were there. I don't understand that affair, Esme. I don't trust the
man. My dear, I don't trust him. And you are wearing yourself out,
thinking of him. You are losing your vitality. You aren't as pretty as
you were. No." She surveyed the girl fixedly with adversely
criticising eyes. "You are _not_ so pretty."
This came as a shock to Esme. She wanted to look in the glass over the
mantelpiece; but her sense of dignity and the fitness of things kept her
glued to her seat. What, after all, did it matter if her looks
departed? There was no one to note these things nor feel distressed on
their account.
"Why does he continue to write to you, and never come to see you?" Rose
asked. "It's not fair to you. And there's George... If it wasn't for
Paul Hallam you would marry George. He is a good fellow, and he's
getting on. It would be a most suitable arrangement. You don't want to
teach all your life. You want a home. Every woman does. Instead you
fill your head with romantic nonsense, and make yourself miserable, and
George miserable--for a man who doesn't care. You could forget him if
you left off corresponding. Why do you let him play with you?"
"He doesn't play with me," Esme answered, flushing. "He never asked me
for anything more than friendship. I give him that because it is a help
to him, and because he is lonely. Why cannot a man and a girl be
friends?"
"I should have thought your own case furnished an answer to that," Rose
said. "In a friendship between a man and a girl one of them invariably
falls in love. You can't get away from nature. The eternal question of
sex hides behind all these unequal friendships. That's what makes them
interesting. But these interesting relationships can spoil one's life.
I wish that you had never met this man. I feel uneasy about it."
Esme sat in an attitude of disturbed attention, and kept her eyes
studiously averted from her sister's. There was just sufficient reason
in her discursive statements to cause the girl to wince mentally. She
was beginning to believe that she was giving more than Paul Hallam
wanted from her, more than he dreamed of when he proposed continuing the
friendship. This thought was humiliating; but only temporarily so: even
as she felt its sting another thought drew the venom from it. If she
could help him, even a little, it was worth while.
Book 2--CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
"To revisit a familiar spot is like walking among tombstones. Every
point recalls a memory, and memory belongs to the past."
Very vividly, like something heard long ago but never before realised,
these words which Hallam had uttered on the morning she left the
Zuurberg all those weary months before, echoed in Esme's thoughts when
she made her second journey up the mountain road. The truth of them
struck her like a thing which hurts. Her memories came back to her, as
he had said they would, with the dust on them. And there was no evading
them; they obtruded at every point.
At Coerney there was the same wait under the trees before the cart was
ready to start; the same languid stillness brooded over the place, the
same enervating heat. Here was the first tombstone. She looked about
her with reminiscent eyes, marked the spot where she had sat with Hallam
while they waited for the train to come in, realised the crowd of new
impressions which jostled the memories in her brain, and fell into
thought.
The children were busy exploring. The sound of their gay, excited
voices came to her distantly on the languid air. But she could not see
them; their figures were hidden among the trees.
Everything was much the same as on her former visit. There were two
other travellers beside her party: they had gone into the hotel for
refreshments. Presently they came out. The horses appeared with the
driver, and the business of inspanning began. The children wandered
back and became actively interested in these proceedings. John wished
to drive: a compromise was effected by his being allowed to sit beside
the driver and hold the whip. Then began the toil upward.
With every mile of the journey memories came crowding back into Esme's
mind, a dismal procession of pale ghosts that came and went and left a
feeling of greater loneliness when they passed. These memories of her
first glowing impressions, when excitement and a sense of adventure had
coloured her imagination, gave to the present occasion a sort of
flatness: the wonder of romance was missing from the picture. She
looked about her with intent, mystified eyes. Everywhere there were
tombstones; they met her all along the route.
Yet the beauty of the place remained unchanged. The wild grandeur of
the scenery, the magnificent solitude, the almost terrifying depths of
the chasm which lost itself in the froth of green below, these things
impressed her as they had impressed her before with a wondering
admiration that held something of awe in it; but whereas before, though
she had believed herself to be lonely, hope had travelled with her as a
companion; on this occasion there was no joyful anticipation in her
heart, only a sense of disappointment that the finish of the journey
promised nothing more than the usual holiday offers--rest and change
from the ordinary busy life.
