THE RETURN OF RUPERT
On one very dreary day in late September, Rupert, after an absence of
nearly twelve years, again set foot on English soil. His ship was due at
Plymouth early in the morning, and, as at about ten o’clock on the
previous night he had been engaged in watching the Ushant light blinking
fiercely upon the horizon until at last it went out like a dying lamp,
he expected to land there by nine o’clock at the latest. But although
the night seemed clear enough as he smoked his pipe before turning in
and counted the lamps, green and red, of the many vessels bearing down
this ocean highway to make Ushant, and passing some of them, within a
few hundred yards of the liner; afterwards in the mouth of the Channel
the fog came down.
Like most old travellers on the sea, at the change of speed of the
engines he awoke instantly. Then the syren began its melancholy hooting,
repeated at intervals of two minutes. Rising, Rupert looked through his
open porthole to find that they had run into a bank of dense fog through
which they must pass dead-slow for hours, screaming their apprehensions
into the white and woolly gloom, whence from time to time they were
answered by other vessels as frightened as themselves.
Although the sun showed through it like a yellow Chinese lantern, not
till ten o’clock in the morning did that mist lift, with the result that
it was four in the afternoon when they dropped anchor in Plymouth
harbour.
Two and a half more hours were taken up in transhipping baggage, silver
bullion, and passengers to the tug, and in passing the Customs, so that
the special train did not steam out of Plymouth Station until after
sunset. Rupert, a person quite regardless of appearances, and one to
whom money was valuable, took a second-class ticket, and, as a result,
found that he had a carriage to himself. Here, in the south of England,
the evening was mild, and letting down the window he looked out. A soft,
fast-falling rain gave to the autumn ruin of the landscape a stamp of
peculiar sadness. Melancholy cattle stood at the gates of sodden fields,
leaves fell from the trees beneath puffs of wind, women under umbrellas
hurried to their cottage homes, and, unlighted as yet by lamps, unwarmed
by the glow of fires, the grey stone farmsteads appeared deserted. To
one accustomed for years to the sun of the East, and to its solemn,
starry nights, the scene seemed desolate indeed, and its gloom sank deep
into Rupert’s heart.
He wished that he had not come to England. He wondered what awaited him
there, and whether his mother were alive or dead. It might well chance
that the latter was the case, for since the letter which he received at
Abu-Simbel, he had no tidings of her, and although he had telegraphed
his arrival from the steamer, of course there was no time for him to
receive an answer. He had hoped, indeed, for news at Plymouth, and had
stood twenty minutes waiting his turn at the purser’s window, only to be
told that there were no letters or telegrams for him.
At first Rupert was alarmed, then remembered that as he had neglected to
wire the name of his ship from Port Said, he could scarcely expect to
hear from his mother on board of her. Therefore, the absence of them
meant nothing. And yet he was frightened, he knew not of what, much more
frightened than ever he had been at the beginning of a battle, or when
entering on any other risky enterprise. Danger, real danger, seemed to
be nearer to him.
At Exeter Rupert bought some evening papers, the first he had seen for
years, and in reading them forgot his indefinite anxieties. So the time
went by somehow till at length, stretched out endlessly around him, he
saw the lights of the squalid suburbs of London whereof they do but seem
to accentuate the dreary sameness; a whole firmament of fallen stars
relieved here and there by the tawdry constellation of a gin-house.
Paddington at last! Into the great, empty station runs the
double-engined train. Still although it is half-past eleven at night a
number of people are standing upon one of the platforms, that at which
it halts. These are friends and relations who have come to greet sundry
of the passengers on their return to England. There, for instance, is a
young wife, who, catching sight of her husband’s face, runs along by the
carriage door heedless of the remonstrances of the porters with whom she
collides violently, until it comes to a standstill. Then in an instant
that long-divided pair are in each other’s arms again, and Rupert turns
his head away so as not to spy upon their happiness, muttering to
himself: “Lucky fellow, who has someone to care for him,” and descends
on to the platform, looking for a porter to help him with his hand
baggage. As it chances he has to wait a while, since all the men
available have gone to the aid of the first-class passengers, leaving
the few “seconds” to look after themselves.
