sleep, courting slumber, which refused to come to her aid, physically
tired, yet not overtired, and mentally very clear and wide awake.
Outside her window the crickets were chirruping noisily, and in the warm
darkness, which pressed about her as she lay wide-eyed and very still in
her narrow white bed, the mosquitoes hummed annoyingly close to her
ears. The sounds of people moving in the rooms adjoining hers had
ceased long since; the night was quiet, with the listening hush which
settles upon a place when the activities of the day are ended and people
sleep. It seemed to Esme that she alone of all the household was awake.
She believed that it must be long past midnight. It had not as a matter
of fact struck twelve o'clock; and some one besides herself was awake,
had not yet gone to bed. She heard him go later; heard a stumbling step
going clumsily and heavily along the stoep. Through the thin walls the
noise of the footsteps was distinctly audible. She lay still on her
pillow and listened to them, her heart beating quickly and the pulses in
her temples throbbing like tiny hammers. A sick horror gripped her.
She knew, without seeing the man, who it was who thus disturbed the
silence, and, with the uncertain blundering step of a man under the
influence of drink, lurched heavily along the stoep to his room. He
made so much noise in getting there that she felt certain all the
occupants of the rooms he passed would wake and hear him.
Her cheeks burned with shame for him, and her heart was filled with a
great pity. What joy could he derive from this terrible misuse of life?
What a waste of his manhood and of his intellect!
With the cessation of the sounds a deeper hush than before seemed to
settle upon the night; even the crickets became less insistent: the
world slept; every one slept, save herself. She alone of all the
household kept wakeful vigil until the dawn broke, and brought with its
hopeful promise of a new day rest and forgetfulness to her weary brain.
Esme woke late, and had barely time to dress before the gong sounded for
breakfast. With a curious reluctance to meet again the man whose noisy
movements had disturbed her overnight, she went into the coffee-room and
seated herself at table. Hallam's seat was empty. It was still empty
when she rose at the finish of breakfast and went out on to the stoep
into the sunshine.
She was relieved that she had been spared the ordeal of meeting him, of
sitting beside him while the memory of last night was still so painfully
vivid in her thoughts. Her whole being shrank from witnessing his
degradation. He must feel, far more acutely than she felt for him, the
embarrassment of appearing in public, of meeting the criticism in
unsympathetic eyes.
She played tennis during the morning, and played badly; her heart was
not in the game, and the careless gaiety of her companions jarred on her
sober mood. They rallied her on her preoccupation, until she pleaded a
headache; when Sinclair, leaving the others to play singles, led her
away to a quiet corner in the garden where she could sit and rest.
He was glad to get her alone. He was leaving on the morrow, going back
to his job in a stuffy office in a dull little town.
"Uitenhage is about the sleepiest hole in South Africa," he grumbled.
"I think it is lovely," the girl returned. "I went there once when the
roses were in bloom."
"Oh! it's pretty enough. And it's handy to the Bay. I shall look you
up when you return--may I?"
"I shall be very pleased," she answered. "But you'll have to choose a
holiday. I am going back to my job too. I teach music."
"Oh, really! That's fairly strenuous, I should think. What a bore for
you."
She laughed.
"It's my bread and butter. There are less pleasant methods of making a
livelihood. But of course one gets tired."
He nodded sympathetically.
"I want you to rest this afternoon and get rid of the headache. I'd
like to take you for a walk after dinner if you care about going. It's
my last night. Until you came there was no one to walk with--except
Hallam. And he's such an unsociable beast. I wish you wouldn't talk to
him. He is not a suitable companion for you."
"Don't say those things," she interposed quickly. "It's ungenerous."
She felt angry with Sinclair, felt an inexplicable necessity to defend
the man he spoke of in such slighting terms. It was not merely because
he was absent and unable to defend himself; there was something more
than that to account for her indignation; she realised that much without
understanding its nature. Never in all her life had she met any one who
interested her so profoundly, who so deeply stirred her pity. She
wanted to help this man--with her friendship. There was no other
thought in her mind. And he would not let her. He demanded simply to
be left alone. A girl could not thrust her friendship on a man who did
not want it. But she could defend him in her thoughts and in her speech
without fear of his resentment.
