A fortnight had passed since they had come to Hamley--David, Eglington,
and Hylda--and they had all travelled a long distance in mutual
understanding during that time, too far, thought Luke Claridge, who
remained neutral and silent. He would not let Faith go to the Cloistered
House, though he made no protest against David going; because he
recognised in these visits the duty of diplomacy and the business of
the nation--more particularly David’s business, which, in his eyes,
swallowed all. Three times David had gone to the Cloistered House; once
Hylda and he had met in the road leading to the old mill, and once at
Soolsby’s hut. Twice, also, in the garden of his old home he had seen
her, when she came to visit Faith, who had captured her heart at once.
Eglington and Faith had not met, however. He was either busy in his
laboratory, or with his books, or riding over the common and through the
woods, and their courses lay apart.
But there came an afternoon when Hylda and David were a long hour
together at the Cloistered House. They talked freely of his work in
Egypt. At last she said: “And Nahoum Pasha?”
“He has kept faith.”
“He is in high place again?”
“He is a good administrator.”
“You put him there!”
“Thee remembers what I said to him, that night in Cairo?”
Hylda closed her eyes and drew in a long breath. Had there been a word
spoken that night when she and David and Nahoum met which had not bitten
into her soul! That David had done so much in Egypt without ruin or
death was a tribute to his power. Nevertheless, though Nahoum had not
struck yet, she was certain he would one day. All that David now told
her of the vicissitudes of his plans, and Nahoum’s sympathy and help,
only deepened this conviction. She could well believe that Nahoum gave
David money from his own pocket, which he replaced by extortion from
other sources, while gaining credit with David for co-operation.
Armenian Christian Nahoum might be, but he was ranged with the East
against the West, with the reactionary and corrupt against advance,
against civilisation and freedom and equality. Nahoum’s Christianity was
permeated with Orientalism, the Christian belief obscured by the theism
of the Muslim. David was in a deadlier struggle than he knew. Yet it
could serve no good end to attempt to warn him now. He had outlived
peril so far; might it not be that, after all, he would win?
So far she had avoided Nahoum’s name in talks with David. She could
scarcely tell why she did, save that it opened a door better closed, as
it were; but the restraint had given way at last.
“Thee remembers what I said that night?” David repeated slowly.
“I remember--I understand. You devise your course and you never change.
It is like building on a rock. That is why nothing happens to you as bad
as might happen.”
“Nothing bad ever happens to me.”
“The philosophy of the desert,” she commented smiling. “You are living
in the desert even when you are here. This is a dream; the desert and
Egypt only are real.
“That is true, I think. I seem sometimes like a sojourner here, like a
spirit ‘revisiting the scenes of life and time.’” He laughed boyishly.
“Yet you are happy here. I understand now why and how you are what you
are. Even I that have been here so short a time feel the influence upon
me. I breathe an air that, somehow, seems a native air. The spirit of
my Quaker grandmother revives in me. Sometimes I sit hours thinking,
scarcely stirring; and I believe I know now how people might speak to
each other without words. Your Uncle Benn and you--it was so with
you, was it not? You heard his voice speaking to you sometimes; you
understood what he meant to say to you? You told me so long ago.”
David inclined his head. “I heard him speak as one might speak through
a closed door. Sometimes, too, in the desert I have heard Faith speak to
me.”
“And your grandfather?”
“Never my grandfather--never. It would seem as though, in my thoughts,
I could never reach him; as though masses of opaque things lay between.
Yet he and I--there is love between us. I don’t know why I never hear
him.”
“Tell me of your childhood, of your mother. I have seen her grave under
the ash by the Meeting-house, but I want to know of her from you.”
“Has not Faith told you?”
“We have only talked of the present. I could not ask her; but I can ask
you. I want to know of your mother and you together.”
“We were never together. When I opened my eyes she closed hers. It was
so little to get for the life she gave. See, was it not a good face?”
He drew from his pocket a little locket which Faith had given him years
ago, and opened it before her.
Hylda looked long. “She was exquisite,” she said, “exquisite.”
“My father I never knew either. He was a captain of a merchant ship. He
married her secretly while she was staying with an aunt at Portsmouth.
He sailed away, my mother told my grandfather all, and he brought her
home here. The marriage was regular, of course, but my grandfather,
after announcing it, and bringing it before the Elders, declared that
she should never see her husband again. She never did, for she died a
few months after, when I came, and my father died very soon, also. I
never saw him, and I do not know if he ever tried to see me. I never had
any feeling about it. My grandfather was the only father I ever knew,
and Faith, who was born a year before me, became like a sister to
me, though she soon made other pretensions!” He laughed again, almost
happily. “To gain an end she exercised authority as my aunt!”
“What was your father’s name?”
“Fetherdon--James Fetherdon.”
“Fetherdon--James Fetherdon!” Involuntarily Hylda repeated the name
after him. Where had she heard the name before--or where had she seen
it? It kept flashing before her eyes. Where had she seen it? For days
she had been rummaging among old papers in the library of the Cloistered
House, and in an old box full of correspondence and papers of the late
countess, who had died suddenly. Was it among them that she had seen the
name? She could not tell. It was all vague, but that she had seen it or
heard it she was sure.
