"A MADNESS OF FAREWELLS."
One afternoon Eanswyth managed to steal away for a solitary ramble
unperceived. In the joy of having actually succeeded, she had wandered
some little distance from the settlement. She felt not the slightest
fear. No Kafirs would be in the least likely to molest her so near a
strongly garrisoned post, even if the tribes in the immediate
neighbourhood had been in a state of open hostility, which was not at
present the case. As for solitude, it was not complete enough, for the
country was open and sweeping and there were always horsemen in sight,
coming and going in the distance, along the main road.
Half unconsciously she walked in the direction of her deserted home. It
was a lovely, cloudless afternoon and the sun was already beginning to
slant towards his western bed, darting long rays of gleaming gold upon
the wide, rolling plains, throwing out with photographic clearness the
blue outlines of the distant hills. Crickets chirruped gleefully in the
grass, and away down in the hollow a pair of blue cranes were stalking
mincingly along, uttering their metallic, but not unmelodious, cry.
Suddenly the clink of a horse's hoof smote upon her ear. It was
advancing along the roadway in front. A flush of vexation spread over
her face. It might be somebody she knew--and who would insist upon
accompanying her back on the score of the disturbed state of the
country, if not upon that of politeness. She had not stolen away, to
rejoice like a schoolgirl in her sense of freedom, for that. It was
very annoying.
The horseman topped the rise. She gave a little cry, and stood rooted
to the ground as though her limbs were turned to stone. Could it be--?
Yes--it was!
In a moment he had sprung to the ground beside her. She could not move
now if she had desired to, for she was held fast in a strong embrace. A
rain of warm kisses was falling upon her lips--her face.
"Eanswyth--my darling--my love! Did you come to meet me?"
"O Eustace! I had begun to think you were never coming back to me! Ah,
you little know what I have gone through. Dear one, I never knew till
now how my very life was wrapped up in you!" she gasped, her voice
thrilling with a very volcano of tenderness and passion as she clung to
him, returning his kisses again and again, as if she could never let him
go.
She did not look unhappy and worn now. Her eyes shone with the light of
love--the beautiful lips wreathed into smiles--her whole face was
transfigured with her great happiness.
"Dear love, you have grown more beautiful than ever; and all for me," he
murmured in that peculiar tone of his which bound her to him with a
magnetic force that was almost intoxicating. "It is all for me--isn't
it?"
"Yes," she answered without hesitation; looking him straightly,
fearlessly in the eyes. Heaven help her!
"And yet you doubted me!"
"Eustace, darling, why did you never write to me? At least, why did you
only write in that ordinary, formal and matter-of-fact way?"
"Because it would have been the height of insanity, under existing
circumstances, to have done otherwise. And so you doubted me? You
thought that I had only been playing with you? Or that even otherwise I
had only to be away from you two or three weeks and I could forget?"
His tone, low and quiet, was just tinged with reproach. But it
contained a subtle consciousness of power. And to her ears it sounded
inexpressibly sweet, for it was this very sense of power that
constituted the magnetism which drew her to him.
"Yes, I will confess. I did think that," she answered. "I can hide
nothing from you. You have read my thoughts exactly. Ah, my own--my
own! What have I not gone through! But you are with me again. Life
seems too good altogether."
"It was our first parting, and a longish one," he said musingly as he
walked beside her towards the settlement--his horse, with the bridle
over its neck, following behind with the docility of a dog. "It was
good for both of us, Eanswyth, my life. Now, do you think it was
exactly delightful to me."
"N-no," she replied plaintively, pressing to her side the arm which he
had passed through hers as they walked. "Though, of late, I haven't
known what to think."
"They will know what to think if you go on looking so ridiculously
happy," he said meaningly. "The gossip-loving soul of mother Hoste will
be mighty quick at putting two and two together. And then?"
"And then? And then--I don't care--I've got _you_ again," she answered
with a gleeful laugh. "You--do you hear? You--you--_you_."
He looked rather grave. A struggle seemed to be going on within him.
"But you won't have me very long, my dear one. I am on my way to the
front. In fact, I start this very night. I, and Hoste, and Payne."
No fear of her too happy look betraying her now. It faded from her eyes
like the sunlight from the surface of a pool when the black
thunder-cloud sweeps over it. It gave place to a stricken, despairing
expression, which went to his heart.
"You have come back to me only to leave me again? O Eustace--Eustace!
I am a very wicked woman, and this is my punishment. But how can I bear
it!"