"I think Mr Hallam is a very remarkable man," she said. "I should
hesitate to criticise him."
Sinclair looked at her in surprise.
"Do you know," he said, "that is the second time I have annoyed you in
reference to the same subject."
"Not annoyed," she corrected,--"disappointed me, rather. I hate to hear
a man speak disparagingly of another."
The young man was vexed, and showed it. Her ready championship of
Hallam displeased him. It was a sort of feminine instinct, he supposed,
to shed the light of a tender compassion on the derelict. Women were
absurdly sentimental.
"You do jump on a fellow," he said, aggrieved. "I had no idea you would
take my words amiss. Forget them, please."
"And you forget my irritable mood."
She smiled at him with kind brown eyes, eyes which expressed liking in
fuller measure than their displeasure of a moment before. She regretted
her outburst. What did it concern her what he thought, what any one
thought of a man who was almost a stranger to her, whom a few days ago
she did not know.
"I slept badly last night," she added, as if to account for her
ill-humour.
"How was that?" he asked, more with a view to turning the talk than from
curiosity.
His question recalled the ugly memories of the night very vividly to
her. She heard again in imagination the stumbling footsteps going along
the stoep. Her face clouded.
"What does keep one wakeful at times?" she inquired. "The mind works, I
suppose. I think perhaps I was tired."
"I took you too far," he said contritely. "It was inconsiderate of me.
But you seemed so interested."
"I was. I wouldn't have missed a bit of it. It was worth a sleepless
night."
"I doubt whether I should consider anything worth the sacrifice of a
night's sleep," he said, and laughed. "It would take a lot to spoil my
rest. The air here acts like a narcotic with me."
"That's odd," she said. "It makes me alert. There's something in the
atmosphere of this place--I don't know what it is--which influences me
strangely. I go about in a state of expectant curiosity. I'm looking
for things to happen. That's absurd, I know; but the feeling's there."
He scrutinised her intently. In this lonely spot what could happen out
of the ordinary run of events? Nothing surely in the nature of change--
unless the change were in one's self.
"The state of your mind is provocative," he said. "By invoking things
to happen you may precipitate a crisis. It is always a dangerous
practice to tempt the gods."
"I don't agree with that. I'm something of a fatalist," she said. "I
believe, not that our lives are prearranged, but that the event which
happens is inevitable, that we must accept things as they come to us.
The manner of our acceptance alone is left to our choice."
"I should hesitate to adopt that theory," he said. "I like to feel that
I have some say in the arrangement of my life. According to your idea a
man might hold himself immune for any evil he contrived. It relieves
the individual of all responsibility."
"No." She flushed slightly. "The qualities of good and evil are ours
to develop at will. The individual is always responsible for his own
nature."
"I don't like your theory any better as you enlarge it," he replied.
"It's rough on any one to have to keep good with all the odds against
him. And if he fail, what then?"
"I don't believe in complete human failure," she answered quietly. "Do
you?"
"I don't know."
He was thinking of Hallam, considering him a fair example of failure;
she also was thinking of Hallam, but with greater kindness. Derelict
though the man appeared, the belief held with her that one day he would
pull himself together and make good. She got up suddenly.
"We are growing too serious," she said; "and it's nearly lunch time.
What a blessed break in the day one's meals make."
Hallam was in his accustomed seat when she returned, but he did not look
up when she passed him on her way inside. He was reading a newspaper.
His hands, holding the printed sheet, shook more than usual, she
fancied; otherwise he looked much the same. She believed that he was
aware of her presence, though he made no sign that he saw her. She
passed him and entered the narrow passage and went direct to her room.
An unaccountable shyness had come over her. She shrank from going into
lunch, shrank from the thought of sitting beside him in the embarrassing
silence which his taciturnity imposed. The thing was getting on her
nerves. In the case of any other man, she believed that she would not
have minded this blunt ungraciousness; but this man had the power to
hurt her. The thing was incomprehensible and astonished her greatly.
Why should his behaviour wound her when in another man it would merely
have given offence?