“Your father’s people, you never knew them?”
He shook his head. “Nor of them. Here was my home--I had no desire to
discover them. We draw in upon ourselves here.”
“There is great force in such a life and such a people,” she answered.
“If the same concentration of mind could be carried into the wide life
of the world, we might revolutionise civilisation; or vitalise and
advance it, I mean--as you are doing in Egypt.”
“I have done nothing in Egypt. I have sounded the bugle--I have not had
my fight.”
“That is true in a sense,” she replied. “Your real struggle is before
you. I do not know why I say it, but I do say it; I feel it. Something
here”--she pressed her hand to her heart--“something here tells me that
your day of battle is yet to come.” Her eyes were brimming and full of
excitement. “We must all help you.” She gained courage with each word.
“You must not fight alone. You work for civilisation; you must have
civilisation behind you.” Her hands clasped nervously; there was a catch
in her throat. “You remember then, that I said I would call to you one
day, as your Uncle Benn did, and you should hear and answer me. It shall
not be that I will call. You--you will call, and I will help you if
I can. I will help, no matter what may seem to prevent, if there is
anything I can do. I, surely I, of all the world owe it to you to do
what I can, always.
“I owe so much--you did so much. Oh, how it haunts me! Sometimes in the
night I wake with a start and see it all--all!”
The flood which had been dyked back these years past had broken loose in
her heart.
Out of the stir and sweep of social life and duty, of official and
political ambition-heart-hungry, for she had no child; heart-lonely,
though she had scarce recognised it in the duties and excitements round
her--she had floated suddenly into this backwater of a motionless life
in Hamley. Its quiet had settled upon her, the shackles of her spirit
had been loosed, and dropped from her; she had suddenly bathed her heart
and soul in a freer atmosphere than they had ever known before. And
David and Hamley had come together. The old impulses, dominated by a
divine altruism, were swinging her out upon a course leading she knew
not, reeked not, whither--for the moment reeked not. This man’s career,
the work he was set to do, the ideal before him, the vision of a land
redeemed, captured her, carried her panting into a resolve which,
however she might modify her speech or action, must be an influence in
her life hereafter. Must the penance and the redemption be his only?
This life he lived had come from what had happened to her and to him in
Egypt. In a deep sense her life was linked with his.
In a flash David now felt the deep significance of their relations. A
curtain seemed suddenly to have been drawn aside. He was blinded for a
moment. Her sympathy, her desire to help, gave him a new sense of hope
and confidence, but--but there was no room in his crusade for any woman;
the dear egotism of a life-dream was masterful in him, possessed him.
Yet, if ever his heart might have dwelt upon a woman with thought of the
future, this being before him--he drew himself up with a start!... He
was going to Egypt again in a few days; they might probably never meet
again--would not, no doubt--should not. He had pressed her husband to go
to Egypt, but now he would not encourage it; he must “finish his journey
alone.”
He looked again in her eyes, and their light and beauty held him. His
own eyes swam. The exaltation of a great idea was upon them, was a bond
of fate between them. It was a moment of peril not fully realised by
either. David did realise, however, that she was beautiful beyond all
women he had ever seen--or was he now for the first time really aware
of the beauty of woman? She had an expression, a light of eye and face,
finely alluring beyond mere outline of feature. Yet the features were
there, too, regular and fine; and her brown hair waving away from her
broad, white forehead over eyes a greyish violet in colour gave her a
classic distinction. In the quietness of the face there was that
strain of the Quaker, descending to her through three generations, yet
enlivened by a mind of impulse and genius.
They stood looking at each other for a moment, in which both had taken
a long step forward in life’s experience. But presently his eyes looked
beyond her, as though at something that fascinated them.
“Of what are you thinking? What do you see?” she asked.
“You, leaving the garden of my house in Cairo, I standing by the fire,”
he answered, closing his eyes for an instant.
“It is what I saw also,” she said breathlessly. “It is what I saw and
was thinking of that instant.” When, as though she must break away from
the cords of feeling drawing her nearer and nearer to him, she said,
with a little laugh, “Tell me again of my Chicago cousin? I have not had
a letter for a year.”
“Lacey, he is with me always. I should have done little had it not been
for him. He has remarkable resource; he is never cast down. He has but
one fault.”
“What is that?”
“He is no respecter of persons. His humour cuts deep. He has a wide
heart for your sex. When leaving the court of the King of Abyssinia he
said to his Majesty: ‘Well, good-bye, King. Give my love to the girls.’”
She laughed again. “How absurd and childish he is! But he is true and
able. And how glad you should be that you are able to make true friends,
without an effort. Yesterday I met neighbour Fairley, and another little
old Elder who keeps his chin in his collar and his eyes on the sky. They
did little else but sing your praises. One might have thought that you
had invented the world-or Hamley.”
“Yet they would chafe if I were to appear among them without these.” He
glanced down at the Quaker clothes he wore, and made a gesture towards
the broadbrimmed hat reposing on a footstool near by.
