When Fielding had gone, Drake opened the window and stepped out on
the balcony.
'Unless you want to marry her yourself'; the words were stamped upon his
mind in capitals. They formulated to him for the first time the cause of
that unreasoned conviction of his, and formulated it too, as he realised,
with absolute truth. Yes, it was just his desire for Clarice to which he
owed his belief that she had an unquestionable right to know his
responsibility for Gorley's death.
He wanted her, and wanting her, was committed to scrupulous frankness.
Drake looked out across the city. At his feet lay the quiet strip of
garden, lawn and bush; beyond, the lamps burning on the parapets of the
Embankment, and beyond them, the river shining in the starlight, polished
and lucent like a slab of black marble, with broad regular rays upon it
of a still deeper blackness, where the massive columns of Hungerford
Bridge cast shadows on the water. An engine puffed and snorted into the
station, leaving its pennant of white smoke in the air. Through the glass
walls of the signal-box above the bridge Drake could see the men in a
blaze of light working at the levers, and from the Surrey end there came
to him a clink, and at that distance a quite musical clink, of truck
against truck as some freight-train was shunted across the rails. Away to
his right the light was burning on Westminster clock-tower; on
Westminster Bridge the lamps of cabs and carriages darted to and fro like
fire-flies. Drake watched two of them start across in the same direction
a few yards apart, saw the one behind close up, the one in front spirt
forward as though each was straining for the lead. They drew level, then
flashed apart, then again drew level, and so passing and repassing raced
into the myriad lights upon the opposite bank. That bank was visible to
him through a tracery of leafless twigs, for a tree grew in front of his
window on the farther edge of the gardens, and he could see the lights
upon its roadway dancing, twirling, clashing in the clear night, just as
they clashed and twirled and danced in the roadway beneath him, sparks
from a forge, and that forge, London. In their ceaseless motion they
seemed rivulets of fire, and the black sheet of water between them the
solid highway. But even while he looked, a ruby light moved on that
highway out from the pillars of the bridge, and then another and another.
Everywhere was the glitter of lights; fixed, flashing like a star on the
curve, or again growing slowly from a pin's point to an orb, and then
dwindling to a point and vanishing. And on every side, too, Drake heard
the quick beat of horses, and the rattle of wheels struck out not from
silence, but from a dull eternal hum like the hum of a mill, sharp
particular notes emerging incessantly from a monotonous volume of sound.
It was just this aspect and this noise of restless activity which had
always appealed to Drake, and had satisfied him with an assurance that he
was on the road to the fulfilment of his aims. He had achieved something
of his desires, however small. He was in London working at certain
schemes of which he did not doubt the ultimate success. They were built
upon a foundation of knowledge arduously gained and tested. The rising in
Matanga, if it took place, might delay success, but success would surely
come. He might then look forward with confidence to a seat in that
Parliament on which the light was burning, to a share perhaps finally in
its executive.
But to-night he found that there was something wanting in the
contemplation of these aims, something wanting in the very outlook from
his window. He needed Clarice here in his balcony by his side, and he
pictured the shine of her eyes bent towards him in the dark. And the
perception of that need held him in check, gave him a hint of warning
that the thought of her might become as a wedge driven into the framework
of his purposes and splitting them.
He could still draw back, he assured himself. But if he went on and won!
He felt the blood surging through his veins. He might win; there was just
a chance. The Gorley incident had made no real difference in Clarice's
friendliness. When once, indeed, she had grown used to it, she had seemed
almost to express some queer sort of sympathy with him.
Drake closed the window and sat down to calculate the time at which he
would be sufficiently established to make known his suit. He fixed that
time definitely in July. July! The name sounded pleasantly with its
ripple of liquid syllables. Drake found himself repeating it when he
should have been at work. It began to rise to his lips the moment a date
was asked of him, as the only date at all worth mentioning. Fielding came
down to Drake's office in Old Broad Street, in order to apply for shares
in 'Matanga Concessions.'
'You had better wait,' said Drake. 'I will let you know before they are
offered to the public.'
'That will be soon?'
'Not for the moment. There's the possibility of this rising. Let the
country quiet down first!'
'But when do you propose?'
'July.'
'July? That's a long time to come.'
Drake coloured to the roots of his hair. 'I beg your pardon,' he said
with evident embarrassment; 'much sooner than that of course. I was
thinking of some one else.' He made matters worse by a hurried correction
of 'some one' to 'something.'
