tumultuous happiness. It was to both the great sacrament of
life--consecrating it; giving it fulness and meaning; seeming to lift it
for evermore above the meanness of chance, and accident, and disaster;
giving them a heavenly anchorage from all peril and storm.
'And now you must say no more,' said Stella at last, smiling through her
happy tears; 'and there is to be no solemn revelation to anyone. It is
our secret till you write from England, as you purposed at first.'
'Ah, but that was when I thought I was Stoic enough to keep to my
purpose--now----!'
'Now it must be the same, Anselm,' she said quickly. 'Oh, do you not
understand how frightfully tiresome it would be to have anyone else
talking over this precious secret before we have realized it ourselves?
In four little months I shall have got used to the thought. The same
reason exists now that existed yesterday--does it not?'
'Yes, my own,' he replied, a shadow falling on his face. 'But now I
think you ought to know all.'
'No, Anselm, let it be as though you had said no more. We need make no
promises. Let what was your wish in this be my law till you return.
Let us be friends a little longer. Oh, it has been so dear and good a
bond! Can any other be better?'
'You little sceptic! You have sat too long in the scorner's chair.
People have often told you their little stories, Stella. I also have
one to tell you. But as you wish it, let it be when I return.'
'Yes, sir--some evening when we begin to yawn at each other.'
'Very well, madam--when we have worn every subject threadbare.'
'And we have learned to say "Not at all, my dear," with tightening
lips.'
'When the honeymoon is quite over.'
'And the first quarrel an old, well-known story.'
'And poor little Cupid has been sent to weed poppies.'
'And you wonder why you used to call me St. Charity.'
'And life has turned into a blob.'
'Now we must lay down rules. You must not take my words without leave.
You did not know that was in the English language till I used it. Say,
"Dear Stella."'
'Dearest beloved Stella!'
'"Please may I say 'blob'?"'
'Oh, you artful, captivating rogue! Tell me, Stella, how do you manage
to be such a wonderful darling?
'Just because I want you to be in love with me--oh! so much that you
don't know whether you are on your heels or your head.'
'And then?'
'Oh, then you must keep an eye on Cupid at his weeding.'
'Stella, my belovedest, don't encourage yourself to be cruel. It is a
taste that grows on people, like eating opium and stealing umbrellas.'
'That reminds me. Shouldn't I ask you how many of the commandments you
have kept, if any?'
'Certainly not. It is the most dangerous habit a woman can contract,
that of asking questions, more especially when she is going to be
married.'
'Oh, how boldly and brazenly you pronounce the word! How glad I am that
it cannot be for some time!'
'Not so very long, thank God! Let me count on your fingers.'
'Oh no--no, please,' she said, suddenly drawing her hand away.
'But why?'
'Superstition!'
'Ah! Have those beloved fingers of mine--yes, you are mine; you know
you are!--have they been counted before?'
'It is the most dangerous habit a man can contract, that of asking
questions, more especially when he is going to be married.'
'You have said it. Oh, you bold child, how brazenly you repeated the
word! But, Stella----'
'Well, once upon a time, as you know already, I did think of marrying;
but I never loved before.'
'And I, Stella, my darling----'
'Ah, that is part of your story!--ah, of course I know! I have read so
many plays, and then there is Tom and people. How many sonnets did you
write to eyebrows before you were eighteen, let us say?'
'Would you like me to count?'
'No. After all, you couldn't tell what a darling I am if you had not
found how foolish it was to love anyone else.'
'Stella, will you be a good, loving child? Kiss me once of your own
free will.'
'Oh, Anselm--next time, perhaps----'
'Will you really?--and after that?'
'And after that--and on and on till---- Can it ever be a tale too often
told?'
'Never, never! But what has become of my rose? Give me another one.
Let it be a "Stella" rose. What stupid people have the naming of
flowers!'
'Oh, yes! and of most things. If only lovers were among the
convocations that decide saintship, how easily the ultimate distinction
of the Church would be obtained!'
'But the truest saints never get canonized, St. Stella--"ora pro nobis."
Why that stifled sigh, my little heretic?'
'May I not sigh any more when I wish?'
'Yes, while I am away. Oh, I think I must set off to-morrow!'
'So that I may sigh?'
'So that I may return quickly. Ah, Stella darling, I have been waiting
for you so long; and now I have found you--I have found you, in spite of
everything!'
They fell into the sweet, endless repetitions of lovers' talk--grave and
gay by turns. The sun was setting before Langdale could tear himself
away. And then, before he rode off, Stella walked with him to the
passion-flower bridge; and there they lingered till a great white star
glowed in the rose twilight of the west, which spread far up, almost to
the zenith of the sky. This great roseate wave of colour was a
beautiful phenomenon of the season, and increased in brilliancy as the
summer drew near.
