stronger and more fitted to be alone; but Esme preferred to remain in
her own home.
"Any day he may return," she said. "I would not like him to come back
and find me gone."
"He would understand," Rose said sensibly. "At least he would know
where to look for you."
She did not herself believe that her brother-in-law would return. The
whole affair was to her mysterious and inexplicable.
"Did you quarrel with Paul?" she asked bluntly.
Esme lifted astonished eyes to the questioner's face.
"Quarrel!" she repeated, aghast at the mere suggestion, and too
genuinely surprised to leave any doubt as to the amicable conditions of
her relations with her husband in Rose's mind. "Paul and I never
quarrelled over anything."
"Then it's a pity you didn't," Rose replied practically. "It lets off
steam. You know, my dear," she added, and passed a caressing arm round
Esme's shoulders, "your husband possesses a very complex nature. Judged
from the ordinary standpoint, it's an outrageous thing for him to go
away like this; in the circumstances it is even cruel. Don't you think
it would be good for him when he returned to find that you had gone back
to your own people?--that you were not content to sit at home and wait
for him? I'd show more spirit, Esme. A man like Paul is apt to become
neglectful without intending it. He should be made to think. You ought
not to be alone until you are strong again."
"I should like him to find his home open," Esme answered, "and a welcome
waiting for him when he comes back."
There was no doubt in her own mind that one day he would come back. She
believed that he would walk in unexpectedly, quite suddenly as he had
gone; and she would feel his strong arms round her, and in their shelter
forget all the sorrow and perplexity of their separation. That belief
buoyed her up and gave her courage to wait. She would not desert her
post while he was absent working out his salvation in his own way.
Rose left her and went back to her home, and so imbued Jim with her
doubts that he sought advice on the matter, and eventually instigated a
search for Hallam, who was not, in his opinion, responsible for his
actions.
Hallam's disappearance seemed as complete as if he had vanished off the
face of the earth. For months his whereabouts baffled all inquiries.
People referred to him in the past tense as they might refer to a man
who is dead. Generally it was believed that he was dead. From the
point where he left the train nothing was known of his movements: no one
appeared to have seen him after that; no one in the district, which
consisted of a few scattered farms, had heard of or seen any stranger;
if he had passed through their land he had not made his presence known.
It was thought to be unlikely that he had remained in the district.
Possibly he had changed his mind and taken again to the train.
This theory gained credence when later the body of a man, answering to
Hallam's description, was discovered in a lonely spot a day's journey
from the halt where he had left the train. There was nothing to show
how the man had met his death, and, owing to the state of the body,
recognition of the features was impossible; but the clothes were the
clothes which Hallam had been wearing, and in the pockets were letters
addressed to Hallam, and the watch which had been a present to him from
his wife. The facts seemed to point conclusively to this being the
missing man; otherwise how came he to be wearing Hallam's clothes, and
where was the owner? Had Hallam been alive he would assuredly have come
forward to refute the finding at the inquest on the dead man, whose
identity could only be established by his garments and the papers
discovered on him.
There was no doubt in Jim Bainbridge's mind, when he viewed the body,
that it was that of Paul Hallam; and, although for a long while Esme
refused to believe that her husband was dead, the hope which she
cherished of his being alive was a forlorn hope, which faded with the
passing of time into a reluctant acceptance of the general belief.
It was during the period of uncertainty, when her mind still obstinately
rejected the evidence of her husband's death, that Esme decided to give
up her house in Cape Town and move to Port Elizabeth in order to be near
her sister. She felt too nervous and unstrung to remain alone in a
place where her only intimate friends were the Garfields; she wanted to
be nearer her own people. To the infinite satisfaction of John and
Mary, she took a house, with a good garden attached, in Park Drive, and
brought her furniture round with the definite intention of making her
home there.
Promptly with her arrival John packed his suit-case and invited himself
to stay with her. He could, he informed her, be of considerable use to
her in the business of settling in. John at the age of twelve was quite
a man of the world. In her loneliness she was glad of his company.