She wished, with an urgency no less insistent because of its futility,
that she had decided on some other place--any other place--in which to
spend her holiday. The mountain road was haunted with the ghosts of
dead pleasures; the gorge was haunted; its secret places were the
repositories for the thoughts of yesterday, for the dreams which pass
with the night.
She gazed down into the black-green silences and felt her despondency
deepen. These familiar things linked up her life so completely with the
one brief romance it had ever known. She could not disentangle her
thoughts from the past. Everywhere her eyes turned, each fresh curve in
the road, brought back recollections of Hallam, and of their drive down
the mountain together. What was he doing now? Where was he, while she
was being borne higher and higher up the steep ascent?
Every now and again the children turned in their seats to flash some
question at her, or to point out some amazing novelty which caught their
eager attention. The big tree across the road, which cut through its
giant trunk, was a source of wonder and delight to them. John forgot
his dignity and allowed himself to be impressed by its dimensions.
"Man! but they can grow trees up this way," he remarked to the driver.
Whereat the driver unbent so far as to permit him to drive under the
tree. Whatever his aunt thought about it, John thoroughly enjoyed the
experience of that journey up the mountain road. But when the hotel
broke first upon his sight he was a little disappointed by its
unpretentious appearance.
"It isn't very big. It's just like an ordinary house," he complained.
"I expect you'll find there is room enough for you inside," Esme said.
"Gimme my suit-case. I'll go and find out," John replied.
The cart drew up before the entrance. John scrambled down and waited
impatiently for his luggage. He had never owned a suit-case before. He
insisted upon carrying it. This delayed the party. Esme was obliged to
wait while the cart was unloaded, until John's baggage came to light and
was given into his care. Declining assistance, he struggled with his
burden manfully up the short path, and, flushed and a little short of
breath, deposited it on the stoep with an air of satisfaction. Some one
came forward and offered to carry it inside for him; but John was
distrustful of these overtures.
"I can manage," he said politely, to the amusement of a man who was
seated on the stoep, "if you'll show me the way, please."
Before following his conductor he looked round for his aunt and sister;
and the man who had shown amusement looked in the same direction, and
then stood up. John was not interested in the stranger's movements; he
was anxious to go inside and unpack; but the others were so slow in
coming. Mary had halted in the path to fondle an amazingly fat white
cat. John was not keen on cats; he preferred a dog. He wished they
would hurry up.
"John," Mary's shrill voice called on a note of enthusiasm, "it's the
darlingest thing, and it's called Snowflake."
"Oh, _come_ on!" John returned.
Mary came on at a run, and Esme followed leisurely. And then another
delay occurred. John's patience was exhausted. Girls were all alike,
he reflected scornfully; they made a fuss over everything they met. He
did not understand why his aunt should stop to speak to the man who had
been seated on the stoep, and who now stepped off the stoep and went to
meet her. It seemed as though she had forgotten that he was waiting for
her to go in with him.
She had stopped still in the path and was talking to the man. She had
forgotten John and his suit-case altogether; she had forgotten
everything. The weary months of waiting had slipped out of the picture;
the present had rolled back into the past. She was back in the old spot
with the man beside her whose presence made for her the magic of the
place. The ghosts which had met and mocked her on the journey were
finally laid to rest.
Hallam had come down the path quickly, and stood in front of her and
blocked her way. She stood still, flushed and wondering, and looked at
him with eyes which told a tale.
"I began to think you hadn't come," he said.
"Oh!" she said, and held out a hand with a slightly nervous laugh. "I
never expected to see you. Why didn't you tell me?"
"I was coming to the station to meet you," he said, "but the cart went
away fairly loaded. I have been sitting here waiting for you for the
past two days. What do you suppose I meant, you dense little thing,
when I advised you to take your holiday here? Do you think I'd have
left you to wander alone among the musty relics you dreaded? ... I am
going to take you to-morrow morning to see the sun rise," he added in a
lighter tone.
