A WISE MAN IN THE EAST.
Day succeeded day, and Alan Wyverne still lingered at Dacre Castle. He
could hardly have told you what kept him there. The shooting certainly
was a great attraction, for, though the season closed in the first week
of his stay, there were snipe and wild-fowl enough to have found work
for half a dozen guns; but it was not the only one. The truth was, that
a sort of liking had sprung up between the cynical host and his quiet
guest. No amount of deep drinking could warm Bernard Haldane into an
approach to conviviality; but his morose, moody temper decidedly
softened during the few hours that he spent each evening in Alan's
society. There was no sympathy perhaps, strictly speaking, between these
two, but there was a certain affinity of suffering. The same soft white
hand had stricken them both sorely, though one wound was yet green, and
the other had been rankling more than a score of years. After that first
night, neither made the faintest allusion to the subject; but ever and
anon, when they were talking about pictures or other things in which
both took an interest, the conversation would drop suddenly, and a
silence would ensue as if by mutual consent; then, each felt conscious
that his companion's thoughts were wandering in the same direction as
his own, and with equal bitterness. After a few minutes you might have
seen each break from his reverie, with the same half angry impatience,
as if despising himself for the weakness of such idle musing, knowing
all the while that the return of the dreaming-fit was as much a
certainty and a question of hours as the rising of the morrow's sun.
Wyverne's visit would probably have been still further prolonged, if an
invitation had not come one morning, suiting his present humour so
exactly, that he accepted it without a moment's hesitation. An old
comrade of Alan's was on the point of starting in his yacht for a roving
cruise round the shores of Greece and Syria, with an intention of
penetrating as far as the hunting-grounds that lie westward of the lower
spurs of the Caucasus: indeed, there was a charming indefiniteness about
the whole thing; the limits of their wanderings and the time of their
return were to depend entirely on circumstances and the fancy of the
travellers. Raymond Graham had heard of his friend's late
disappointment, though he made no allusion to it in his letter, only
enlarging on the sporting prospects of the expedition and the
attractions of a very pleasant party. He thought it would be just the
proposal to tempt Wyverne, and he guessed right.
None of the new-fashioned remedies beat some of the old ones, after all.
Change of climate and change of scene enable the sufferer to make a
stand against sickness of body or mind just as effectually as they did
four thousand years ago.
Hot blinding tears stream down Dido's stricken face as she steals on
board her galley in the harbour of Tyre; for nights she will not close
her heavy eyes, lest a dead man should stand by her couch pointing to
the gash of Pygmalion's dagger; the boldest of her true friends and leal
vassals dares not trouble with a word of comfort that great hopeless
sorrow. But see--the headlands of Cyprus are yet blue in the leeward
distance, and the rich blood has begun to colour the pale cheek again;
when the dark lashes lift, men see that the divine light is not quenched
in the glorious eyes; nay, the sweet lips do not dissemble a faint, sad
smile as she hears Bitias boasting loud of the bride he will win before
sundown. Of a truth, I think the fair Queen's dreams will cease to be
spectre-haunted, before her prow touches ground in the sands of
Bagradas.
They are more definite now as to the seasons of donning and doffing
their weeds, and will not set their tresses free a day too soon; but, O
Benedict, my friend, are you sanguine enough to believe that so long a
voyage would be needed, to replace despairing grief by decorous woe, in
the desolate bosom of your widow, or mine?
Remember, we have been speaking of creatures, many of whom must find a
certain pleasure in a mild languid melancholy. "They would not, if they
could, be gay." Wyverne's temperament, though it contained womanlike
elements of gentleness and tenderness, was essentially masculine. He
was, indeed, stouter of heart and stronger in will than most of the
rough-and-ready Stryver sort, who cannot argue without blustering or
advise without bullying; who, neither in love nor war, ever lay aside
the speaking-trumpet. The battle of life had gone hard against him of
late; but he did not therefore conclude that there was nothing left
worth living for. The example just then before his eyes was not without
a significant warning. Alan felt that absence from England would suit
him best for awhile; but he had no idea of banishing himself
indefinitely. The proposed expedition would have tempted him at any
period of his life, and he looked forward to it now with a real interest
and an honest determination to make the best of everything.
Bernard Haldane did not attempt to alter his nephew's purpose; indeed,
he approved of it thoroughly; but he sat much later than usual on the
last evening, and seemed loth to say good-bye.
