LIGHT ON THE WAY
It wanted three weeks to her wedding when one day Nelly suddenly came
upon Mrs. Rooke in one of the narrow, fashionable streets south of
Oxford Street. Mrs. Rooke was coming out of a florist's shop, and she
was carrying a sheaf of lilies in her hand. For one second she looked as
though she would have turned aside and avoided Nelly. Then she came
straight on with a little unfriendly uplifting of her white chin.
She might have passed with a bow if Nelly had not stopped straight in
her path.
"How d'ye do?" she said coldly. "What a delightful day! I had no idea
you were back. But to be sure ... I must congratulate you. It is next
month, is it not?"
"Yes; it is next month," Nelly said with stiff lips. "The twenty-third
of July, to be accurate. I have wondered about you. I hope Mr. Rooke is
well and Cuckoo and Bunny."
Bunny was the youngest hope of the Rooke household, a wise, fat,
golden-haired child, who had taken a huge fancy to Nelly. At the mention
of his name his mother faltered. She had been used to swear by Bunny's
sagacity. Bunny had been fond of Nelly Drummond; and there had been a
time when Bunny's mother had referred to that fact as though it were
Nelly's patent of nobility.
"Cuckoo is at school. Bunny hasn't been very well. Those east winds in
May caught him. I had a horrible fright about him. Imagine
Bunny--Bunny--choking with croup! I thought I should have gone mad!"
For the moment she had forgotten Nelly's offences, and only remembered
that she had been Bunny's friend. Nelly looked back at her as aghast as
herself.
"Croup! I never thought of such a thing," she responded. "He has never
had it before, has he?"
"Never. That was why I was so terrified. I didn't know what to do.
There, don't look so frightened about it! It is over--weeks ago. Indeed,
the next day he was about, as well as ever. I should never be so
frightened again. It was the horrible novelty of it."
That frightened look in Nelly's eyes had softened the little woman's not
very hard heart.
"I wish I had known," said Nelly. "I have wanted to come to see Bunny. I
brought him a toy from Paris--a lamb that walks about by itself."
"Ah! you were thinking of him!"
There was complete reconciliation now in the mother's voice and eyes.
How could she hate the girl who loved Bunny and had remembered to bring
him from Paris a lamb that walked about by itself? She put an impulsive
hand on Nelly's arm.
"Come home with me and see him. You are not very busy? You can spare the
time?"
Nelly was on her way to keep a dress-making appointment, but she felt
that not for worlds would she have said so. She flushed up quite
happily. That moment of hostility on Mrs. Rooke's part had chilled her
sensitive soul.
"Might I call at Sherwood Square for the lamb, do you think?" she asked
diffidently.
"To be sure you may. And I'll tell you what--stay to lunch with me.
There'll be nobody but ourselves, of course. It comes to me now that I
haven't seen you for centuries."
"Yes; I should like to stay for lunch, thank you."
Mrs. Rooke rather wondered at the pale determination which came over
Nelly's soft face, succeeding the flush of a minute before. It did not
occur to her that Nelly had been pushing away from her with both hands
during the weeks since her return the temptation which at this moment
was offered to her. Nelly was only too conscious of the strength of her
desire to hear something of Godfrey Langrishe.
It was a feeling she did not dare look in the face. If she had had any
idea at the time she agreed to marry Robin that she was going to be
haunted by the thought of another man she would never have agreed. Even
of late there had been moments when her common-sense had whispered in
her ears, protesting against the folly of marrying one man when another
had so taken possession of her thoughts. But day by day the net had been
drawn closer about her feet. The wedding-clothes, the wedding-breakfast,
the bridesmaids, the wedding-cake, the hundred and one arrangements for
the wedding, had all been strands of the net that held her ever tighter
and tighter. How could she, at this stage, contemplate the breaking of
her engagement? How could she? The courage of her race had not risen to
that.
Mrs. Rooke suggested a 'bus, and Nelly agreed. Now that she had done the
thing against which her conscience protested she did not want to think
over-much. She even wanted to postpone the hearing of the name which she
had been hungry to hear for so long. The news she had desired too. How
was she going to listen to his name, to talk of him calmly? She wanted
time to gain courage. A 'bus did not give one opportunities for talking,
hardly for thinking.
She knew perfectly well that she should find a clear coast at Sherwood
Square. The General had come part of the journey into town with her on
his way to the club. Poor Sir Denis! If he could only have seen his
Nelly now he would not have been so easy in his mind. Lady Drummond was
engaged during the morning hours; she had to lunch with an old friend.