Fielding noticed the embarrassment and the correction, and drew
conclusions. They were conclusions, he thought, of which Mrs. Willoughby
should be advised, and he drove to her house accordingly. He had ceased
to feel displeasure at Mrs. Willoughby's conduct, for since he had
studiously refrained from betraying the slightest irritation at
Mallinson's visits, those visits had amazingly diminished.
'Did he happen to mention the date of the month and the time of the day?'
was Mrs. Willoughby's comment.
'It sounds cold-blooded? Hardly, if you knew the man. He looks on life as
a sort of draughtboard. So many definite moves to be made forward upon
definite lines. Then you're crowned king and can move as you please,
backwards if you like, till the end of the game.'
'He will be crowned king in July?'
'So I imagine.'
Meanwhile Drake worked on through March and April, outwardly untroubled,
but inwardly asking himself ever: 'Shall I win? Shall I win?' The
question besieged him. Patient he could be, none more so, when the end in
view was to be gained by present even though gradual endeavour; but this
passive waiting was a lid shut down on him, forcing his energies inwards
to prey upon himself. His impatience, moreover, was increased by the
increasing prospects of his undertaking. Additional reports had been
received from his engineer appraising at a still higher value the quality
of the land. He spoke too of a tract of country bordering Drake's
concession on the north, and advised application for it. Biedermann,
besides, had taken up the project warmly. The company was to come out
early in May; there would be few shares open to the public, and the
revolution had not taken place.
Why should he wait till July after all? Drake felt inclined to argue the
question one Sunday afternoon in London's lilac time, as he walked
across the green park towards Beaufort Gardens. He found Miss Le
Mesurier alone and in a melancholy mood. She was singing weariful
ballads in an undertone as he entered the room, and she rose
dispiritedly to welcome him.
'It's seldom one finds you alone,' he said, and his face showed his
satisfaction.
'I don't know,' she replied. 'It seems to me sometimes that I am always
alone, even when people are by,' and her eyelids drooped.
'You?'
Clarice's sincerity was of the artist's sort implying a sub-consciousness
of an audience. She recognised from the accent upon the _you_, that her
little speech had not failed of its effect. She continued more
cheerfully: 'Aunt has gone up to Highgate to see some relations, and
papa's asleep in the library.'
'You were singing. I hope you won't stop.'
'I was only passing the time.'
'You will make me think I intrude.'
'I'll prove to you that you don't,' and she went back to the piano. Drake
seated himself at the side of it, facing her and facing the open window.
The window-ledges were ablaze with flowers, and the scent of them poured
into the room on a flood of sunshine.
Clarice was moved by a sudden whim to a change of humour. She sprang
from her dejection to the extreme of good spirits. Her singing proved
it, for she chose a couple of light-hearted French ballads, and sang
them with a dainty humour which matched the daintiness of the words and
music. Her shrugs and pouts, the pretty arching of her eyebrows, the
whimsical note of mockery in her voice, represented her to Drake under a
new aspect, helped to complete her in his thoughts much as her voice,
very sweet and clear for all its small compass, completed in some queer
way the flowers and sunshine. Her manner, however, did more than that;
it gave to him, conscious of a certain stiffness and inflexibility of
temperament, an inner sense of completion anticipated from his hope of a
time when their lives would join. He leaned forward in his chair,
watching the play of her face, the lights and shadows in the curls of
her hair, the nimble touch of her fingers on the keys. Clarice stopped
suddenly. 'You don't sing?'
'I have no accomplishments at all.'
She laughed and began to play one of Chopin's nocturnes. Her fingers
rattled against the ivory on a run up the piano. She stopped and took a
ring from her right hand; Drake noticed that it was the emerald ring
which he had seen winking in the firelight on that evening when she had
covered her face from him. She dropped the ring on the top of the piano
at Drake's side. It spun round once or twice, and then settled down with
a little tinkling whirr upon the rim of its hoop Drake fancied that the
removal of this particular ring was in some inexplicable way of hopeful
augury to him.
Clarice resumed her playing, but as she neared the end of the nocturne,
Drake perceived that there was a growing change, a declension, in her
style. She seemed to lose the spirit of the nocturne and even her command
on the instrument; the firm touch faltered into indecision, from
indecision to absolute unsteadiness; the notes, before clear and
distinct, now slurred into one another with a tremulous wavering.
'You are fond of music?' she asked at length, with something of an
effort.
'Very,' he replied, 'though it puzzles me. It's like opening a book
written in a language you don't understand. You get a glimpse of a
meaning here and there, but no meaning really. I can't explain what I
feel,' he added, with a laugh. 'I want Mallinson to help me.'
