to
remember that Billy and I are rather an exceptional couple; quite
absurdly, idiotically satisfied with each other's company. If it were
not so our lives would be purgatory. The tragedies of these far
countries are for the husbands and wives isolated from all other
companionship, and having perhaps nothing in common with each other.
There are few conditions worse than isolation under those
circumstances. It breaks the woman's spirit and sours the man and
brings shipwreck, where a little other congenial companionship might
have brought them through in safety."
They were interrupted by the sound of voices outside, and found that
Mr. Pym and his engineer, having encountered Major Carew returning
from Edwardstown, had persuaded him to show them the way to the
mission. Mr. and Mrs. Grenville greeted them with eager warmth, and,
the afternoon sun having sunk behind some trees, tea was spread
outside the huts, so that they could drink it while admiring the view.
Carew, though silent as ever, was less rigid, and Meryl saw how
insistently his eyes strayed back to the blue vista of kopjes. She
wondered what he thought of all day long, in his continuous silences,
and behind the quiet, forceful eyes. It was noticeable that Diana
seemed to have outgrown both her awe and chagrin towards him; and
though at first he proved very unbending, she eventually won something
like a repartee out of him. Ailsa watched them quietly from the
background, and waited hopefully, but in vain, to see his eyes stray
to Meryl. Indeed, he seemed almost to shun her, and she noted it with
regret. Was it possible that already his preference was given to
Diana, with her light raillery and ready laugh? Diana so pretty, so
attractive, so original, and yet to Ailsa's thinking, so far less
reliable and restful than Meryl. In the end, by a clever little
manoeuvre, she brought Carew and Meryl together.
"You are almost outvied, Major Carew," she told him lightly. "Miss Pym
likes my view already, as much, if not more, than you. I told her you
loved to sit and look at it, and that is exactly what she likes to
do."
Meryl smiled, but made no comment. Mere admiration seemed superfluous,
and Carew was grateful that she spared him raptures. So they sat quite
still, and instead of any constraint between them because of the
silence, there was a vague sense of restfulness and understanding.
Meryl spoke first, and then she made no allusion to his love of the
spot.
"I think you were right," she said simply. "Mrs. Grenville must be one
of Rhodesia's heroines."
"How do you specially mean it?"
"I mean it, because one _knows_ there must be times when the isolation
is almost unendurable, and when she must long for many of the things
of her old life, however much she declares otherwise."
"Yes, I think there are. She evidently had many friends, and she has
almost lost them all. It is difficult to keep up friendships by post."
Then Ailsa herself joined them.
"Has Major Carew been with you into the temple, yet?" she asked Meryl.
"He is better than any guide-book for information."
Meryl coloured faintly, but looked a little amused. He had so
persistently withstood every friendly hint or invitation to accompany
them among the ruins.
"He has been very much occupied ever since we came," she said,
glancing towards him.
Carew looked quite unconcerned, and merely assented, which made Ailsa
rather want to shake him. "But it ought to be part of your business,"
she told him, "to interest visitors in our wonderful old ruin."
"I can hardly imagine anyone needing any incentive to that from me,"
he said.
Meryl glanced at him humorously. Some new phase she had detected in
him, since Diana persisted in what she called "baiting" him, made her
more ready to overlook his bearishness and less quick to feel
repulsed.
"Will you take me if I promise not to ask any silly questions?" she
asked, with a smile.
He looked up, and for a brief moment the past seemed to lie still as
one that is dead. His keen, direct eyes looked straight into hers, and
he said simply, "I should like to take you."
Meryl felt her cheeks glow a little with sudden, swift, indefinable
pleasure, and almost at the same moment Diana broke in upon them.
"Do you know, Major Carew, your singularly appropriate nickname has
been subjected to a little embroidery?... You are now called, after
the Coeur de Lion, 'The Bear with two faces.'" All in a moment he
stiffened and the shadow loomed; and while Meryl wondered Diana ran on
unheedingly, "If I say to you when we meet, 'Which face is it to-day?'
you will know that I mean, is it your day of lordly graciousness, or
is it the cast-iron, beware-of-the-bull frown day?"
"I think you are excessively rude, Diana," Meryl said, though she
smiled with the rest.
Carew smiled too, but he rose from his seat and moved away on some
small pretence.
And as he went, Meryl, watching with eyes that were daily gaining
clearer sight, saw that the shadow was as of some deep, unfathomable
pain.
She too got up and moved a little away from the rest, gazing with
grave, tender eyes across the kopjes, lying how bathed in a faint
ethereal flush of rose and gold.
"He had not always two faces," she said in her heart. "Something hurt
him badly once, and ever since he has taken refuge behind the iron
mask."
"Rhodesia," her heart whispered, almost without her consciousness,
"cannot you with your fairness reward him for his work by soothing
away the memory so that the refuge is no longer needed?..."
A little later, as they all prepared to ride home, she saw how
resolutely he took his place with the engineer, and hastened on ahead,
quenching even Diana by the stoniness of his mien.
XIII
A DECISION THAT FAILED
As Carew sat outside his hut that evening smoking a solitary pipe, two
thoughts seemed to fill his mind. The one that he had told Meryl he
would be pleased to visit the temple ruins with her; the other the
warning unconsciously conveyed in Diana's raillery, reminding him that
he was in danger of straying from the rigid pathway he had chosen of
unsociable aloofness, and therefore in a measure, perchance, inviting
trouble.
But of course he need not go. A polite message by Stanley, or a call
as he rode past perhaps, already starting on some convenient
engagement. Yet as he sat on he knew it was not entirely his wish to
resort to either subterfuge. Why, after all, should he not go with her
just once, and no doubt Diana also, and tell them a little about the
mysterious walls?