This young kinsman of hers was the most tactful member of her family.
He never distressed her with references to his uncle; he took his
disappearance as a matter of course, very much as he had taken his
marriage with his aunt. These things were incidental, and a little
surprising: they were episodes in the pleasant business of life. Since
the loss of his uncle had brought his aunt back he was less concerned
about it than he otherwise would have been.
He found it interesting to assist in moving in, to take over the
direction and arrangement of everything. It needed a man to do that.
"Dad's getting old," he informed Esme, when he took up his residence
with her. "But you can always count on me when you want a man about."
"That's very nice of you, John," she said. "You are a great help to
me."
He came to her one day in the garden, carrying a leggy retriever pup,
which he thrust into her arms with an air of magnificent generosity.
"I got a dog for you," he explained. "You must have a watch-dog, you
know. George gave me the pick of his litter. When I told him I wanted
it for you, he let me have his best pup."
"Oh!" she cried quickly, and put the little beast down and stooped to
pat it. "It's sweet; but you must keep it. I won't take your pup."
"We'll share it," John returned magnanimously. "It will stay here. I
expect I'll run up most days to see it." He fondled the puppy lovingly.
"Isn't he a beauty? He's called Regret."
"Regret!" she repeated slowly. "I don't think I like that name for a
dog. Let us change it, shall we?"
"I thought it a silly sort of name myself," John replied. "But George
named it. Perhaps he wouldn't like it changed. We can cut it down to
Gret."
She bent down suddenly and kissed him, to his no small surprise. It
pleased her that he showed consideration for others in his direct boyish
way: she wondered whence he inherited that kindly characteristic.
John suffered the caress, but he looked embarrassed.
"I say," he said; "that's all right when we are alone; but don't do it
in front of the others."
And then, in case he had hurt her feelings, he slipped an arm round her
waist, and walked with her, carrying the puppy, down the garden path in
the brief twilight before the darkness fell.
Book 4--CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT.
Four years passed away. They were the years of the Great War, which
flung the world into mourning and left a pall of depression like a
blighting legacy on its passing.
Among the men who left South Africa for Europe to fight for the old
country was George Sinclair. He had been one of the first to go; and
after three years, the greater part of which was spent in France, he was
shot through the lung, and invalided out and sent for treatment to
England.
During the years he was away he wrote to Esme regularly. He had begged
permission to write to her before he left. He did not ask her to write
in reply; and for a long while she received his letters without any
thought of answering them. But, as the war progressed and the horrors
of war deepened, her sympathy with the man and her admiration for his
cheerful courage, moved her to open a correspondence with him.
She kept this letter writing up after he was in hospital, until she
learnt from him that he was well and shortly sailing for home. Then,
though he still wrote every week, her letters ceased abruptly. She
dreaded his coming out. She knew that he still loved her, that he meant
to ask her to marry him. He had given her to understand that before he
left. She liked him. In a friendly way she was fond of him; but all
her love had been given to Paul Hallam; and, although she now accepted
the evidence of his death, her heart still cherished his memory, and
turned in unforgettable longing towards the past. Her happiness had
ended in tragedy: but that was the common lot in those tragic times.
The war with its harvest of death and suffering had put her own trouble
further into the background than time itself could have succeeded in
doing. So much had happened within the past four years that was sad and
stirring and broad in its appeal to the sympathies of even those outside
the reach of these terrific happenings that the egotism of personal
grief was merged with the wider sorrow in which the world shared. It
was no time for brooding: a common tragedy called for the utmost effort
of endurance from all.
In a sense the war proved helpful to Esme; the horror of the calamity
took her out of herself, and prevented her from growing morbid through
the overwhelming shock of her own great loss. It had taken her a long
time to reconcile herself to the belief that Paul was dead. Conviction
came to her slowly with the passing of time, and the absence of any word
from him. If he had been alive he would have contrived to let her know.