The gong for luncheon sounded; but still she lingered in her room,
reluctant to leave this quiet haven for the dining-room and the
disquieting influence of her unresponsive neighbour. But the ordeal had
to be faced. It was ridiculous to allow her nervousness to get the
upper hand. With an action that was almost violent in the suddenness of
her resolve, she opened the door, and stepping into the passage went
swiftly along to the dining-room. At the door of the dining-room she
and Hallam met face to face. He was going in, but he drew back to allow
her to precede him. Thanking him briefly, she passed him and went on
and took her seat. He followed leisurely. When he was seated and
waiting to be served, he turned to her with unexpected suddenness and
observed:
"You missed a great deal this morning through oversleeping. I have
never seen a finer sunrise in my life than the one I witnessed on my
walk."
"You were up at sunrise?"
Her surprised tone, the almost incredulous look in her eyes, drew a
wondering glance from him. She saw it and felt furious with herself for
her stupidity. She had imagined him sleeping late that morning, had
supposed his non-appearance at breakfast was the result of his overnight
excess; and she had been tactless enough to betray surprise on learning
that he had been abroad so early. She flushed with confusion and
averted her eyes.
"I am always up before the sun," he said. "I do most of my walking
before breakfast. It's the best time of the day."
"Yes," she agreed; "I suppose it is. I slept late."
An inexplicable vindictiveness came over her. She turned to him again
and added almost brusquely:
"I was extraordinarily wakeful last night. I did not get to sleep
before the dawn broke."
"You should cultivate the habit of sleeping in a hurry," he advised. "I
get all the rest I need in a few hours."
He began to eat. She watched him for a moment in silence and with a
swift compunction for her recent ill-humour.
"I am sorry I missed the sunrise," she said, relenting, and wishful to
make amends. "Tell me about it."
He smiled faintly.
"Can any one describe a sunrise?" he asked. "Are there any words in our
language which will paint nature in her most wonderful aspects? If
there are I am ignorant of them. You must go out and see these things
for yourself."
This was not encouraging, but she persevered. A sort of inflexible
determination to abolish finally the frigid distances he insistently
maintained armed her with a temporary bravado which amazed herself. It
probably amazed him equally, but he made no sign if so.
"I do not like seeing things by myself. Won't you let me accompany you
some morning?"
"Most assuredly," he answered, after a barely perceptible hesitation.
"But quite possibly you will miss your breakfast. I tramp far."
"I shall not complain," she said. "If you are equal to fasting I have
no doubt I can stand it."
Hallam looked quietly amused. He surveyed her quite steadily for the
fraction of a second, and then very deliberately turned his attention
again to his plate.
"Do you really think," he asked presently, "that your endurance is equal
to mine? You don't look to me very strong."
She was thinking the same about him, but she did not voice her thought.
Possibly he read what she was thinking in her face when he glanced again
momentarily towards her; whether this were so or not, he added after a
pause:
"My constitution is made of cast iron. If it were not it would have
broken down long ago. Notwithstanding that my hand has difficulty in
raising this glass without spilling its contents, I could lift you with
it as easily as I could lift a feather."
She looked at the hand stretched out towards the glass of milk and soda
beside his plate, and noticed how it shook, and wondered that he should
draw her attention to it. He had done so intentionally, mastering his
usual self-consciousness in regard to this physical defect, for what
reason she failed to understand. Oddly, she felt no embarrassment while
she looked at his hand, and he betrayed none either. He lifted the
glass unsteadily and drank from it and set it down again on the cloth.
"I have travelled for a week on a pocketful of dried mealies, and been
none the worse for it," he said. "But I shouldn't recommend that diet
for you."
"I think," she said unexpectedly and without annoyance, "that you don't
wish to be bothered with my company."
"From the fear that I may have to carry you?" he suggested. "You are
mistaken. If you like to be energetic to-morrow I will show you where
best to view the sunrise. And I promise you that if we miss our
breakfast here I will take you to a house where I can obtain a meal at
any hour of the day."
"You breakfasted there this morning?" she said, turning a face flushed
with pleasure to his.
"I breakfasted there this morning. They are accustomed to my irregular
habits, and they don't mind."