'Perhaps it is star-mist, out of which new worlds are to be fashioned,'
said Stella.
'Are you sorry for them, Liebe?'
'No; perhaps after long ages there will be people in them who love each
other as we do--and that will make up for all.'
A proud smile stole over his face as he listened.
'Are you mocking or in earnest, Herzblaettchen?'
'In deadly earnest. I foresee I shall be fearfully serious, Anselm.'
'No, no; you must not be a whit different--that would be a schism I
could not bear. Stella, may I give you an old keepsake?'
'Do you love it very much?'
'Yes; and I have worn it for twelve years.'
'Then you may.'
He detached a small, old-fashioned gold ring from his watch-chain.
'It is a motto ring that was left by an old relative to my favourite
sister Margaret, who gave it to me before her death.'
'Ah! she died?'
'Yes, at eighteen. "A pard-like spirit, beautiful and swift." Do you
know, Liebe, you reminded me of her the first night we met--and
oftentimes since.'
Stella took the ring and kissed it gently.
'I shall wear it next my heart,' she said. 'There is a motto on the
inside--"Amore."'
'Yes. "Amore e 'l cor gentil sono una cosa"--"Love and a noble heart
are one and the same." It is out of the "Vita Nuova."'
'Ah, the great master. From first to last he speaks more nobly of love
than any other of the sons of light.'
'Shall we read him together next spring, Liebe? You know we shall be
old married people by that time. Are you cold, Stella? You seem to
shiver.'
'No; not cold. When you spoke of next spring, someone must have walked
over the earth in which my grave is to be.'
'Oh, Blaettchen, what a weird idea! You should not speak of such a
thing.'
'Yes; we shall read Dante together. But won't that be reversing the
usual order of married people--to be first in the Inferno, and then go
on to Paradise?'
They laughed softly. They were so far removed from the sagging prose,
the dulness, the satiety of the 'usual order of things.' The hour was
one of the charmed soft-footed fairies which come once or twice in the
years of man's earthly pilgrimage--bearing in both hands a cup filled to
the brim with life's costliest wine. The soft rose-glow in the western
heaven thrilled through the transparent atmosphere; the Oolloolloo
babbled merrily on its way, its course as yet unstayed by the fiery
ardours of the approaching summer. A solitary curlew called in the
distance, but near at hand the liquid songs of the little reed-warblers
fell thick and fast, like swift melodious raindrops. They turned at
last towards the house with lingering footsteps.
'How can we meet after this like mere friends, Liebe?' said Langdale, as
they paused at the end of the little passion-flower bridge. 'It is very
good and generous of you only to think of what I could have wished,
but----'
'I would like to see the sort of being that represents me in your
imagination, Anselm. Oh, please don't make a Dalai-lama of me, for you
will be most dreadfully disappointed by-and-bye. Remember that we
propose to face the ordeal of matrimony----'
'I wish to heaven the ordeal were to begin----'
'You must not interrupt--I am going to make a confession.'
'Well, your father confessor is waiting to hear it, and, if possible, to
grant absolution.'
'"Father confessor!" Oh, Anselm, if you could see your own eyes just
now you wouldn't call yourself such names. But don't try to look
different. You are one of the few people who can be happy without
looking foolish. I am quite in earnest. When people have the wrong
sort of profile, they pay a very heavy penalty for being glad. You know
when you cried out on first seeing me--I heard you. I was not
insensible. I could have moved and opened my eyes--at least, I am sure
I could--but I didn't even try.'
'You cruel child! why didn't you?'
'Because--because--I wanted to hear you say "My darling." I was at once
bold and hypocritical.'
'This is too sweet a crime to be lightly forgiven,' said Langdale
gravely.
'Oh, what infatuation! Well, don't you see it was like waylaying
you--surprising you out of your declaration? I ought to be sorry, but I
cannot, for we would have lost this day, and no other could be quite so
perfect. Only let your reason hold good. After all, it concerns only
us two really. And do you not know how I love to fold this secret in my
heart from everyone in the world but you for a little time? I could not
bear to have it profaned all at once. So many women chatter about such
things in a common, callous way. There is Helen's elder sister--a
perfect image of earth--who gossips away perpetually. Her favourite
subject is engagements. You may smile, but I am quite serious. She
asks questions until you feel that you are lying about in fragments;
then she puts you together and begins afresh.'
'Very well, sweet St. Charity, let it be your penance to have your own
way in this.'
'And now, while we walk back to the house, you can practise talking and
looking like a mere friend.'
'In that case, when I speak to you, you must look away.'
'Look away! that is what people in love do in a comedy. Why, the very
magpies would point us out as lovers.'
'But what am I to do when you look at me with those eyes?'
'That is not the way to practise. Devise anecdotes about the weather,
and try to be reasonable once more, for you have suddenly forsworn the
art.'
