Desire was waking. She had slept without a dream and woke wonderingly
to the shadows of dancing leaves upon the white canvas above her. It
was a long time since she had slept in a tent--a lifetime. She felt
very drowsy and stupid. The brooding sense of fatality which had made
her return so dreamlike still numbed her senses. She had come back to
the mountain, as she had known she must come. And, curiously enough, in
returning she had freed herself. In coming back to what she had hated
and feared she had faced a bogie. It would trouble her no more. For all
that she had lost she had gained one thing, Freedom. But even freedom
did not thrill her. She was too horribly tired.
Idly she let her thought drift over the details of her home-coming. Li
Ho had been so surprised. His consternation at seeing her had been
comic. But he had asked no questions, and had given her breakfast in
hospitable haste. In the cottage nothing was altered. It was as if she
had been away overnight. And against this changelessness she knew
herself changed. She was outside of it now. It could never prison her
again.
While she drank Li Ho's coffee, Dr. Farr had come in. He had been told,
she supposed, of her return, for he showed no surprise at seeing
her--had greeted her absently--and sat for a time without speaking, his
long hands folded about the green umbrella. This, too, was familiar and
added to the "yesterday" feeling. He had not changed. It was her
attitude toward him which was different. The curious fear of him, which
she had hidden under a mask of indifference, was no longer there to
hide. Even the fact of his relationship had lost its sharp
significance. She was done with the thing which had made it poignant.
Parentage no longer mattered. So little mattered now.
She had spoken to him cheerfully, ignoring his mood, and he had replied
irritably, like a bad-tempered child who resents some unnecessary claim
upon its attention. But she did not observe him closely. Had she done
so, she might have noticed a curious glazing of the eyes as they lifted
to follow her--shining and depthless like blue steel.
"I do not expect to stay long, father," she told him. "Only until I
find something to do. I am a woman now, you know, and must support
myself."
She spoke as one might speak to a child, and he had nodded and mumbled:
"Yes, yes ... a woman now ... certainly." Then he had begun to
laugh. She had always hated this silent, shaking laugh of his. Even now
it stirred something in her, something urgent and afraid. But she was
too tired to be urged or frightened. She refused to listen.
In the afternoon she had sat out in the sun, not thinking, willing to
be rested by the quiet and drugged by the scent of pine and sea. To her
had come Sami, appearing out of nothing as by magic, his butter-colored
face aglow with joy. Sami had almost broken up her weary calm. He was
so glad, so warm, so alive, so little! But even while he snuggled
against her side, her Self had drifted away. It would not feel or know.
It was not ready yet for anything save rest.
Li Ho had made luncheon, Li Ho had brought tea. Otherwise Li Ho had
left her alone. About one thing only had he been fussy. She must not
sleep in her old room. It was not aired. It needed "heap scrub." He had
arranged, he said, a little tent "all velly fine." Desire was passive.
She did not care where she slept.
When bedtime had come, Li Ho had taken her to the tent. It was cozily
hidden in the bush and, as he had promised, quite comfortable. But she
thought his manner odd. "Are you nervous, Li Ho?" she asked with a
smile.
The Chinaman blinked rapidly, disdaining reply. But in his turn asked a
question--his first since her arrival. Had the honorable Professor
Spence received an insignificant parcel? Desire replied vaguely that
she did not know. What was in the parcel?
"Velly implotant plasel," said Li Ho gravely. "Honorable husband arrive
plenty click when read um insides."
There had seemed no sense to this. But Desire did not argue. She did
not even attend very carefully when Li Ho added certain explanations.
He had found, it appeared, some papers which had belonged to her mother
and had felt it his duty to send them on.
"Where did you find them, Li Ho?"
Instead of answering this, Li Ho, after a moment's hesitation, had
produced from some recess of his old blue coat an envelope which he
handled with an air of awed respect.
"Li Ho find more plasel too. Pletty soon put um back. Honorable Boss
indulge in fit if missing."
"Which means that it belongs to father and that you have--borrowed it?"
suggested she, delicately.