It was unthinkable that he should have left her deliberately in a
terrible suspense. Hope died hard within her, but it died surely. She
mourned him as dead in her thoughts. But she could never bring herself
to visit the grave where he was laid to rest, above which had been
erected a simple granite cross, inscribed with his name and the date of
the year in which he died. Jim had seen to these matters for her; she
had been satisfied to leave them to him, and to ask no questions. In
his way her brother-in-law had been kind and helpful. And John, who
spent all his leisure time at her house, which had become a second home
for him, proved a great comfort and companion.
John was now sixteen, and his only regret was that he was not old enough
to join up. He admired and envied George Sinclair profoundly. To
return after three years' fighting with a pierced lung and covered with
glory was a splendid record in young John's estimation. He awaited
Sinclair's return impatiently, eager for first-hand information of the
wonderful doings in which he had longed to take part; while Esme awaited
his coming with misgivings, and wondered what she would find to say to
him when they met. She recalled very vividly his coming to say goodbye
to her on the evening before he sailed.
"I am going to write to you," he had said, with his blue eyes on her
face. "Please don't forbid me that pleasure; it will be a tremendous
help to me to be able to talk to you on paper. I may never come back,
you know; but if I do I shall come straight to you."
He had gone away wearing a photograph of her which Rose had given him;
that, and her friendly occasional letters, had proved the greatest
happiness during those days of war and horror and discomfort. And now
he was returning, with her photograph worn in a locket, and with her
letters, so frequently read that they tore where they were folded, tied
together with a piece of ribbon that once had adorned a box of
chocolates, and was faded and discoloured even as the package which it
secured.
He came to her, as he had said he would do, as soon as he arrived in the
Bay. He was shy, and a little uncertain of the welcome likely to be
accorded to him. The sudden cessation of her letters had damped his
hopes considerably.
She was walking in the garden when his taxi stopped at the gate. He
caught a glimpse of her through the mimosa trees, pacing the path slowly
with the dog, Regret, walking beside her, close to her, his nose
touching the hand which hung loosely at her side.
Sinclair dismissed his driver and opened the gate and advanced swiftly
along the path towards her. She saw him and stood still, flushed and
obviously nervous, waiting for him, while the dog bounded forward and
sniffed the newcomer inquisitively, and finally leapt upon him in
boisterous greeting. He patted the dog's head, pushed it aside, and
approached the woman, who remained still, watching him with eyes which
smiled their welcome. He took her outstretched hand and held it while
he looked long and steadily into the face which had lived in his memory
from the time when years ago he had met and loved her at the Zuurberg.
Outwardly she had changed little: life had scored far deeper impressions
on his face than on hers.
"So glad to see you back, George," she said, with a faint show of
embarrassment in her manner under his continued scrutiny. "So very glad
to see you safe and sound."
He approached his face a little nearer to hers, still retaining her
hand, which he held in a firm grip.
"May I kiss you?" he asked.
Instinctively she drew back, and then, as though regretting the impulse
which had moved her to refuse his request, lifted her face and allowed
him to kiss her lips. He dropped her hand then, and turned and walked
beside her towards the house.
"You can't think what it means to me," he said, "to be home again--and
with you. I've had you in my thoughts, dear, every day. Why did you
suddenly cease writing, Esme?"
"I don't know," she answered shyly, and ran up the steps on to the stoep
and entered the house through the drawing-room window.
He followed more slowly. His gaze, travelling round the pretty room,
fell on his own photograph in uniform on the mantelpiece. He had sent
her the photograph from England, and it pleased him to see it there.
From the photograph his eyes went to her face and rested there, smiling
and confident. She stood facing the light, looking shy and a little
overcome at seeing him. Although she had been expecting him she felt
oddly unprepared. Everything seemed to have changed with his
appearance. He loomed large and substantial in the forefront of her
thoughts, a person to be reckoned with, no longer the vague figure which
had hovered indistinctly amid the confusion of her mind. Deliberately
she moved to the sofa and sat down, and the dog came and lay at her
feet. Sinclair seated himself beside her and played with the dog's
ears.
"I've a feeling," he said, without looking at her, "that all this is
unreal. It's been a sort of make-believe with me that I was with you
over there. I've talked with you, told you things in dumb show, often.