'You admire Mr. Mallinson?' asked Clarice, stopping suddenly.
'Well, one always admires the class of work one can't do oneself, eh?'
'That's very generous of you.'
'Why generous?' Drake leaned suddenly forward. His habit of putting
questions abrupt and straight to the point had discomposed Miss Le
Mesurier upon an occasion before. She answered hurriedly. 'I mean--you
spoke as if you meant that class of work was above your own.'
'Oh, there's no basis of comparison.'
Clarice seized the opportunity, and inquired after the prospects of his
work in Matanga.
'The place should do,' said Drake. 'The land's good, there's a river
running through, and I have got picked men to settle on it; all English,
that's the point. But you said generous. I don't see.'
Clarice switched him on the subject of English colonisation. 'It's
necessary to have Englishmen to start it? Why?'
'Oh, well,' said Drake. 'It's easy enough to see, if you can compare
English with the foreign colonies.' He rose from his chair and launched
forth, walking about the room. 'Look at the Germans! There are seven
hundred German colonists, all told, in the German colonies, and each of
them costs the German tax-payer little short of eight hundred a year. How
many of them are in the English colonies? And what's the reason? Why,
they want to have the institutions of the Fatherland ready-made in five
minutes. They need the colonies made before they can prosper in it. The
French are better, but they are spoilt by officialdom. The Englishman
just adapts himself to the conditions, and sets to work to adapt the
conditions to himself too. He strikes a sort of mean, and the Home
Government leaves him alone--leaves him too much alone some say, and
rightly, in cases. There's a distinction to be drawn, and it's difficult
to draw it so far away. It's this, when the colony's made, then it isn't
a bad thing for the Government to keep a fairly tight hold on it. But in
the making it's best left to itself; you can lay a cable between London
and a colony too soon for the good of that colony. There's no fear of the
colonist forgetting the mother country--he may forget the Home
Government, does at times, and then there's a mistake or two. But that's
the defect of the quality.' He checked himself abruptly. 'But I'm running
away from what we were talking about. Yes; I think we shall do all right
in Matanga.'
'You don't mean to go back there yourself?'
'Not to live there. To tell the truth, I think there's a man or two
wanted in England just now, who has had a practical experience of our
colonies.' Drake spoke without the least trace of boastfulness, but in a
tone of quiet self-reliance, and Clarice had a thrill of intuition that
he would not have said so much as that to any one but herself.
Clarice began to play again, this time a waltz tune. Drake came over to
the piano, and stood leaning upon the lid of it; he took up the ring and
turned it over in his fingers. She said thoughtfully:
'I suppose that's true of men as well'; and then, with a hesitating
correction, 'I mean of men like you.'
'What's true?'
'Well, that they are best without--help from any one--that they stand in
no need of it.' She spoke quite seriously, with a note almost of regret.
'Oh, I don't know that,' he answered, with a laugh. 'It would be a rash
thing to say. Of course a man ought to depend upon himself.'
'Oh, of course,' she agreed, and went on playing.
Drake was still holding the ring, and he said slowly:
'You remember that afternoon I told you about'--he hesitated for a
second--'Gorley?' Clarice looked up in surprise.
'Yes,' she said.
'You were wearing this ring. You hid your face in your hands. It was the
last thing I saw of you.'
She lowered her eyes from his face, and said, with a certain timidity,
'He gave it to me.'
Drake started and leaned on the piano.
'And you still wear it?' he asked sharply.
She nodded, but without looking at him. Drake rose upright, straightening
himself; for a moment or two he stood looking at her, and then he walked
away towards the window. His hat was lying on a table close by it.
'But I don't think that I shall again,' she murmured. She heard him turn
quickly round and come back. He stood behind her; she could see his
shadow thrown across the bar of sunlight on the carpet; but he did not
speak. Clarice became anxious that he should, and yet afraid too. The
music began to falter again; once she stopped completely, and let her
fingers rest upon the keys, as though she had no power to lift them and
continue. Then she struck a chord with a loud defiance. If only he would
move, she thought--if only he would come round and stand in front of
her! It would be so much easier to speak, to divert him. So long as he
stood silent and motionless behind her, she felt, in a strange manner,
at his mercy.
She rose from her seat suddenly, and confronted him. There was challenge
in the movement, but none the less her eyes sought the ground, and, once
face to face with him, she stood in an attitude of submission.
'What does that mean?' she heard him ask in a low voice. 'You won't wear
it again.'
