I
She was the daughter of a ruined squatter, whose family had been pursued
with bad luck; he was a planter, named Houghton. She was not an uncommon
woman; he was not an unusual man. They were not happy, they might never
be; he was almost sure they would not be; she had long ceased to think
they could be. She had told him when she married him that she did not
love him. He had been willing to wait for her love, believing that by
patience and devotion he could win it. They were both sorry for each
other now. They accepted things as they were, but they knew there was
danger in the situation. She loved some one else, and he knew it, but he
had never spoken to her of it--he was of too good stuff for that. He
was big and burly, and something awkward in his ways. She was pretty,
clear-minded, kind, and very grave. There were days when they were both
bitter at heart. On one such day they sat at luncheon, eating little,
and looking much out of the door across the rice fields and banana
plantations to the Hebron Mountains. The wife’s eyes fixed on the hills
and stayed. A road ran down the hill towards a platform of rock which
swept smooth and straight to the sheer side of the mountain called White
Bluff. At first glance it seemed that the road ended at the cliff--a
mighty slide to destruction. Instead, however, of coming straight to the
cliff it veered suddenly, and ran round the mountain side, coming down
at a steep but fairly safe incline. The platform or cliff was fenced off
by a low barricade of fallen trees, scarcely noticeable from the valley
below. The wife’s eyes had often wandered to the spot with a strange
fascination, as now. Her husband looked at her meditatively. He nodded
slightly, as though to himself. She looked up. Their understanding of
each other’s thoughts was singular.
“Tom,” she said, “I will ride the chestnut, Bowline, to that fence some
day. It will be a big steeplechase.” He winced, but answered slowly.
“You have meant to say that for a long time past. I am glad it has been
said at last.”
She was struck by the perfect quietness of his tone. Her eyes sought his
face and rested for a moment, half bewildered, half pitying.
“Yes, it has been in my mind often--often,” she said. “It’s a horrible
thought,” he gravely replied; “but it is better to be frank. Still,
you’ll never do it, Alice--you’ll never dare to do it.”
“Dare, dare,” she answered, springing to her feet, and a shuddering sigh
broke from her. “The thing itself is easy enough, Tom.”
“And why haven’t you done it?” he asked in a hard voice, but still
calmly.
She leaned one hand upon the table, the other lay at her cheek, and her
head bent forward at him. “Because,” she answered, “because I have tried
to be thoughtful for you.”
“Oh, as to that,” he said--“as to that!” and he shrugged his shoulders
slightly.
“You don’t care a straw,” she said sharply, “you never did.”
He looked up suddenly at her, a great bitterness in his face, and
laughed strangely, as he answered: “Care! Good God! Care!... What’s the
use of caring? It’s been all a mistake; all wrong.”
“That is no news,” she said wearily. “You discovered that long ago.”
He looked out of the door across the warm fields again; he lifted his
eyes to that mountain road; he looked down at her. “I haven’t any hope
left now, Alice. Let’s be plain with each other. We’ve always been
plain, but let us be plainer still. There are those rice fields out
there, that banana plantation, and the sugar-cane stretching back as far
as the valley goes--it’s all mine, all mine. I worked hard for it. I
had only one wish with it all, one hope through it all, and it was,
that when I brought you here as my wife, you would come to love me--some
time. Well, I’ve waited, and waited. It hasn’t come. We’re as far apart
to-day as we were the day I married you. Farther, for I had hope then,
but I’ve no hope now, none at all.”
They both turned towards the intemperate sunlight and the great hill.
The hollowness of life as they lived it came home to them with an aching
force. Yet she lifted her fan from the table and fanned herself gently
with it, and he mechanically lit a cigar. Servants passed in and out
removing the things from the table. Presently they were left alone. The
heavy breath of the palm trees floated in upon them; the fruit of the
passion-flower hung temptingly at the window; they could hear the sound
of a torrent just behind the house. The day was droning luxuriously,
yet the eyes of both, as by some weird influence, were fastened upon the
hill; and presently they saw, at the highest point where the road was
visible, a horseman. He came slowly down until he reached the spot where
the road was barricaded from the platform of the cliff. Here he paused.