'There is not the same call for it. You seem to have left off railing
against nature and Providence, and the treacheries of life; remember
what you said about the new world!'
Stella watched him ride away, turning at intervals to look at her till
he was out of sight, and her eyes became suddenly dim with the
thought--'Only eight more days before we must part!'
*CHAPTER XXXVI.*
Yes, these eight lengthening golden spring days swept on with cruel
swiftness. And yet they held so much. The hours in which the heart is
most deeply touched have something of the quality of eternity. They
stretch backward and forward, allying themselves with all that is
deepest and most enduring in human experience. Stella's was one of
those complex, yet essentially feminine, natures which can only be
gradually kindled with love. But when it comes to full being it is a
passion which transforms all life. In place of discord there is harmony
that before lay mute and unsuspected, like Hassan's gold covered over by
common wood. The friendship which had ripened into the perfect blossom
of love had been a very real one. Social intercourse is for the most
part a pitifully shabby concern, in which the ashes of mere existence
smother aspiration, the quick play of fancy, and the sympathetic flow of
thoughts that range beyond merely egotistical aims; an affair in which
men and women largely bear themselves as though they were automata moved
only by the wheels of custom, taking thought mainly for the things that
perish with the using. But fellowship with the kind of vitality which
wakens deeper chords of thought and feeling is as the salt of life.
There were moments at first in which Stella could have found it in her
heart to be sorry that her friend had 'degenerated into a lover.' But
if he had not, how unhappy she would have been! And how much she would
have lost! Even the old faith she had given up seemed in some way
gradually flowing back. When she prayed she no longer lost herself in
weary conjectures as to its futility, doubting that her weak pitiful
words could reach the great Omniscience, whose thought of order was the
fixed law of all the starry hosts, doubting and wondering, till she
seemed to be obliterated in a chaotic universe where nothing seemed
certain but uncertainty.
And these long beautiful days passed without any of the jar and fuss and
congratulation that would have robbed them of their serenity if the
sweet notion of mere friendship had been abandoned. 'Please tell us
about one of your hospital people,' Stella would say, as she often said
before in the presence of her brothers, or their wives. And she would
sit sewing and listening, hardly raising her eyes. There were so many
people she had learned to know in this way--the old Scotch charwoman who
never read fiction because, she said, it was mostly taken up by things
that did not signify for this life or that which is to come; the little
lame boy who told the sister of charity he did not believe God heard
people about legs; the costermonger who had been run over, and whose
wife candidly explained that the Lord had made him 'naterally so silly,'
one could not tell oftentimes whether he was drunk or sober. And when
they were alone after one of these episodes had been talked over, Stella
would say with unaltered demureness, 'Dr. Langdale, do not go into
partnership with your cousin in the West-End.'
'Why not, Miss Stella?' he would say with responding gravity.
'Because you like the poor so much, and'--dropping her voice with a
quick change of manner--'we shall have enough money. And medicine has
the trick of turning into a trade when it makes a big income.'
The 'we' had a magical sound to Langdale. Then sometimes they would
talk of the work on which he had been engaged. At first he persisted he
would tell her nothing about it till his return.
'You have woven so many brilliant fancies about it, St. Charity, and the
reality is such homespun stuff.'
Then she found he had been engaged on a dual task--one a treatise on
some aspects of hypnotism, the other on the conditions of factory
labour. On this she expounded a brilliant plan by which they might be
unified, and so produce a novel with a solid realistic background,
relieved by incidents of ideal romance, in which 'suggestion' should
play the part of the genii.
'Never were so many plots thrown away on a material, semi-Teutonic mind
before,' laughed Langdale.
Before these charmed days were over he could not forbear confiding to
Hector Courtland that his purpose in returning so speedily to Australia
was to visit Fairacre, on which Courtland heartily wished him good luck,
and prophesied that he had a good show, but said not a word to Stella.
He told his wife, however, and she was delighted, but a little provoked
at what she thought was some sort of caprice on Stella's part. She
assumed that Langdale had put his fortune to the touch, and that the
girl was too wayward or too proud--too much in love with her dearly
cherished liberty--to be at once entirely guided by her heart.
'She will be sorry when he is gone, and it serves her right,' she said,
a little vindictively.
'Oh, Stella may as well have a good long think over it; she is just the
sort of girl that might be happier single all her life,' returned her
brother meditatively. He fully adopted his wife's opinion, without,
however, ascribing his sister's supposed action to caprice.
'Oh, you think Stella means all those wicked little speeches she makes
about marriage?' said the wife.
'Well, she means some of them, or they would not occur to her,' returned
Hector, with a touch of that fine discrimination which often
characterizes reticent natures.
Mrs. Courtland's resentment was not of a serious nature, and, indeed,
chiefly took the form of contriving to give the friends that solitude _a
deux_ which so often leads to a change of programme, and even of life.
