A REUNION
The gentle August night had cooled and soothed the dusty atmosphere. All
things looked fair, even in London. The placid Thames glided stealthily
down to the sea, as if wishing to speed on unseen, to cast at last his
reeking waters into the cool ocean. The bright brown sails, low hulls,
and gaily painted spars of the barges dropping down with the stream
added to the beauty of the scene.
Such was the morning that greeted Christian Vellacott, as he opened the
door of his little Chelsea home and stepped forth a free man. When once
he had made up his mind to go, every obstacle was thrown aside, and his
determination was now as great as had been his previous reluctance. He
had no presentiment that he was taking an important step in life--one of
those steps which we hardly notice at the time, but upon which we look
back in after years and note how clear and definite it was, losing
ourselves in vague conjecture as to what might have been had we held
back.
Christian being practical in all things, knew how to travel comfortably,
dispensing with rugs and bags and such small packages as are understood
to be dear to the elderly single female heart.
The smoky suburbs were soon left behind, and the smiling land gave forth
such gentle, pastoral odours as only long confinement in cities can
teach us to detect. Christian lowered the window, and the warm air
played round him as it had not done for two long years. The whizz of the
wind past his face brought back the memory of the long, idle, happy days
spent with his father in the Mediterranean, when they had been half
sailors and wholly Bohemians, gliding from port to port, village to
city, in their yacht, as free and careless as the wind. The warm breeze
almost seemed to be coming to him from some parched Italian plain
instead of pastoral Buckinghamshire.
Then his thoughts travelled still further back to his school-days in
Prague, when his father and Mr. Carew were colleagues in a brilliant but
unfortunate embassy. Five years had passed since then. The two fathers
were now dead, and the children had dropped apart as men and women do
when their own personal interests begin to engross them. Now again, in
this late summer time, they were to meet. All, that is, who were left.
The _débris_, as it were. Three voices there were whose tones would
never more be heard in the round of merry jest. Mr. Carew, Walter
Vellacott (Uncle Walter, the young ones called him), and little Charlie
Carew, the bright-eyed sailor of the family, had all three travelled on.
The two former, whose age and work achieved had softened their
departure, were often spoken of with gently lowered voice, but little
Charlie's name was never mentioned. It was a fatal mistake--this
silence--if you will; but it was one of those mistakes which are often
made in wisdom. In splendid, solitary grandeur he lay awaiting the end
of all things--the call of his Creator--in the grey ice-fields of the
North. The darling of his ship, he had died with a smile in his blue
eyes and a sad little jest upon his lips to cheer the rough fur-clad
giants kneeling at his side. Time, the merciful, had healed, as best he
could (which is by no means perfectly), the wound in the younger hearts.
It is only the old that are quite beyond his powers; he cannot touch
them. Mrs. Carew, a woman with a patient face and a ready smile, was the
only representative of the vanishing generation. Her daughters--ay! and
perhaps her sons as well (though boys are not credited with so much
tender divination)--knew the meaning of the little droop at the side of
their mother's smiling lips. They detected the insincerity of her kindly
laugh.
Shortly after leaving Exeter, Christian's station was reached. This was
an old-fashioned seaport town, whose good fortune it was to lie too far
west for a London watering-place, and too far east for Plymouth or
Bristol. Sidney Carew was on the platform--a sturdy, typical Englishman,
with a certain sure slowness of movement handed down to him by seafaring
ancestors. The two friends had not met for many years, but with men
absence has little effect upon affection. During the space of many years
they may never meet and seldom write, but at the end that gulf of time
is bridged over by a simple “Halloa, old fellow!” and a warm grip.
Slowly, piece by piece, the history of the past years comes out. Both
are probably changed in thought and nature, but the old individuality
remains, the old bond of friendship survives.
“Well, Sidney?”
“How are you?”
Simultaneously--and that was all. The changes were there in both, and
noted by both, but not commented upon.
“Molly is outside with the dog-cart,” said Sidney; “is your luggage
forward?”
“Yes, that is it being pitched out now.”
It was with womanly foresight that Miss Molly Carew had elected to wait
outside with the dog-cart while her brother met Christian on the
platform. She feared a little natural embarrassment at meeting the old
playfellow of the family, and concluded that the first moments would be
more easily tided over here than at the train. Her fears were, as it
turned out, unnecessary, but she did not know what Christian might be
like after the lapse of years. Of herself she was sure enough, being one
of those happy people who have no self-consciousness whatever.
On seeing her, Christian came forward at once, raising his hat and
shaking hands as if they had parted the day before.
She saw at once that it was all right. This was Christian Vellacott as
she had remembered him. She looked down at him as he stood with one hand
resting on the splashboard, and he, looking up to her, smiled in return.
“Christian,” she said, “do you know I should scarcely have recognised
you. You are so big, and--and you look positively ghastly!” She finished
her remark with a little laugh which took away from the spoken meaning
of it.