Esme laughed happily.
"I haven't seen the sun rise since the last time we saw it together,"
she said, and scrutinised him for the first time with unwavering eyes.
She thought him looking extremely well and fit. He appeared younger and
altogether more sure of himself. And the stoop of the shoulders was
less noticeable; he carried himself better. He met her eyes and smiled.
"I rather suspected your early morning activity was a cultivation," he
said. "It is possible, I have found, to discard habits as well as to
cultivate them."
That was the only reference he made to the long months he had spent
fighting his baser self. He did not know whether she caught the drift
of his remark. It did not seem to him to matter much. There was
manifestly very little need for explanations on either side. They took
one another for granted. They took their love for one another for
granted; it stood revealed, a thing which needed no words, which
expressed itself mutely in their satisfaction in one another. They
gazed into each other's eyes, and there was no shadow of doubt in their
minds at all.
"You are looking well," she said.
"Yes," he said; "I feel well. I feel amazingly, extravagantly well. So
do you. You're radiant. That's because we are feeling so extremely
pleased, both of us, with life and with ourselves,--particularly with
ourselves. We are going to have the best of times together. I have
been looking forward to this for months. And now you're here... It is
almost as if we had never parted. It's better, really; the break brings
us nearer. It's just good."
The happiness which she felt shone in her face. She looked about her at
the familiar little garden, at the homely comfortable hotel, and the
small stoep in front of the house, where John and Mary waited, John
seated on the steps with his precious suit-case beside him. Then she
looked back into the man's face, and her eyes were grave and tender when
they met his.
"I had forgotten the children," she said.
He glanced over his shoulder.
"The little chap with the suit-case," he said. "And the girl--yes. Who
are they?"
She explained them.
"I brought them with me to keep away the ghosts," she said.
He laughed.
"Well, they are here. I wish they weren't; but we'll make the best of
it. It doesn't very much matter. The sooner they get used to me and
the situation, the better. If there is any one sufficiently
good-natured to foster them we will shift our responsibilities. I am
going to monopolise you. I've been lonely ever since I said good-bye to
you at Coerney."
He turned and walked beside her up the short path to the stoep.
"I'm glad to have you back," he said.
John and Mary, staring with round-eyed curiosity at the pair as they
advanced, wondered why their aunt looked so shy, and why she coloured
suddenly from neck to brow and looked down and spoke softly.
"It's good to be back," she replied.
They came to a halt at the steps; and John, remembering his manners,
stood up, but continued to stare, unabashed.
"This is John," Esme said with greater confidence; and John held out a
small, hot hand.
"How d'ye do?" he said, as one man to another.
Book 2--CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
The young Bainbridges were not slow in coming to a conclusion in regard
to the condition of affairs between Hallam and their aunt. John
pronounced Hallam as being "all right"; Mary thought him old. But then
her aunt was rather old also; aunts are not girls. Mary viewed this
mature romance with feminine curiosity. She thought it odd, but
immensely interesting. She dogged their footsteps.
"I believe Mr Hallam is in love with Auntie," she confided to John, who
probably unaided would not have discovered this surprising fact.
"I wonder!" John said, and pondered the announcement. "I think I'll
ask him," he added.
He took an early opportunity of doing so. He waylaid the pair,
returning from their morning walk, and planted himself in front of
Hallam, looking squarely up at him, with his hands in his pockets, in an
attitude so reminiscent of his father as to move Esme to merriment. Her
laugh ended in a strangled gurgle when John spoke.
"Are you going to marry Auntie, Mr Hallam?" John asked with a
directness that would have disconcerted most people, but at which Hallam
only smiled.
"I am," he answered. "I hope you don't object?"
"No; that's all right," John said amiably. "I only wanted to know."
And then he wandered off to join Mary and impart the result of his
inquiries to her. Hallam looked at Esme, and turned about abruptly, and
proceeded to walk with her away from the hotel.
"I think," she said hesitatingly, "that I ought to go in."
"Not yet," he said. "I want to talk to you. You may think that that
was an odd sort of proposal; but the little chap forced my hand. It is
amazing how sharp children are. Did you mind?"