Nelly had been contemplating lunch in a quiet Regent Street restaurant
rather than the going back to the lonely meal at home. She had known
that a telegram to Robin would have brought him to her side, but she had
not meditated sending that telegram. She had been glad, in her innermost
guilty, repentant heart of her morning of freedom from mother and son.
The 'bus rumbled along as that vehicle of the middle ages does, making a
prodigious screaming in the ears, filling one with horrible electric
thrills as the brake was jammed down. Neither conversation nor thinking
was possible. Nelly closed her eyes a little wearily in her corner. The
other people in the 'bus had stared as she got in at the fresh
daintiness of her attire, conspicuous in the dingy vehicle. Now, as she
leant back with closed eyes, the tired lines came out in her face. Mrs.
Rooke, from the other side of the 'bus, glanced at her with pitying
wonder.
"Dear me!" she thought to herself. "It isn't the Nelly Drummond I knew.
What has she been doing to herself? She must have been racketting a
deal. She doesn't look in the least like a happy bride should. Poor
child! I wonder if she is marrying against her will?"
Arrived at Sherwood Square the lamb was brought down and displayed to
Bunny's delighted mother. Pat whistled for a hansom, and when the two
ladies were in he carried out the animal and placed it in front of them,
where it created some excitement in its passage through the street.
Behold Nelly, then, presently seated on the nursery floor, winding up
the lamb for Bunny and forgetting all about her beautiful lavender
muslin frock. The mother and nurse stood by as eager as Nelly herself.
Bunny, indeed, was the least interested of the party. To be sure in the
wonder-world of Bunny's mind baa-lambs that went of themselves and
bleated were no great wonder, even though it was a pleasing novelty to
find one in his nursery. He was more excited over the reappearance of
Nelly herself and stood by her with one fat affectionate arm about her
neck in a contented silence. In vain his mother asked him if he wasn't
pleased.
"He is always like that," she said at last. "We took him to the
Hippodrome and he only yawned, even when Seeth's lions came on. He
didn't take the smallest interest."
"Begging your pardon, ma'am, that he did," the nurse interposed. "He
were flinging 'imself on his precious 'ead twenty times a day for a week
after. 'Twas a wonder he had any 'ead left, the precious lamb. Them
there dratted clowns, I don't 'old with them nohow!"
The reconciliation between Bunny's mother and Bunny's friend and admirer
was complete by the time they went down to lunch. Nelly had begged for
Bunny's presence at the meal, and so the young monarch of all he
surveyed was seated opposite to her in his high chair, with a napkin
tucked under his chin, playing a fandango with a spoon and fork on the
little table in front of him. Bunny filled the lunch-hour, Bunny's
sayings and doings--there were not many of the former, but his mother
managed to extract gems of wit and wisdom from his taciturnity--Bunny's
likes and dislikes, Bunny's amazing development.
Only once was Langrishe's name mentioned. He had sent home a beautiful
mug of beaten silver for Bunny. At the sound of his name Nelly's eyes
were suddenly startled: she caught her breath; the colour swept over her
face and ebbed away, leaving her paler than before.
Presently the luncheon-hour was over and Bunny had been carried off for
his afternoon's outing. The half-hour or so in the drawing-room was
over. Nelly was drawing on her gloves, standing by the window which
over-looked the narrow slip of square, invisible now for the flowers on
the balcony. The fateful visit was nearly at an end and Godfrey
Langrishe's name had been mentioned only once.
She had a wild thought that her one opportunity was slipping out of her
grasp. She had come here to have news of him. She must not come again.
She must try and forget that he existed till such time at least as she
could think of him calmly. Now she _must_ know, she _must_ hear, what
was happening to him away there at the end of the world.
She glanced furtively around the pretty room, to which she would not
come again. It was as though she said farewell to its comfort and
pleasantness. She was not going to see Bunny and his mother again, not
for a long time at least. Her gaze came back to the window, pausing ever
so slightly on its way to glance at a portrait of Langrishe which hung
on the wall, a portrait painted in the days when he had been his uncle's
heir, by a great painter. She had been conscious all the time she had
been in the room of the presence of the portrait although she had not
looked its way. The picture had caught the quiet passion and intensity
of Godfrey Langrishe's gaze, as though he looked on deeds of glory and
fought his way towards them. The face was less stern than she remembered
it; it had yet some of the bloom and bonniness of his boyhood;
renunciation had not written its deeper meaning in lines about the lips
and eyes.