"If I am alive when you return, you will come here, I hope," he said at
last. "If I am gone, I am sure you will, for good reasons. Your
programme promises well--so well that it would be a pity not to carry it
out thoroughly. Don't let money stop you. Where you have to deal with
semi-barbarians, it's often a mere question between silver and steel;
the first saves an infinity of trouble, and, I think, it's the most
moral argument of the two. So take my advice, and bribe Sheikhs and
chiefs to any extent. I have written to-day to my bankers, to give you
unlimited credit there. Now, don't annoy me by making objections. You
know perfectly well that _I_ sacrifice nothing. If I did, my generosity
would still begin very late--too late, I fear. It would be the falsest
delicacy if you were to refuse; for, though we have been almost
strangers hitherto, through my fault, Alan--you _are_ my nephew, after
all."
He laid his hand gently, almost timidly, on Wyverne's as he finished
speaking, and the thin white fingers quivered with his nervous
eagerness, though they remained always deadly cold.
It must be a very mortifying and humiliating time when an old man, who
has started in life with exceptional advantages of intellect and
fortune, is compelled to admit the probability of the whole thing having
been a mistake from first to last; unless there is some grievous sin to
be acknowledged and repented of, I think it would be more satisfactory
to go blundering on unconsciously to the end. To such a frame of mind
Mr. Haldane had been coming gradually for days past. He quite realized
the fact that, in default of a son, he would have chosen Wyverne out of
all England as the heir to his broad lands and great possessions. He
knew enough of Alan's character to feel sure that no more than common
kindness in earlier days would have been needed to win his affection and
keep it; but he had held him at arm's length with the rest till it was
too late to do anything better than change dislike into indifference.
For thirty years he had sat alone, "nursing his wrath to keep it warm,"
fancying that he could make the many suffer for the crime of one. He had
succeeded perhaps in discomfitting a few miserable dependents, and in
disappointing or disgusting a few relatives and friends; but he had
never ruffled a rose-leaf in the couch of the fair "enemy who did him
that dishonour." Who had been the real sufferer, after all? The unhappy
misanthrope almost gnashed his teeth as he answered the question, and
acknowledged the childish impotence of his rancour. If he had only had
the courage at first, to look his wrongs and griefs fairly in the face,
they might have been easily kept at bay; it was too late to strive for
the mastery when they had become a part of his morbid being. He saw all
this clearly enough now. The old, old story--theory perfected, when to
work it out is physically impossible--the alchemist just grasping the
Great Arcanum, without a stiver left to buy powder for the crucible or
coal for the furnace.
Nevertheless, that inveterate habit of looking at things _au noir_
rather misled Bernard Haldane as to the state of Wyverne's feelings. It
would be too much to say that he had begun to conceive a real affection
for his uncle; but he was not insensible to the change in the latter's
demeanour. He felt that the old man was trying, after his fashion, to
make some amends for the past, and rather reproached himself for not
having met such advances more cordially. Day by day the wall built up
between them had been crumbling, and this last act of generosity made
the breach quite practicable. An orthodox hero would, of course, have
taken the "pale and haughty" line, and have rejected the golden
olive-branch, preferring sublime independence to late obligation. Alan
was much more practical and prosaic in his ideas; he accepted without
hesitation, and did not scruple to express his gratitude warmly, though
not demonstratively. It is needless to say that he did not intend to
work the _carte blanche_ unreasonably hard. So those two parted, in all
amity. Bernard Haldane knew that he would be alone again on the morrow,
and that in all probability he saw his nephew's face for the last time;
but he drank less and slept better, that night, than he had done for
years.
Wyverne wrote to tell Hubert Vavasour of his plans as soon as they were
fixed. He got a very characteristic answer, full of kind wishes and
prophecies of great success to the expedition. In truth the Squire
rather envied any one who at that juncture could get well clear of
England, home, and beauty. He spoke cheerfully about Helen, but his
hopes for her seemed about the brightest of his domestic prospects.
Evidently he thought that the crash could not be much longer averted,
and that the close of the current year would find wrack and ruin at
Dene. None the less, from the bottom of his honest heart, he wished his
nephew good-speed.
A fortnight later, strong, healthy excitement tingled in Alan's veins,
as he stood on a wet sloping deck, his arm coiled through the
weather-rigging, and looked ahead, through spray driving thick and
blindly, over a turmoil of black foam-flecked water, betting with
himself as to when the next sea would come tumbling in-board. The
_Goshawk_ was a stout schooner, measuring two hundred liberal tons;
there was no handier or honester craft in all the Royal squadron; but
she had to do all she knew that afternoon, fighting her way foot by foot
and tack by tack against a boisterous south-wester, with Cape Finisterre
frowning on her lee. We have not to follow in the track of the
outward-bound; our business is, now, with the girls they left behind
them.