Then he calmed her. Strong as he was, his voice shook a little as he
reasoned with her, pointing out how this course was in every way the
best. He could not remain away down in the Colony, he said, and he had
absolutely no pretext for staying on at Komgha. Besides, in a small,
crowded and gossipy place, it would be downright madness to attempt it.
Their secret would be common property in a day. He was too restless and
unhappy away from her, and at present it was impossible to remain near
her. The chances and excitement of the campaign offered the only way
out of it. After that, brighter times were in store--brighter times,
perhaps, than they dared dream of.
He calmed her--by the force of his reasoning--by the very magnetism of
his influence; most of all, perhaps, by the power and certainty of his
love. Never again could she doubt this--never--come what might. And
she was to that extent happy amid her grief.
Though they were at all times the best of friends, the welcome Eustace
met with at the hands of Mrs Hoste on this occasion was of doubtful
cordiality. And the reason for this was twofold. First, the fact of
his arrival in company with Eanswyth went to confirm her rapidly
developing suspicions. Of course, it was a preconcerted arrangement.
Narrowly, she scrutinised the pair, and failed not to discern traces of
agitation and anxiety in the demeanour and appearance of, at any rate,
one of them. Then, again, she had just learned, to her dismay, the
intention of her husband to proceed to the front in a few hours. With
this defection she did not hesitate to connect Eustace, and she was
right. Wherefore, she regarded him as a treacherous friend at best and
scrupled not to tell him as much.
"It's all very well for you, Mr Milne," she said. "You have only got
yourself to please. But others haven't, and you ought to have more
sense than to aid and abet a couple of responsible fathers of families
like Mr Payne there and my stupid husband in any such folly."
"Ought he?" guffawed the stupid husband aforesaid, from another room
where he was cleaning a gun. "But I say, Ada? How is he to get to the
front by himself? It wouldn't be altogether safe. So, you see, he's
absolutely dependent on our escort. Eh, Payne?"
"_Ja_," replied that worthy, laconically.
"You should be more patriotic, Mrs Hoste," murmured Eustace. "You see,
you give us precious poor encouragement to die for our country--which
process is defined by the poet as a sweet and decorous one."
"Die for your fiddlestick!" was the half-laughing, half-angry reply.
"But, as I said before, it's all very well for you. Nobody is dependent
on you. Nobody cares what becomes of you."
Did they not? There was one in that room to whom his safety was dearer
than a hundred lives, whose heart was well-nigh bursting with unspoken
agony at the prospect of the parting which was drawing so near--that
parting which should send him forth for weeks, for months perhaps, with
peril and privation for daily companions. Yet she must keep up
appearances--must maintain a smooth and untroubled aspect. Nobody cared
for him!
The three men were to start an hour before midnight, and with two more
whom they were to meet just outside the settlement, reckoned themselves
strong enough to cross the hostile ground in comparative safety--
reckoning rather on evading the enemy than on meeting him in battle with
such small numbers. And this would be easier, for the Gcaleka country
had been swept from end to end and its inhabitants driven beyond the
Bashi--for a time. In which process the Kaffrarian Rangers had
gallantly borne their part.
As the hour for starting drew near, prodigious was the fussiness
displayed by Hoste over the preparations. He couldn't find this, and he
couldn't find that--he wanted this done and that done--in short made
himself a signal nuisance. Now all this was done in accordance with a
crafty idea of Payne's. "The women will be bound to turn on the
waterworks. Therefore, give them plenty to do. Fuss them out of their
very lives so that they won't have time so much as to think of
snivelling--until we're gone, and then it won't matter," had enjoined
that unprincipled philosopher--who had sent his own family down to King
Williamstown some days previously.
"Do you mind taking a quarter of an hour's stroll, Eanswyth?" said
Eustace in his most matter-of-fact way, shortly before they were due to
start. "You see, neither Tom nor I can tell how long we may be away,
and there are two or three things in connection with our joint
possessions which I should like to discuss with you."
Eanswyth's heart gave a bound. The time of parting was drawing very
near, and it seemed as if no opportunity would be offered them of seeing
each other alone; that their farewell must be made, even as that other
farewell, in the presence of half a dozen people. But his readiness of
resource had hit upon a way, while she, all unnerved as she was, could
think of nothing.
It was a lovely night. The thin sickle of a new moon hung in the
heavens, and the zenith was ablaze with stars. Behind, the lights of
the village, the sound of voices and laughter; in front, the darkness of
the silent _veldt_. Far away against the blackness of the hills glowed
forth a red fire.
Thus they stood--alone--and the time seemed all too short. Thus they
stood--alone beneath the stars, and heart was opened to heart in the
terrible poignancy of that parting hour.