She opened her mouth to speak of him, but at first no words would come.
The fastening of her glove took all her attention it seemed. She had
turned to the light for it, away from Mrs. Rooke's sympathetic glances.
She had almost controlled her voice to speak without trembling when the
thing was taken out of her hands.
"I must not let you go," Mrs. Rooke said, "without giving you a message
from Godfrey. A message and gift. It came a week ago. See--here it is. I
was going to post it to you." She took up a packet from the side-table.
"How is he?"
At last it was said. Nelly's hand closed over the little packet. She
would open it when she got home. To think that he remembered--that he
had chosen a gift for her! Was there a word with it, perhaps? Her first
letter--and her last letter--from him was lying perhaps in her hand.
But what was it Mrs. Rooke was saying? She bent her ears greedily to
listen.
"He was well when he wrote, but the letter was written some time ago.
Where he is, it is not easy to get letters carried in safety. One never
knows what may be happening. It is, of course, a terrible anxiety."
The tears came into her eyes. There had been a little shadow over her
brightness even while she had watched Bunny. Nelly had been aware of it
dimly. What did she mean?
"Anxiety!" Nelly repeated falteringly. "Why should you be anxious? He is
not ill, is he?"
Her heart had sunk, heavy as lead. Her soul cried out in fear.
"You know he is with the punitive expedition against the Wazees for the
murder of Major Sayers and his companions? You never can tell what
dreadful thing may be happening to him. It isn't possible you didn't
know? And I had been thinking you hardhearted! Ah!"
Her arms went round Nelly.
"It isn't possible you didn't know? _Don't_ look like that! Do you care
so much as all that, Nelly? Why, then, why, in the name of Heaven, did
you let him go? Why are you marrying your cousin? My poor Godfrey!"
She was conscious of a strident voice shouting the evening papers in the
street outside. Indeed, even while she spoke to Nelly, half her brain
was listening in a strained way to that voice as it came nearer. What
was it the creature was shouting? Before she could hear distinctly the
voice died away again in the distance.
"Why did I let him go?" Nelly repeated after her. "Because, because, he
would not stay. He knew that I loved him, but he would not stay. He
never seemed to think of staying. When he had broken my heart it seemed
that I might as well make others happy. My father, Lady Drummond, my
cousin; they have been so good to me always."
"But you were engaged to your cousin, weren't you, when Godfrey left?"
Little Mrs. Rooke's dark eyes looked black in her frightened face.
"You were engaged to your cousin, were you not, just as you are to-day?"
"I never accepted my cousin till--till Captain Langrishe had gone. It
was understood that when we grew up we should marry to please our
parents if we saw nothing against it. No one would have wanted to bind
me if I did not wish to be bound."
Mrs. Rooke flung up her hands with a dramatic gesture.
"Heaven forgive me, my poor Nelly, for it was I who sent Godfrey from
you! I told him you were engaged to your cousin. I had been told so
explicitly by Lady Drummond herself. How could I doubt that it was
true?"
Nelly turned a white face towards her. Oddly enough, in spite of its
pallor the face had a certain illumination.
"So he went away because of that. Only that stood between us. Do you
think I am going to let that--a lie, a mistake--stand between us? I am
going to break off my engagement, even at the eleventh hour."
The daughter of the Drummonds had found the courage of her race. She
stared uncomprehendingly at the alarm in Mrs. Rooke's expression.
"Don't do anything rash," the little woman said, in a frightened voice.
"Supposing Godfrey did not come back. Supposing----"
Again there sounded in the distance the voices of the vendors of evening
papers. The voices came nearer, one, two, half a dozen of them. They
were all shouting together.
"There must be some news," Mrs. Rooke said under her breath.
"I shall come and see you to-morrow," Nelly said. "To-morrow I shall be
free to come and go where I like. Do you know that I was bidding this
room and you and Bunny a long good-bye five minutes ago? And if he never
comes back--well, he will know I waited for him."
So preoccupied was she with her intention that she never noticed the
newspaper boys and men fluttering their Stop Press editions like the
wings of some birds of evil omen. As she sat in the hansom she drew the
engagement ring off her finger and dropped it into her purse. Then she
sighed, as though an immense burden had fallen from her.