I've pretended that you were present and could hear and respond. Now
I'm half afraid to look at you for fear you'll vanish. Absurd, isn't
it?"
"Poor dear!" she said, and touched his hand gently. He looked up then
and smiled at her.
"You know you haven't altered a bit since the days when we began our
friendship amid the heights."
"Ah!" she said, and the light in her eyes faded. "I feel as though I
had no connection with that girl at all. It's not only the years which
alter us, George. You've been through experiences; they've changed you.
Both of us look on life more seriously now. We were boy and girl in
those old days of which you speak. I don't care to look back."
"I don't wish you to look back," he said; "I want you to look forward--
with me. Esme, you know what my hope is? I've besieged you for years.
Can't you give me a different answer, dear? I've waited so long. It
seems to me we are both of us rather lonely people. Why won't you end
all that, and make me happy?"
Again she put out a hand, and this time she slipped it into his. He sat
holding it, waiting in an attitude of strained alertness for her answer.
"It is because I like you so well," she said, "that I am reluctant to
marry you. I can't give you a fair return. My dear, I've loved...
There never could be any one else in my life--not in the same way."
For a moment he remained silent. He still held her hand; but he was not
looking at her; he stared thoughtfully down at the carpet reflecting on
what she had said. Then abruptly he released her hand and sat up.
"I'll take what you'll give," he said resolutely.
She made no answer. She could not speak just then for the emotion which
gripped her. There were tears in her eyes. He leaned over her and very
tenderly kissed the tears away.
Book 4--CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE.
It surprised no one, and gave considerable satisfaction to her
relations, when Esme, quite soon after Sinclair's return to South
Africa, was married to the man who had been her faithful lover for over
eight years.
On the evening before her marriage she discussed the matter and her
feelings quite frankly with Rose.
"I'm not in love with George," she said, regarding her sister earnestly;
"and I'm not marrying him out of pity. I think chiefly it was a phrase
he used which got me: `We are both of us rather lonely people.' ...
That was how he put it. And suddenly while he spoke a picture of the
lonely years ahead for us flashed across my imagination. It's true, you
know; we are lonely; and we are both still young."
"Yes," Rose agreed. "I'm glad you see it like that. I've hated to
think of you alone always."
"It's a little selfish, and altogether futile, to live wholly in the
past," Esme resumed after a pause. "My love for Paul is a sacred
memory; but it should not prevent me from making George happy. He is
satisfied to take the risk."
"George is a wise man," Rose responded; "he doesn't underrate his power
to win your love. You'll grow very fond of him, Esme; he is a lovable
fellow."
"I am fond of him," Esme answered. "Do you suppose I would marry him
otherwise? I am bidding good-bye to the old life to-night, my dear; I
am not dragging it with me into the life which begins to-morrow. I feel
as though I were beginning all over again. It's a big break, you know."
"I know."
Rose's gaze travelled round the comfortable, homelike room, which from
to-morrow would be deserted, and would ultimately pass to strangers.
Henceforward Esme would live in Uitenhage, where George's work was. He
had furnished a house for her, and bought a car. The sight of the car,
which he purposed learning to drive, had reconciled John to his aunt's
second marriage. John's mother, while she gazed about her, was thinking
of many things, other than motors, which might change and brighten her
sister's life. There was the possibility of children. Esme had always
desired children. A baby's tiny hands would speedily heal old wounds;
the feel of baby lips would stifle all regrets. In Rose's opinion this
marriage was altogether desirable; it closed the past completely. In a
sense it seemed to her that her sister's life was only now beginning.
The curtain had rung down on the prologue, and was about to rise for the
first act of the actual drama.