“It is good to see that you are not changed, not spoiled at all,” she
remarked, smiling. “Though, indeed, how could you be, who always work
for others and never for yourself? All I envy you is your friends. You
make them and keep them so.”
She sighed, and a shadow came into her eyes suddenly. She was thinking
of Eglington. Did he make friends--true friends? In London--was there
one she knew who would cleave to him for love of him? In England--had
she ever seen one? In Hamley, where his people had been for so many
generations, had she found one?
Herself? Yes, she was his true friend. She would do what would she not
do to help him, to serve his interests? What had she not done since she
married Her fortune, it was his; her every waking hour had been filled
with something devised to help him on his way. Had he ever said to her:
“Hylda, you are a help to me”? He had admired her--but was he singular
in that? Before she married there were many--since, there had been
many--who had shown, some with tact and carefulness, others with a
crudeness making her shudder, that they admired her; and, if they
might, would have given their admiration another name with other
manifestations. Had she repelled it all? She had been too sure of
herself to draw her skirts about her; she was too proud to let any man
put her at any disadvantage. She had been safe, because her heart had
been untouched. The Duchess of Snowdon, once beautiful, but now with
a face like a mask, enamelled and rouged and lifeless, had said to her
once: “My dear, I ought to have died at thirty. When I was twenty-three
I wanted to squeeze the orange dry in a handful of years, and then go
out suddenly, and let the dust of forgetfulness cover my bones. I had
one child, a boy, and would have no more; and I squeezed the orange! But
I didn’t go at thirty, and yet the orange was dry. My boy died; and you
see what I am--a fright, I know it; and I dress like a child of twenty;
and I can’t help it.”
There had been moments, once, when Hylda, too, had wished to squeeze the
orange dry, but something behind, calling to her, had held her back. She
had dropped her anchor in perilous seas, but it had never dragged.
“Tell me how to make friends--and keep them,” she added gaily.
“If it be true I make friends, thee taught me how,” he answered, “for
thee made me a friend, and I forget not the lesson.”
She smiled. “Thee has learnt another lesson too well,” she answered
brightly. “Thee must not flatter. It is not that which makes thee keep
friends. Thee sees I also am speaking as they do in Hamley--am I not
bold? I love the grammarless speech.”
“Then use it freely to-day, for this is farewell,” he answered, not
looking at her.
“This--is--farewell,” she said slowly, vaguely. Why should it startle
her so? “You are going so soon--where?”
“To-morrow to London, next week to Egypt.”
She laid a hand upon herself, for her heart was beating violently. “Thee
is not fair to give no warning--there is so much to say,” she said, in
so low a tone that he could scarcely hear her. “There is the future,
your work, what we are to do here to help. What I am to do.
“Thee will always be a friend to Egypt, I know,” he answered. “She needs
friends. Thee has a place where thee can help.”
“Will not right be done without my voice?” she asked, her eyes half
closing. “There is the Foreign Office, and English policy, and the
ministers, and--and Eglington. What need of me?”
He saw the thought had flashed into her mind that he did not trust her
husband. “Thee knows and cares for Egypt, and knowing and caring make
policy easier to frame,” he rejoined.
Suddenly a wave of feeling went over her. He whose life had been flung
into this field of labour by an act of her own, who should help him but
herself?
But it all baffled her, hurt her, shook her. She was not free to help as
she wished. Her life belonged to another; and he exacted the payment of
tribute to the uttermost farthing. She was blinded by the thought. Yet
she must speak. “I will come to Egypt--we will come to Egypt,” she said
quickly. “Eglington shall know, too; he shall understand. You shall have
his help. You shall not work alone.”
“Thee can work here,” he said. “It may not be easy for Lord Eglington to
come.”
“You pressed it on him.”
Their eyes met. She suddenly saw what was in his mind.
“You know best what will help you most,” she added gently.
“You will not come?” he asked.
“I will not say I will not come--not ever,” she answered firmly. “It may
be I should have to come.” Resolution was in her eyes. She was thinking
of Nahoum. “I may have to come,” she added after a pause, “to do right
by you.”
He read her meaning. “Thee will never come,” he continued confidently.
He held out his hand. “Perhaps I shall see you in town,” she rejoined,
as her hand rested in his, and she looked away. “When do you start for
Egypt?”
“To-morrow week, I think,” he answered. “There is much to do.”
“Perhaps we shall meet in town,” she repeated. But they both knew they
would not.
“Farewell,” he said, and picked up his hat.
As he turned again, the look in her eyes brought the blood to his face,
then it became pale. A new force had come into his life.
“God be good to thee,” he said, and turned away.
She watched him leave the room and pass through the garden.
“David! David!” she said softly after him.
At the other end of the room her husband, who had just entered, watched
her. He heard her voice, but did not hear what she said.
“Come, Hylda, and have some music,” he said brusquely.
She scrutinised him calmly. His face showed nothing. His look was
enigmatical.
“Chopin is the thing for me,” he said, and opened the piano.