While Rupert stood thus patiently he became aware of a tall lady wearing
a long cloak who was searching the faces of the crowd. Disappointed she
began to walk past him towards another group by a saloon carriage
further down the train, and their eyes met.
“Surely,” he said, starting and lifting his hat, “you must be my cousin
Edith grown up.”
“Oh, Rupert, there you are!” she exclaimed, in a low, pleasant voice and
holding out her slender hand. “Yes, of course it is I, grown up, and old
too.”
“One moment,” he interrupted, for her dark cloak and hat suggested to
him that she might have come to break bad tidings. “Tell me how—what is
the news of my mother?”
“She is much better and sends her love, but of course could not come to
meet you.”
The anxiety left Rupert’s face.
“Thank God!” he said, with a sigh of relief. “Ah! here’s a porter, now
let us see about the luggage.”
“I could not find you anywhere, although you are so big,” said Edith, as
having secured a four-wheeled cab they followed the man to one of the
vans. “Where did you hide yourself, Rupert? I thought that you were not
in the train at all.”
“Nowhere. I stood for nearly five minutes by those second-class
carriages.”
“Oh! I never looked there; I did not think—” and she checked herself.
“Hi! that’s one of mine,” exclaimed Rupert, pointing to a battered tin
case with Lieutenant R. Ullershaw, R.A., painted on it.
“I remember that box,” said Edith. “I can see it now standing in the
hall of your house with the name in beautiful, fresh, white letters. I
came to say good-bye to you, but you were out.”
“You are very observant!” he said, looking at her with curiosity. “Well,
it has seen some wear since then—like its owner.”
“Yes,” she said demurely; “only the difference is that the wear has much
improved _you_,” and she glanced at the tall, soldier-like form before
her with admiration in her eyes.
“Don’t pay me compliments,” Rupert replied, colouring. “I am not
accustomed to them; and if you do, I shall be obliged to return them
with interest.”
“You can’t,” Edith answered merrily. “There is nothing of me to be seen
in this cloak.”
“Except your face, which is beautiful enough,” he blurted out, whereat
it was her turn to colour.
“There,” he went on awkwardly, as at length the cab started, piled up
with luggage. “It was awfully kind of you to come to meet me, all alone
too, and so late. I never expected it, and I am most grateful.”
“Why, Rupert, how can you suppose that I should do anything else? Unless
I had broken my leg or something, I should have been there if it had
been three in the morning. It’s the greatest pleasure I have had for a
long while, and, Rupert, I—I mean we—are all _so_ proud of you.”
“Oh, please don’t, Edith,” he broke in. “I have done nothing more than
my duty, not very well always, and have been rewarded much above my
merits, while many better men were overlooked—perhaps because I am
supposed to have prospects. Say no more about it or we shall quarrel.”
“Then I won’t. I don’t want to quarrel, I want to be friends with you,
for I haven’t many. But you mustn’t be angry if I can’t help feeling
proud all the same that one among the lot of us has at last done
something worth the doing, instead of wasting his time and strength and
money in every sort of horrid dissipation, like horse-racing and
gambling.”
Rupert muttered something about such occupations always leading to
trouble.
“Yes, indeed,” she answered, “and you mustn’t think me a prig for
speaking like that, for I am not good myself a bit. I wish I were. But
we had such a lesson lately, with that wretched Dick with whom I was
brought up like a sister, you know, and scandals in the paper, and all
that sort of thing, that I can’t help feeling rather bitter, and glad
that there is one of us whose name appears in the papers in another
way.”
As she spoke the light of a passing carriage-lamp fell full upon her
earnest face and wide blue eyes, and Rupert understood how pure and
beautiful they were.
Certainly had she so designed it, Edith could have found no better way
and opportunity of making an excellent first impression upon the
somewhat simple mind of her cousin Rupert.