"No," she replied, confused but extraordinarily happy. "I was a little
unprepared though."
They had both taken things so much for granted that she had not noticed
that he had never definitely asked her to marry him. That part of it
did not seem to matter.
"You knew," he said, "how things were? I think we both assumed it from
the moment you arrived. But John has put matters on a businesslike
footing. I said I meant to marry you. I do--if you'll take me. You
know what I am. I think you know more about me than any one. Any good
that is in me is of your making--"
"No," she interrupted quickly. But he took no heed of that, and went on
as if she had not spoken.
"When I met you I was drifting. No other influence, I believe, could
have pulled me up. It was not merely that you made me realise the folly
of wasting my life; you opened my mind to more than that. I have come
to see that man has a duty towards his fellow-men; that he has got to
serve the community: if he serve it ill, he plays a mean part; if his
service be good he doesn't merit praise, he is simply doing his job.
You have pulled me out of the mire; now that I have cleaned some of the
mud off I want you to take me by the hand and continue the journey with
me. There isn't any need for me to say in words that I love you. I
think you guessed that long ago."
He looked down and saw her face all flushed and confused, with eyes, too
shy to meet his own, lowered till the lashes touched her cheeks. He
longed to take her in his arms and kiss her; but the open road was ill
suited to his purpose, and he decided to wait.
"Dear, will you marry me?" he asked.
For one fleeting moment she lifted her eyes to his face, and her look
was so sweet and so gravely tender when it met his that his longing
increased. Then she looked away again and answered softly:
"Yes."
Bald little monosyllable, which was all her lips could utter though her
heart was filled with love for him; but it sufficed for Hallam. He
pressed closer to her and bent down over her and touched her hand.
"I want to kiss you," he muttered. "I'm longing to kiss your lips."
She looked up, startled, and moved a little away from him. The
passionate urgency in his voice was so altogether unexpected and
unfamiliar that she felt disquieted. She was afraid of being seen from
the hotel.
"Not now," she faltered. "Wait, I haven't got used to the idea yet.
Not now."
He laughed quietly.
"Little duffer!" he said. "Do you suppose I am going to make love to
you in front of the windows of the hotel? I'll wait--until we are
alone. Then..."
Voice and eyes were eloquent. There was an air of confident mastery
about him. She felt increasingly shy of him. He seemed suddenly to
loom bigger, to express qualities of a virile and dominating nature
which she had not suspected were in him. It was as though he put out a
hand and took her heart in it and held it in a firm grasp. It
frightened her just a little. Her breath came quicker and her pulses
beat fast. They turned about and started to walk back.
"I think we had better go and have some breakfast," he said, with an
amused look at her confused face. "If we delay any longer we shall be
faced with more awkward questions from young John. After breakfast we
will go in search of solitude and have our talk. There are endless
things I want to say to you."
They entered the hotel, separating at the door to meet again at the
breakfast-table. It was a silent meal so far as they were concerned, as
silent as those meals through which they had sat in the early days of
their acquaintance, when the man had maintained a moody aloofness
painfully embarrassing to his companion. She felt no embarrassment any
longer when he did not talk at table, and the chatter of the children
made conversation difficult.
She was glad on that particular occasion that she had the children to
distract her attention. She felt so extraordinarily shy of the man
beside her, shy of the accepted position of their new relations. She
felt that she must drag out the meal indefinitely: she wanted to
postpone that walk. But Hallam held altogether different views; and
presently he got up and prepared to leave the table.
"Hurry up!" he said. "You'll find me waiting for you on the stoep."
Then he went out, and she found herself confronted with the problem of
disposing of John and Mary for the morning. They were desirous of
accompanying her. The situation held an absorbing interest for them.
"I am going to be your bridesmaid, Auntie," Mary said, fascinated with
the prospect of a wedding looming in the near future. "And wear a blue
dress," she added.
John's face became grimly resolute.
"Mr Hallam needn't count on me for best man," he announced. "I'm off
that."