He pulled hard at his pipe, staring into the darkness. Why not go and
get it over, instead of troubling to send an excuse? Surely that were
the simpler plan? One moment he thought he would, and the next he
found himself shrinking unaccountably, warned again by Diana's chaff.
He knew quite well she was right. He was a man, or a bear if she
preferred it, with two faces; but the trouble was that she should so
thoroughly have grasped the fact. He had only intended to show one
face, the uninviting, frigid one; and yet unconsciously she had won
from him more than one glimpse of the other.
And if he unbent so far as to act as their escort to the ruins, he was
yielding still further to an atmosphere of friendliness he had
forsworn.
He turned in at last, still in indecision, but the next morning he
said he would not go.
So Meryl waited a little forlornly through the morning hours. It was
unusually cool for Zimbabwe, the hot sun being hidden by grey clouds,
and she knew no question of heat could possibly be detaining him. She
had hoped he would call for her about eleven and then come back to
lunch; but the morning wore on, and no tall figure in khaki strode out
from the clearing where the police camp stood.
Neither did the afternoon bring any word or sign, until Stanley
arrived for a cup of tea and to ask them to stroll up to the store
with him at the head of the valley. Diana agreed readily, having found
the hours somewhat tedious; but Meryl felt tired and headachy, and
chose to remain behind. Once, as casually as she could, she asked if
Carew had gone anywhere for the day.
"No, he's grinding away at his report for the Native Commission, and
as solemn as a judge. I don't think he has spoken two words all day."
"Is there some special haste then?"
"O no; it is just his mood. He gets a sort of black day sometimes,
when he barely answers if you speak to him, and looks like a bronze
figure. Then he grinds away at something or other as if his life
depended on it, and Moore and I have to just shut up."
When they had gone away up the valley Meryl sat on alone in the shade,
thinking deeply. Evidently he had some reason of his own for not
following up his promise, and she need not any longer expect him. He
did not want to take her, and probably was vexed that he had said that
he would. It did not seem very polite, but she hardly looked at it in
that way. Somehow, with this stern-featured soldier-policeman, the
ordinary amenities of conventional intercourse seemed to have little
weight. If he regretted his words and did not want to go, she liked
him better for calmly remaining away, than coming against his wish,
because he felt he ought. Another man would have done that, any man,
in fact; only Peter Carew, and a few like him, would calmly change his
mind and remain aloof without saying anything.
Yet how keenly she was disappointed. It was quite idle to pretend
otherwise to herself, and with a strength like his she calmly faced
the fact. When she went to bed the previous night she had lain awake
thinking of the morrow, hugging to her consciousness with shy
gladness that he was on the point of unbending at last and showing a
little friendliness. In a few days now they would be journeying on,
and she had begun to expect he would remain unbending to the last, and
let them go away, perhaps never to meet again, with nothing beyond the
official courtesy and the occasional sparring with Diana. And then had
come this sudden hope, and she had been strangely glad. One might live
a lifetime and not again meet a man quite like him. Even if their
intercourse were to be of the merest afterwards, still it was better
than nothing, better than a final end to all friendship when they
journeyed on again, leaving him and the ruins behind.
And now had come this swift disappointment. He must have regretted his
move instantly, and made up his mind to be more rigid than ever.
She hardly troubled to ask why. Doubtless he had his own reasons, and
whatever they were, they were nothing petty or small. Her eyes strayed
a little longingly to the police camp, and she watched the door of his
hut from her chair securely hidden behind some low bushes.
Was he still grinding at his report, she wondered, looking like a
bronze figure? The simile pleased her, and she smiled. Yes, bronze was
the right word to use, for his face and hands and arms were tanned
almost to the colour of his khaki with exposure, so that he sometimes
looked all of a piece, except for the close-clipped dark moustache and
keen, intense blue eyes.
Then as she looked she saw some movement in the camp. A boy appeared,
apparently in answer to a call, and stood a moment receiving
directions. Then the tall figure itself appeared, stood a moment to
give an order, and strode down towards the little gate. She sat up,
and her breath came a little unevenly. Was he really coming at last?
Had he, after all, been seriously delayed?
No; outside the gate, without one glance towards the tents on the
hill-side, he turned to the left and disappeared in the direction of
the Acropolis Hill.
So there was nothing further to hope for. He would never come now. It
was the end.
She got up, feeling suddenly a new tiredness, and wishing vaguely that
they were leaving on the morrow. Perhaps it would be possible to
persuade her father to do so without exciting much comment. Diana was
already a little bored with their camping-place and ready to be off,
and she ... without daring to probe too deeply, Meryl felt, for the
sake of her own peace of mind, it would be wiser to go quietly away
from a presence so likely to disturb her peace.
Yes, she would ask her father to plan a move as soon as he came in,
and in the meantime she must do something herself to pass the next
hour more helpfully than sitting alone in the shade.
The greyness had rolled away now, and the evening grown exceptionally
lovely, with clear skies overhead and great banks of pearly tinted
clouds on the horizons. Where should she go? Only two ways lay open.
Either she must follow Diana and Stanley up the valley, or she must
stroll down to the temple alone. The third route lay to the Acropolis
Hill, and that was formidably closed by the presence of the man who
should have been her companion. Finally she decided on the temple, and
tying on the large grey hat that blended so charmingly with her eyes
and the soft tints of her skin, she walked along the little footpath
skirting the police-camp vegetable-garden to the western entrance.