"Oh, my darling, what if I were never to see you again! What if you
were never to come back to me!" burst forth Eanswyth in a wail of
anguish. "You are going into all kinds of danger, but oh, my loved one,
think of me through it all--think of me if you are tempted to do
anything foolhardy. My heart is almost broken at parting with you like
this. Anything--anything more, would break it quite."
"I wish to Heaven mere danger was the only thing we had to trouble
about," he said, rather bitterly. "But let this cheer you, my sweet--
cheer us both. You doubted me before--you cannot again. We are both so
strong in each other's love that beside such a possession the whole
world is a trifle. And better and brighter times may be--must be,
before us--"
"Hallo, Milne," shouted the voice of Hoste in the distance. "Where are
you, man? Time's up!"
Both started--in each other's embrace--at this horribly jarring and
unwelcome reminder. "The fellow needn't bawl like all the bulls of
Bashan, confound him!" muttered Eustace with a frown.
"Eustace--dearest--must we really part now?" she murmured in a broken
sob, clinging to him more closely. "First of all, take this," slipping
a small, flat, oblong packet into his hand. "Open it--read it--when you
are on your way. I got it ready, thinking we should have no opportunity
of being alone together again. And now, love--dear, dear love--
good-bye. Heaven bless you--no, I must not say that, I am too wicked.
It would be of no avail coming from me--"
"I say, Milne! Are you coming along with us or are you not?" roared
Hoste again from his front door. "Because if not, just kindly say so."
"You are under no precise necessity to cause the dead to rise, are you,
Hoste?" said Eustace tranquilly, a couple of minutes later, as they
stepped within the light of the windows. "Because, if you had whispered
I should have heard you just as well. As it is, you have about woke up
the whole of British Kaffraria, and we shall have the sentries opening
fire upon the _veldt_ at large in a minute. There--there goes the
Police bugle already."
"Don't care a hang. We are waiting to start. Here come the horses.
Now--Good-bye, everyone, and hurrah for old Kreli!"
A couple of native stable-hands appeared, leading three horses, saddled
and bridled. Then there was a good deal of tumultuous leave-taking
between Hoste and his family circle, mingled with sniffling and
handkerchiefs, and of quieter farewells as concerned the rest of the
party. But the torn heart of one in that group suffered in silence.
Eanswyth's sweet, proud face was marvellously self-possessed.
"Extraordinary creatures, women," said Payne, as the three men rode out
of the settlement. "I believe they positively enjoy the fun of a good
snivel. It's just the same with my own crowd. When I left home I was
obliged to send a note by a boy to say `ta-ta' to escape it all, don't
you know."
Hoste guffawed. It was just the sort of thing that George Payne,
philosopher and cynic, would do.
"Some few of them are sensible, though," went on the latter, flaring up
a vesuvian to light his pipe. "Mrs Carhayes, for instance. She don't
make any fuss, or turn on the hose. Takes things as they come--as a
rational person should."
Hoste guffawed again.
"Now, George, who the very deuce should she make a fuss over or turn on
the hose for?" he said. "You or me, for instance. Eh?"
"N-no, I suppose not. Milne, perhaps. He's a sort of brother or cousin
or something, isn't he?"
If Eustace had felt disposed to resent this kind of free-and-easiness he
forebore, and that for two reasons. He liked the speaker, who, withal,
was something of an original, and therefore a privileged person, and
again the very carelessness of the remark of either man showed that no
suspicion as to his secret had found place in their minds--a matter as
to which he had not been without a misgiving a few minutes back.
On opening the packet which Eanswyth had put into his hand at parting,
Eustace found it to consist of a little antique silver tobacco-box,
beautifully chased. This contained a photograph of herself, and a
letter; the last a short, hurriedly penned note, which, perused there
alone, with all the desolation of the recent parting fresh upon him, was
effectual to thrill his heart to the very core.
"And now," it ended--"And now, oh, my precious one, good-bye--I dare not
say `God bless you.' Coming from me it would entail a curse rather than
a blessing. I am too wicked. Yet, is our love so wicked? Could it be
so divinely, so beautifully sweet if it were? Ah, I neither know nor
care. I only know that were anything to befall you--were you never to
come back to me--my heart would be broken. Yes, broken. And yet, it
would be only just that I should suffer through you. Good-bye, my
dearest one--my only love. We may not meet again alone before you
start, but I want you, in all your dangers and hardships, to have always
with you these poor little lines, coming, as they do, warm from my hand
and heart--"
The writing broke off abruptly and there were signs that more than one
tear had fallen upon the silent, but oh, so eloquent paper.