He sat long, looking, as it appeared, down into the valley. The husband
rose and took down a field-glass from a shelf; he levelled it at the
figure.
“Strange, strange,” he said to himself; “he seems familiar, and yet--”
She rose and reached out her hand for the glass. He gave it to her. She
raised it to her eyes, but, at that moment, the horseman swerved into
the road again, and was lost to view. Suddenly Houghton started; an
enigmatical smile passed across his face.
“Alice,” said he, “did you mean what you said about the steeplechase--I
mean about the ride down the White Bluff road?”
“I meant all I said,” was her bitter reply.
“You think life is a mistake?” he rejoined.
“I think we have made a mistake,” was her answer; “a deadly mistake, and
it lasts all our lives.”
He walked to the door, trained the glass again on the hill, then
afterwards turned round, and said:
“If ever you think of riding the White Bluff road--straight for the
cliff itself and over--tell me, and I’ll ride it with you. If it’s all
wrong as it is, it’s all wrong for both, and, maybe, the worst of what
comes after is better than the worst of what is here.”
They had been frank with each other in the past, but never so frank as
this. He was determined that they should be still more frank; and so was
she. “Alice,” he said--
“Wait a minute,” she interjected. “I have something to say, Tom. I never
told you--indeed, I thought I never should tell you; but now I think
it’s best to do so. I loved a man once--with all my soul.”
“You love him still,” was the reply; and he screwed and unscrewed the
field-glass in his hand, looking bluntly at her the while. She nodded,
returning his gaze most earnestly and choking back a sob.
“Well, it’s a pity, it’s a pity,” he replied. “We oughtn’t to live
together as it is. It’s all wrong; it’s wicked--I can see that now.”
“You are not angry with me?” she answered in surprise.
“You can’t help it, I suppose,” he answered drearily.
“Do you really mean,” she breathlessly said, “that we might as well die
together, since we can’t live together and be happy?”
“There’s nothing in life that gives me a pleasant taste in the mouth, so
what’s the good? Mind you, my girl, I think it a terrible pity that you
should have the thought to die; and if you could be happy living, I’d
die myself to save you. But can you? That’s the question--can you be
happy, even if I went and you stayed?”
“I don’t think so,” she said thoughtfully, and without excitement.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“The man’s name was Cayley--Cayley,” he said to her bluntly.
“How did you know?” she asked, astonished. “You never saw him.”
“Oh, yes, I’ve seen him,” was the reply--“seen him often. I knew him
once.”
“I do not understand you,” she rejoined.
“I knew it all along,” he continued, “and I’ve waited for you to tell
me.”
“How did you know?”
“Cayley told me.”
“When did he tell you?”
“The morning that I married you.” His voice was thick with misery.
She became white and dazed. “Before--or after?” she asked. He paused a
moment, looking steadily at her, and answered, “Before.”
She drew back as though she had been struck. “Good God!” she cried. “Why
did he not--” she paused.
“Why did he not marry you himself?” he rejoined.
“You must ask him that yourself, if you do not know.”
“And yet you married me, knowing all--that he loved me,” she gasped.
“I would have married you then, knowing a thousand times that.”
She cowered, but presently advanced to him. “You have sinned as much as
I,” she said. “Do you dare pay the penalty?”
“Do I dare ride with you to the cliff--and beyond?” Her lips framed a
reply, but no sound came.
“But we will wait till to-morrow,” he said absently.
“Why not to-day?” she painfully asked.
“We will wait till to-morrow,” he urged, and his eyes followed the trail
of a horseman on the hill.
“Why not while we have courage?” she persisted, as though the suspense
hurt her.
“But we will wait till to-morrow, Alice,” he again repeated.
“Very well,” she answered, with the indifference of despair.
He stood in the doorway and watched a horseman descending into valley.
“Strange things may chance before to-morrow,” he said to himself, and he
mechanically lighted another cigar. She idled with her fan.