She did not answer, but in spite of herself, against her will, she raised
her eyes until they met his. She heard a cry, hoarse and passionate; she
felt herself lifted, caught, and held against him. She saw his eyes above
hers, burning into hers; she felt the pressure of two lips upon hers, and
her own respond obediently.
'Is it true?' The words were whispered into her ear with an accent of
wonder, almost of awe.
'Yes,' she whispered back, compelled to the answer, subservient to his
touch, to his words, and, to the full, conscious of her subservience. She
felt the big breath he drew in answering her monosyllable. He held her
unresisting, passive in his arms, watching her cheeks fire. She realised,
in a kind of detached way, that he was holding her so that the tips of
her toes only touched the floor, and somehow that seemed of a piece with
the rest. Then he set her down, and stood apart, keeping her hands. 'It's
funny,' he said, 'how one goes on year after year, quite satisfied,
knowing nothing of this, meaning not to know.'
She caught at the phrase and stammered, 'Perhaps that was wise.'
'It was. For so I met you.'
He released her hands, and she sank into the nearest chair. Drake walked
to the window and stood facing the sunlight, breathing it in. 'Clarice,'
she heard him murmur, with a shake of his shoulders like a great
Newfoundland dog; and then the cry of a newspaper boy shouting the
headlines of a special edition rasped into the room.
Drake leaned out of the window. 'Hi!' he called, and tossed a penny into
the street.
'Threepence,' shouted the boy from below.
'It's a penny paper,' cried Drake.
'Threepence. There's a corner in 'em.'
Clarice listened to the argument. Most men, she thought helplessly, don't
buy newspapers the moment they have been accepted, and, at all events, it
is an occasion when they are disposed to throw their money about. It made
no difference of any kind to him.
Drake finally got the better of the bargain, and the paper was brought up
to the room. Clarice saw Drake open it hurriedly, and his face cloud and
harden as he glanced down the column.
'What's the matter?' she asked in a rising voice.
'A rebellion in Matanga,' he said slowly. 'I thought that danger was
averted,' and there was a distinct note of self-reproach in his tone.
Clarice felt her heart beat quicker. She rose from her chair. 'What does
that mean to you?' she asked.
'Delay,' he replied, with the self-reproach yet more accentuated.
'Nothing more, I am sure; but it does mean that.'
'Nothing more?'
He noticed an expression of disappointment upon the girl's face, and,
mistaking it, repeated, 'Nothing more than that, Clarice.' He took a step
towards her. 'Of course I ought not to have spoken to you yet,--not until
everything was settled. I am sorry--of course it will come out all right,
only till then it wasn't fair. I didn't mean to,--not even when I came
this afternoon. But seeing you,--I wasn't strong enough,--I gave in.'
Clarice felt a pulse of satisfaction, and her lips shaped to a smile.
'Ah, you don't regret it,' he exclaimed, and the look of humiliation
passed from his face. 'Your father's in the library,' he went on; 'I had
better go and tell him. Shall I go alone, or will you come with me?'
'No, you go; I will wait here.'
She stood alone in the centre of the room while Drake went downstairs,
staring fixedly in front of her. Once or twice she set her hands to her
forehead and drew them down her flushed cheeks. Then she walked to the
window. There was something floating on the edge of her mind, just
eluding her. A thought was it, or a phrase? If a phrase, who had spoken
it? She began to remember; it was something Stephen Drake had said, but
about what? And then, in a flash, her recollection defined it for her. It
was about moonlight being absorbed into the darkness of an African veld,
just soaking into it like water into dry ground. She had a vision of the
wide rolling plain, black from sky's rim to sky's rim, and the moonlight
pouring a futile splendour into its lap. She moved with a quick and
almost desperate run to the door, opened it, and leaned over the
balustrade of the staircase. The hall was empty and no sound of voices
came from the library. She stepped cautiously down the stairs; as she
reached the last step the door of the library opened and Drake appeared
on the threshold.
Clarice leaned against the wall, holding her hand to her heart.
'Why, Clarice!' he cried, and started towards her.
'Hush!' She tried to whisper the word, but her voice rose. She thrust out
a hand between herself and Drake, and cast a startled glance across his
shoulder, expecting to see her father come forward smiling
congratulations at her. Drake caught the outstretched hand, and, setting
an arm about her waist, drew her into the library.
'I have not seen Mr. Le Mesurier,' he said; 'he's out, I am afraid.'
The room was empty. Clarice looked round it, doubting her eyes, and with
a sudden revulsion of feeling dropped into a chair by the table and sat
with her face buried in her arms in a flood of tears.