The Sinclairs spent two weeks in Natal after the wedding. It was Esme's
idea to go to Durban for the brief holiday, which was all the leave
George could obtain. Sinclair himself had no preference; any place, so
long as he had Esme with him, would have seemed Eden to him. He was
extravagantly happy. The wish of his heart was realised. The
intervening years of bitterness and regret and jealousy were forgotten
in the supreme satisfaction of possession. The woman whom he had
married was his girl sweetheart, to whom he had remained faithful
through long years of disappointment and hopeless longing. There had
never been, never could have been, any one else for him. Now that she
was his wife, he set himself to the task of teaching her to forget the
man whose influence, dead even as when he had been alive, interposed
between them. He was determined to win her love, all her love; the
strength of his steadfast devotion insisted on a like response. She was
very sweet to him, very gracious and kind in manner: time, he believed,
would give him his desire. He must have patience, be content to wait.
He had waited so long to win her that this further waiting appeared a
small matter compared with what he had endured. With her beside him
everything seemed possible, and life was a succession of glad and
perfect days.
They spent an ideal fortnight together. Neither referred to it as a
honeymoon: it was just a holiday, a pleasant period of sight-seeing and
excursions, of bathing and dancing and strolling together in the
moonlight. Unconsciously they recovered something of the youth they had
been allowing to slip past them unheeded, and realised with a sort of
surprise the leaven of frivolity hidden beneath their more serious
qualities.
If Esme did not find the same deep happiness which she had known in her
life with Paul Hallam, she was at least care free. George was a normal
healthy-minded mail, popular with his fellows, and possessed of keen
powers of appreciation and enjoyment; and he succeeded, in rousing her
to a new interest in things. His devotion touched her deeply. She
began to realise that without being passionately in love, it was
possible to love tenderly. Her life with George promised to be a
satisfying and peaceful one. She resolved that as far as it lay in her
power she would make him happy.
Life is all a matter of adaptability. Given the qualities of kindness
and a tolerant disposition, it is not difficult to be happy and to give
happiness. In the case of large-hearted people love develops naturally;
and Esme and George had known one another a long time and intimately;
they were good comrades when they married; no feeling of strangeness or
shyness marred the ease of their intercourse. Even when they returned
and took up their residence in their new home it was all pleasantly
familiar. They had chosen the house together, furnished it according to
their mutual tastes: there was not a corner of the place, or a thing in
it, they had not inspected together, discussed, disputed over, and
finally come to agreement about.
And Regret was there to welcome them, the faithful watch-dog which had
been Esme's constant companion since the day when, as a puppy, John had
placed it in her arms. She stooped down to pat the dog, which bounded
out of the house and down the steps to meet her, jumping up and licking
her hand.
"He's a bit overwhelming in his attentions," George remarked.
He despatched the coloured boy, who stood grinning on the stoep, to
assist with the baggage, and put a hand in Esme's arm and drew her into
the house. Everywhere there were flowers; masses of roses in bowls, and
long sprays in taller vases of the crimson passion-flower. Esme stood
still and looked about her with pleased eyes.
"Rose has been busy here," she said. "It looks lovely, doesn't it?
George, it's a dear little house; and the garden is wonderful."
She stood by the window, looking out on the cool green of grass, on the
blaze of colour from the flower borders, on neatly gravelled paths.
Here, too, there were roses; the green of the lawn was patterned gaily
with their petals which the soft, warm wind had scattered wide and blown
into little heaps and again distributed these in a pleasing blending of
colour; the path was covered with them, sweet-scented, and newly
scattered by the breeze.
"It looks festive," she remarked.
"It looks as if the boy had better get to work with a broom," George
replied.
"Prosaic person?" she said, laughing. And added: "Let them stay. It's
a sweet disorder, anyhow."
He stooped to kiss her.
"You are a sweet woman," he said, and put his arm about her, and stood
looking with her out upon the small but pretty garden of their home.
Pride of ownership filled the man's brain, flooded his heart with genial
warmth, even as the sunlight which flooded the garden and shone hotly on
the gaily coloured flowers in the borders. He felt that life had
nothing more to offer him; his cup of happiness was full to the brim.
But to the woman, looking out on the sunlight with him, such complete
satisfaction was not possible. She was content. But the sun of her
happiness had passed its zenith and was on the decline.