"That will be nice," she said.
He laughed.
"I hope you won't be disappointed."
"Disappointed in what?--the sunrise, or the breakfast?"
"I pay you the compliment of supposing that such material pleasures as
food do not interest you," he returned; "nevertheless, you will find the
fare sufficient. The air in the early morning is chilly, so dress
warmly."
With which advice he closed the conversation as resolutely as a man who,
talking over a telephone, shuts off communication by replacing the
receiver. He bent over his plate and went on eating as though he had
forgotten entirely the girl's existence. He finished his breakfast
before she did and got up and went out by the window.
Book 1--CHAPTER SEVEN.
During the twenty-two unenlivening and, latterly, busy years of her life
Esme Lester had never been in love, had not known the excitement which
many girls of her age enjoy of possessing a lover. She was not a
sentimental young woman, and she had not had much time in which to
indulge in these distractions. The woman who earns her livelihood has
her mind occupied with graver matters generally. Love, if it succeed in
penetrating her preoccupation, takes her usually unaware and remains
sometimes unsuspected for quite an appreciable while.
It was possibly not love which in the early stages of their acquaintance
aroused her interest in Hallam. Mainly her feeling for him was a
mixture of womanly compassion and of repugnance so intense that at times
it shouldered pity into the background, and left her chilled with
disgust for his weakness and bitterly ashamed for him.
Her acquaintance with Hallam developed surprisingly. The occasion of
their walk to view the sunrise advanced it to a stage of easy intimacy.
The tentacles of friendship reached out and struck deep into the natures
of both. The man accepted rather than welcomed the change in their
relations. He deplored, despite its agreeableness, the growing intimacy
as something dangerous to his peace, something which might not be
pursued and developed beyond a certain point, which, because of its
limitation, was disturbing and undesirable. No man cares to set a
boundary line to his intercourse with a woman who attracts him;
immediately with the appearance of the barrier the desire to surmount it
is bred.
The state of Hallam's mind was that of paralysed initiative. He was
incapable of making any sustained effort. He drifted into this
friendship as he drifted into less desirable practices. Hereditary
tendencies and inclination both led him to follow his present mode of
life; nor had it seemed to him in any degree shameful until this girl
stepped suddenly across his path and altered his view of things. But
her influence was not yet sufficiently strong to cause him more than a
passing regret for the waste he was making of life. His life was his
own affair; it was no one's business how he elected to use it.
On the morning of their first walk together he came out on to the stoep,
stick in hand, ready to start, and found Esme waiting for him. He
returned her greeting unsmilingly, and scrutinised her attentively with
brows drawn together above the keen eyes.
"You had better fetch a coat," he said. "The morning air is chilly."
"It is fresh," she agreed; "but I thought perhaps walking--it may be
very hot before we return."
"It probably will be," he replied. "But I would prefer that you wore a
coat. When it gets hot I will carry it for you."
Smiling, she went inside to follow his instruction. When she came out
again she wore a woollen sport's coat over her thin dress.
"That's better," he said. "It is unpleasant to feel cold."
He walked down the little path beside her and out on to the open road.
A pale mist, like a thin white fog, shrouded the prospect and lent a
bracing coldness to the air, which felt fresh and clean with the crisp
purity of mountain air, washed by the overnight dews. The girl felt the
benefit of the extra warmth of the coat; it was fresher than she had
supposed out on the open road. A little wind that had more than a touch
of sharpness in its breath blew in their faces as they walked.
"I had no idea the mornings were so good," she said. "I've not been out
so early before."
"People miss more than they realise through lying between the sheets,"
he said. "In a country like this the bulk of the day's work should be
accomplished before breakfast."
"Is that the principle you act on?" she asked.
He looked grimly ahead of him and was slow in replying.
"That is the principle I should act upon if I did any work," he said at
length.
Esme lifted wondering eyes to his face.
"It must be a great responsibility to be independent of work," she said.
Hallam laughed suddenly.
"Do you really think so? Most people would reverse that opinion. The
weight of it does not press on me unduly."