"No b'long him. B'long you," said Li Ho, thrusting the packet into her
hand. And, as if fearful of being questioned further, he had taken the
candle and departed.
"Leave me the candle, Li Ho," she had called to him. But he had not
returned. And a candle is a small matter. She was used to undressing in
the dusk. Almost at once she had fallen asleep.
Now in the morning, as she lay and watched the shadows of the leaves,
she remembered that, though he had taken the candle, he had left the
letter. It lay there on the strip of old carpet beside her cot. Desire
withdrew her attention from the leaves and picked it up. With a little
thrill she saw that Li Ho had been right. It was her own name which was
written across the envelope ...
Her own name, faded yet clear on a wrinkled envelope yellowed at the
edges. The seal of the envelope had been broken....
Sometime in her childhood Desire must have seen her mother's writing.
Conscious memory of it was gone, but in the deeper recesses of her mind
there must have lingered some recognition which quickened her heart at
sight of it.
A letter from the dead? No wonder Li Ho had handled it with reverence.
With trembling fingers the girl drew it from its violated covering.
"Little Desire"--the name lay like a caress--"if you read this it will
be because I am not here to tell you. And, there is no one else. My
great dread is the dread of leaving you. If I could only look into the
future for one moment, and see you in it, safe and happy, nothing else
would matter. But I am afraid. I have always been too much afraid. You
are not like me. I try to remember that. You are like your grandfather.
He was a brave man. His eyes were grey like yours. He died before you
were born and he never knew that Harry was not really my husband. I did
not know it either, then. You see, he had a wife in England. I suppose
he thought it did not matter. But when he died, it did matter. There
was no one then on whom either you or I had any claim. I should have
been brave enough to go on by myself. But I was never brave.
"It was then that Dr. Farr, who had been kind through Harry's illness,
asked me to marry him. He was a middle-aged man. He said he would take
care of w both. You were just three months old.
"I know now that I made a terrible mistake. He is not kind. He is not
good. I am terrified of him. But the fear which makes me brave against
other fears is the thought of leaving you. I try to remember my father.
If I had been like him I could have worked for you and we might have
been happy. Perhaps my mother was timid. I don't remember her.
"I don't know what to put in this letter, or how to make you
understand. I loved your father. He was not a bad man. I am sure he
never harmed anyone. He would have taken care of me all his life. But
he didn't live. It was Dr. Farr who found out about the English wife.
He pointed out that you would have no name and offered to give you his.
"I did you a great wrong. His name--better far to have no name than
his! I am sure it is a wicked name. So I want you to know that it is
not yours. You have no name by law, but I think, now, that there are
worse things. Your father's name was Harry Strangeways. His people are
English, a good family but very strict. I could not let them know about
us. They would never have forgiven Harry. It would have been like
slandering the dead. Do not blame him, little Desire, for I am sure he
meant to do right. He was always light-hearted. And kind--always kind.
Your laugh is just like his. Think of us both, if you can, with
kindness--your unhappy Mother."
Long before Desire came to the end of the crumpled sheets her tears
were falling hot and thick upon them. Tears which she had not been able
to shed for her own broken hope came easily now for this long vanished
sorrow. Her mother! How pitifully bare lay the shortened story of that
smothered life. Desire's heart, so much stronger than the heart of her
who gave it birth, filled with a great tenderness. She saw herself once
more a little frightened child. She felt again that sense of Presence
in the room. And knew that, for a child's sake, a gentle soul had not
made haste to happiness.
For that gay scamp, her father, Desire had no tear. And no
condemnation. Her mother had loved him. Her gentleness had seen no
flaw. Lightly he had taken a woman to protect through life--to neglect,
as lightly, the little matter of living. Desire let his picture slip
unhindered from her mind.
There was relief, though, in the knowledge that she owed no duty
there--or here. The instinct which had always balked at kinship with
the strange old man who had held her youth in bondage had not been the
abnormal thing she once had feared it was. She had fought through--but
it was good to know that she had fought with Nature, not against her.
At least she could start upon her new life clean and free....
A pity, though, that life should lie like ashes on her lips!