At length the growler lumbered up to the well-remembered door of the
little house in Regent’s Park that he had left so many years ago.
“Go in, Rupert, go at once,” said Edith. “Your dear mother is wild to
see you. I’ll pay the cab.”
He hesitated a little, then muttering that it was very good of her, gave
way, and ran rather than walked up the steps and through the door which
the servant had opened at the sound of wheels, up the stairs also, to
the drawing-room on the first floor. And here at last, seated in an
invalid-chair, her stiff arms outstretched to clasp him, and words of
joy and blessing upon her pale lips, he found the beloved mother whom he
had not seen for so many years.
“Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen—”
she murmured presently, and broke off, for her tears choked her.
Rupert rose from his knees by her side, and turning his head away, said
in a gruff voice that he must go to see about the luggage. So down he
went to find Edith and the two servants struggling madly with his things
which the grumpy cabman had refused to bring in.
“Leave go, Edith,” he said angrily. “How can you? Why did you not call
me?”
“Because I wouldn’t interrupt you,” she gasped, “but oh, Rupert, do you
pack your boxes full of lead, or are all your savings in them?”
“No,” he answered, “only a couple of stone steles and a large bronze
Osiris—an Egyptian god, I mean. Go away, you girls, I will see about
them to-morrow; my night things are in the bag.”
They went readily enough, who desired no further acquaintance with the
Colonel’s boxes, one down to the kitchen, the other upstairs with the
bag, leaving Rupert and Edith alone.
“Imagine,” she said—“imagine a man who travels about with Egyptian gods
in his portmanteau instead of clothes! Well, Rupert, I have sacrificed
my best gloves on the altar of your gods,” and she held up her hand and
showed the kid split right across.
“I’ll give you another pair,” he ejaculated, still covered with
confusion, as they passed together into the dining-room where his supper
was waiting.
“Dear me,” said Edith, “this unwonted exercise has made me very hot,”
and she threw off first her long cloak, and then her hat, and stood
before him in the lamplight.
Oh, she was beautiful, beautiful! or so thought this dweller in deserts,
whose heart and mind were soft as wax with joy and thankfulness, and who
for years had scarcely spoken to English ladies.
Certainly the promise of Edith’s youth had been fulfilled. The perfect
shape, so light and graceful, and yet so tall, the waving hair of rich
gold that gleamed like a crown upon her white brow, the large, deep blue
eyes, the fine-cut features, redeemed from pride by the rounded cheeks
and chin; the gliding, measured movements; all these graces remarkable
enough separately, when considered as a whole, made of Edith a most
attractive and gracious, if not an absolutely lovely woman. Then and
there her charm went home to him; although as yet he did not know it,
then and there Rupert fell in love with her, he who had never thought of
any woman in such a sense since boyhood, and what is more, his
transparent eyes told her the story.
For a few seconds they stood looking at each other; then she said:
“Would you like to speak to your mother for a few minutes while the cook
sends up the soup? Oh, you must eat it, or she will be so disappointed,
and so shall I, for we have been making it all the afternoon.”
So he went. As the door closed behind him Edith sank into a chair like a
person who is suddenly relieved from some mental strain, and her face
became very thoughtful.
“That is over,” she said to herself, “and far better than I expected. He
does not care for anybody, I am sure, and—the question is—do I like him?
I don’t think so, although he is handsome in his way, and a man. There
is still a wall between us as in childhood—we are different. No, I don’t
think that I care for him,” and she shivered a little. “Also there is
that wretched Dick to be considered now as always. Oh; Dick, Dick! if I
don’t take this chance it is the third I shall have thrown away for you.
You worthless Dick, who are yet the only man who does not make me
shiver. But I am not sure. He is good; he is distinguished; he will
almost certainly be Lord Devene, and beggars can’t be choosers. Well,
there is plenty of time to think, and meanwhile I will try to make him
thoroughly in love with me before he meets other women.”
Then the door opened, and the maid came in with the soup.
Such was the home-coming of Rupert Ullershaw.