He flicked at the dust of the road with his stick and at the grass which
grew beside the road, and was silent for a space. When he spoke again
it was on an entirely different subject.
They were swinging along down the road at a smart pace, and with every
yard of ground they covered the aspect of the land changed, became more
luxuriant in its growth, and altogether more rugged and assertive. The
sky was flushed with a soft pink like the flush on the face of a child
newly wakened from sleep. Before them as they walked the mist rolled
back, a gradually thinning vapour dispersing before the warmth of the
coming day, revealing with a startling unexpectedness in its reluctant
retreat the wonder of contrasting colour, the beauty of the curving road
with the shadows of the trees across it, and the great green silences
stretching above and below; the silence of the heights, and the more
secretive silence of the hidden places in the furtive darkness of the
gorge.
The rose pink in the sky deepened, spread itself warmly over the blue
expanse, reflected warmly upon the silent, neutral tinted world; changed
the face of the land as it changed the face of the sky; brightening and
intensifying the colour in the grass, in the leaves of the trees,
painting the flowers wonderfully; transforming everything with the glow
and warmth of life. The world threw off its lethargy of slumber and
lifted its face wakefully to the flood of sunlight which broke through
the rose and azure in a flash of gold.
Esme stood transfixed, with eyes turned to the sunrise. She felt the
warmth of the sun on her face, on her hands, on her body. It was like
being gripped in a warm embrace, startling and a little disconcerting by
its very suddenness. The gold of it poured over her like an amber
flame. The man, standing beside her, watched the sun-bathed, radiant
figure, and saw the wonder in her eyes, and remained silent, attentive,
marking nothing of the glory in the changing heavens, seeing only the
startled gladness in a girl's sweet face, and the glowing brightness of
her figure against the sunlit dust of the road.
While he stood observing her the thought took shape in his mind and
grew, as he watched her simple delight in what at another time would
have delighted him equally, but which now he scarcely heeded, that it
was an eternal shame he should of his own act, through his lack of
endeavour, reduce himself to a level which divided him from her, and
from women like her, as widely as the gorge was divided from the
heights. But a steep uphill road connected gorge and heights. He
looked down the road and up at the heights and frowned. Then
deliberately he turned his attention away from the girl and started idly
to trace patterns with his stick in the dust. She looked round at him
with happy eyes, in which surprise gathered as she noted his
preoccupation.
"But you are not watching the sunrise!" she exclaimed.
"It is disappointing," he replied. "Yesterday it was finer. It is one
of nature's exhaustless perplexities that she never reveals herself in
the same guise twice. Shall we go on?"
She started to walk again, a little chilled, she scarcely knew why, by
his manner. She decided that possibly he enjoyed best seeing these
things alone. Some people take their pleasures selfishly; he might be
one of these. To her the sunrise had been wonderful; and she longed to
express her admiration, to share it; but this grave and silent companion
made her silent also. She felt disappointed. He stole a glance at her
serious face, and his features relaxed; a smile played about the corners
of his mouth.
"You had better take off your coat," he said. "The sun soon makes his
power felt."
He helped her to remove the coat, and threw it over his shoulder and
walked on, holding it with his disengaged hand.
"If the people at the hotel could see us they would be amazed," he said.
"Why?" she asked, a fine colour coming into her cheeks, which deepened
as she met his eyes.
"Because no one there has ever seen me do a service for any one," he
replied.
"Perhaps no one has demanded service of you," she said quietly.
"No one has," he answered, with a certain grimness that suggested such a
demand might have met with small response. "In this instance I believe
the idea originated with me."
She laughed brightly.
"You made me bring the coat," she said. "It is only fair you should
carry it."
"I am not complaining. When you are tired, say so, and we will rest by
the wayside. We have a long way to go yet; and I do not wish to carry
you as well as your coat."
Again she laughed brightly and looked up into his face with merry eyes.
"You boasted that you could do that as easily as you could lift a
feather. I should not mind carrying a feather," she said.
He looked down at her, quietly amused.
"Think of the amazement at the hotel if I were seen carrying you back!"
he said, and smiled at the quick flush which overspread her face.
"I do not concern myself about the opinion of other people, as you
appear to do," she retorted.