“Ghastly?” he replied. “Thanks: I do not feel like it--only hungry.
Hungry, and desperately glad to see a face that does not look
overworked.”
“Meaning me.”
“Meaning you.”
She gave a little sarcastic nod, and pursed up a pair of very red lips.
“Nevertheless I am the only person in the house who does any work at
all. Hilda, for instance--”
At this moment Sidney came up and interrupted them.
“Jump up in front, Chris,” he said; “Molly will drive, while I sit
behind. Your luggage will follow in the cart.”
The drive of six miles passed away very pleasantly. Molly's strong
little hands were quite accustomed to the reins, and the men were free
to talk, which, however, she found time to do as well. The two young
people on the front seat stole occasional sidelong glances at each
other. The clever, mischievous little girl of Christian's recollection
was transformed by the kindly hand of time into a fascinating and
capable young lady. The uncertain profile had grown clear and regular.
The truant hair was somewhat more under control, which, however, was all
that could be said upon that subject. Only her eyes were unchanged, the
laughing, fearless eyes of old. Fearless they had been in the times of
childish mischief and adventure; fearless they remained in the face of
life's graver mischances now.
Christian had been a shy and commonplace-enough boy as she recollected
him. Now she found a self-possessed man of the world. Tall and strong of
body she saw he was, and she felt that he possessed another strength--a
strength of mind and will which, reaching out, can grasp and hold
anything or everything.
With practised skill, Molly turned into the narrow gateway at a swinging
trot, and then only was the house visible--a low, rambling building of
brick and stone uncouthly mixed. Its chief outward characteristic was a
promise of inward comfort. The sturdy manner in which its windows faced
the scantily-wooded tableland that stretched away unbroken by wall or
hedgerow to the sea, implied a certain thickness of wall and woodwork.
The doorway which looked inland was singularly broad, and bore signs
about its stonework of having once been even broader. The house had
originally been a hollow square, with a roofless courtyard in the
centre, into which the sheep and cattle were in olden times driven for
safety at night against French marauders. This had later on been roofed
in, and transformed into a roomy and comfortable hall, such as might be
used as a sitting-room. All around the house, except, indeed, upon the
sea-ward side, stood gnarled and twisted trees; Scotch firs in
abundance, here and there a Weymouth pine, and occasionally a knotted
dwarf oak with a tendency to run inland. The garden was, however, rich
enough in shrubs and undergrowth, and to the landward side was a gleam
of still water, being all that remained of a broad, deep moat.
Mrs. Carew welcomed Christian at the open door. She said very little,
but her manner was sufficiently warm and friendly to dispense with
words.
“Where is Hilda?” asked Molly, as she leapt lightly to the ground.
“I do not know, dear. She is out, somewhere; in the garden, I expect.
You are before your time a little. The train must have been punctual,
for a wonder. Had Hilda known, she would have been here to welcome you,
I know, Christian.”
“I expect she is at the moat,” said Molly. “Come along, Christian; we
will go and look for her. This way.”
In the meantime Sidney had driven the dog-cart round to the stables,
kneeling awkwardly upon the back seat.
As Christian followed his fair guide down the little path leading to the
moat, he began to feel that it was not so difficult after all to throw
off the dull weight of anxiety that lay upon his mind. The thoughts
about the _Beacon_ were after all not so very absorbing. The
anxiety regarding the welfare of the two old ladies was already
alleviated by distance. The strong sea air, the change to pleasant and
kindly society, were already beginning their work.
Suddenly Molly stopped, and Christian saw that she was standing at the
edge of a long, still sheet of water bounded by solid stonework, which,
however, was crumbling away in parts, while everywhere the green moss
grew in velvety profusion.
“Oh, Christian,” said Molly lightly, “I suppose Sidney told you a little
of our news. Men's letters are not discursive as a rule I know, but no
doubt he told you--something.”
He was standing beside her at the edge of the moat, looking down into
the deep, clear water.
“Yes,” he replied slowly, “yes, Molly; he told me a little in a scrappy,
unsatisfactory way.”
A pained expression came into her eyes for a moment, and then she spoke,
rather more quickly than was habitual with her, but without raising her
voice.
“He told you--nothing about Hilda?” she said interrogatively.
He turned and looked down at her.
“No--nothing.”
Then he followed the direction of her eyes, and saw approaching them a
young man and a maiden whose footsteps had been inaudible upon the
moss-grown path. The man was of medium height, with an honest brown
face. He was dressed for riding, and walked with a slight swagger, which
arose less from conceit than from excessive riding on horseback. The
maiden was tall and stately, and in her walk there was an old-fashioned
grace of movement which harmonised perfectly with the old-world
surroundings. She was looking down, and Christian could not see her
face; but as she wore no hat, he saw and recognised her hair. This was
of gold--not red, not auburn, not flaxen, but pure and living gold. The
sun glinting through the trees shone upon it and gleamed, but in reality
the hair gleamed without the aid of sunlight.