Esme left them to the discussion of these weighty matters under the
sympathetic guardianship of a visitor at the hotel, who had children of
her own and did not mind an addition to the party, and joined Hallam.
They set out together on their first walk since their engagement.
For a time they walked in silence, both of them a little impressed with
the strangeness of the new situation. Hallam's face was grave and
thoughtful, and every now and again he turned to the girl with a curious
eagerness in his eyes, and an added tenderness in the look he gave her.
It was altogether a memorable and wonderful occasion. He liked the
shyness of her mood. It surprised and amused him to see her eyes droop
before his gaze, and the colour come and go in her cheeks. He had known
her before only as a very self-possessed young woman; but she revealed
to him that morning, as he revealed to her, new and unexpected qualities
that were profoundly interesting. Again there came over him the longing
to take her in his arms and hold her close against his heart.
He took her hand when they were well away from the hotel, and they
walked along together thus and talked disjointedly and a trifle
self-consciously of trivial things. Presently Hallam said:
"I am going back with you when you leave. I have to make the
acquaintance of your people. That is a necessary preliminary.
Afterwards we will speed matters, and get married without undue delay.
There isn't any object in waiting, is there? I don't feel that I can
wait. I want you so."
"I'll have to resign my position as music teacher," she said. "There is
nothing else to consider. You know, I can't quite realise it yet. It
all seems so strange and wonderful."
"It is wonderful," he answered gravely. "It's wonderful to me that you
should love me. It seems more wonderful still that you trust me. Your
belief in me has been more helpful than any sermon. It is a sermon.
It's a sort of religion. I've leaned on you... you little thing, whom I
could pick up and toss over my shoulder! Dear, you'll never know how
much I love you. I can't put it into words."
She squeezed his hand understandingly. It was the same with her. She
could never have told him all that was in her heart.
"There isn't any need for words," she said softly.
"No." He looked at her quickly. "You do understand," he said. "You've
always understood. From the first we seemed to strike the same thoughts
instinctively. We get at one another somehow. I feel as if I had known
you all my life."
"And I," she answered with a shy little laugh, "feel that I am only
beginning to know you. Each time I am with you something fresh and
unexpected leaps to the surface, and I've got to start again from the
beginning and reconstruct all my ideas of you. I wonder if it will
always be like that?"
"You will find me consistent in one respect anyhow," he answered.
He drew her into the shadow of some trees towards which their steps had
been directed, and came to a halt facing her, and dropped her hand and
put his arms around her.
"Now..." he said.
He held her closely and for the first time kissed her lips.
Book 2--CHAPTER NINETEEN.
Esme was married from her sister's house very quietly, and with what
Rose considered quite unnecessary haste. The whole affair was so sudden
and so altogether unexpected that she scarcely knew whether to be the
more pleased or the more dismayed by her sister's change of fortune.
She never felt quite at ease with her future brother-in-law, and in her
heart she regretted that it was not George Sinclair upon whom Esme's
choice had fallen. Marriage with Hallam meant a more complete
separation from the old life: it would remove the girl altogether from
her former associations. While she recognised the worldly advantages of
the match she resented this: had Esme married Sinclair they would have
continued in touch with one another. But Hallam intended making his
home in Cape Town, in one of the suburbs, after a prolonged honeymoon
spent in Europe. The honeymoon, she gathered, would extend over a year.
It was all very amazing and rather wonderful. And Esme appeared to be
supremely happy; that, after all, was the chief thing.
Rose, while she watched from her seat in church, the girl standing
before the altar beside the man whose name she was taking, experienced a
curious misgiving which, though she felt it to be unreasonable, she
could not shake off. Largely, she believed, she was influenced by
something Sinclair had said when she informed him of Esme's engagement.
He had been taken by surprise and was greatly upset by the news. She
had very vividly in her memory the sight of his face as he sat and
stared at her with stunned, blue eyes, and muttered hoarsely:
"My God! ... Hallam! ... I could have stood it had it been any one
else."
She had asked him what he meant, what he knew of Hallam? And he had
answered shortly, "Nothing," and gone away hurriedly. She had not seen
him since.