Thus, on the afternoon of the day preceding Stella's departure, the two,
after strolling for some little time with Mrs. Courtland and Mrs. Claude
among the rose-trees by the Oolloolloo, found themselves left alone,
heartlessly deserted by their companions. It was the fourteenth of
September. The season was dry and warm, and already the time of roses
had begun at Lullaboolagana. Some were out very early, some were half
open, some just in bud, but all of them were very lovely. The white and
pale cream Banksias were out in clustering festoons against walls and
espaliers; there were tall standard rose-trees of Fortune's yellow,
cloth of gold, white and pink moss, the Safrano and the generous old
cabbage--all were loaded with opening roses. The Ophiric, with its
shining, unserrated leaves and roses of pale flame, the delicate yellow
of the Narcisse, the camellia-like pure pink of the Princesse de Hazel,
were among those that were opening earlier. The Solfataro, too, with
its large, greenish-white buds, pale, wax-yellow when they first
unclose, but later white as the breast of a sea-gull; La Brillante, with
its fiery, coal-like buds; the Gloire de Dijon, dark-red in early
infancy--all were slipping their sheaths and coyly uncurling their outer
petals. Dry as the season might be, the roses never lacked for water in
the Lullaboolagana Home Field. They were its great glory--the joy of
its mistress and the pride of Dunstan's heart. There were stations not
twenty miles away in which roses paled and dwindled like rare exotics
under an inclement sky. But here on the banks of the little Oolloolloo,
and all within the spacious field, they bloomed early and late.
'How do you manage it, Dunstan?' visitors used to say in wondering
admiration; and the old man, who was careful always to conceal his
pride, would reply:
'Oh, it's the sile as does it--the sile and the creek and the
underground tank and the tubing. You see, if I say to the mistress, "I
wants this or that--or the t'other must be done," why, there 'tis, you
know. 'Course, I don't say that I'm a born jackass, and don't know that
one rose wants to be treated one way and another quite contrairy.'
Gardening was a topic on which Dunstan was never unwilling to enlarge
when Stella spoke to him as he worked in the Home Field. He did so on
this afternoon, when she stood lost in admiration of a young Murray
wattle, whose great golden racemes, drooping one over the other, all the
folds of the wide woolly tufts fully open, formed a sight of exceeding
joy.
'Yes, 'tis purty fair,' he said, giving it a sidelong look; 'and yet, if
I hadn't a-pruned it a bit last season and given it more water, 'twould
have give up the ghost. A man may put as much work inter ground as
would make trees and flowers spring up like shiverin' grass, and he may
get naught but barrenness, if so be his work isn't what it should be.
'Tis for all the world like a man going out shootin', Miss Stelly. He
may fire away till he's black in the face, and yet not bring home a
crow's feather--like Bill Wilton, who's so fond of carryin' a gun--why,
the Lord only knows, if it's not to show how much powder and shot may be
wasted, and no harm to any creature with a wing, though I've known him
to graze the tail-end of a bullock pretty bad. 'Twas after that I was
out with him once at Swamp Desolation, and he kep' on blazing away in
such a permiscous way, I said to him at larst, sez I, "Look here, Bill,
if you're to go on firing like that, I must go into the swamp and sit
down among the wild ducks; 'tis the only spot where I'll be sure of a
whole skin."'
Stella, who had stayed behind her companions to talk to Dunstan, was
laughing merrily over this incisive illustration, when Langdale came
back alone; and then the two wandered by the Oolloolloo, whose silvery
whispering was growing fainter day by day.
'Teach me before we part, ever belovedest, how I am to live so long
without seeing you or hearing you laugh!' said Langdale, as they stood
to watch the ripple of the wind among the tender leaflets of a
beech-tree. 'Don't sigh, Stella. See what a perfect love-day has been
sent us to-day by----'
'Heaven--say Heaven, not Nature, Anselm. A little while ago I kept
wondering what they could grow in heaven lovelier than a Murray wattle
and rose-buds. And now look up there, where tiny flakes of cloud
leaflets seem to be floating. They are really young angels, who are
waiting for an excuse to come down.'
'Do they despair of seeing people as happy up there as here? But tell
them, Liebe--for they will hear your slightest whisper--if they want to
see perfect happiness, to come all the way down next spring. Do you
remember what brave old Homer puts in the mouth of Ulysses when he
wishes that Nausicaa may be happily married?--"Nothing is better or more
beautiful than when a man and a woman inhabit a house being one in
heart."'
'We must not have too many possessions, Anselm. People get so fearfully
stupid--so swallowed up in furniture. It would be adorable to start life
like Hassan the camel-driver, with a cruse of water and a plume of
curled feathers.'
'You often gibe, Liebstes Herz, at the commonplace, as though it were a
penal settlement; but I confess I have often seen a day-labourer return
to his home at night with feelings akin to envy.'
'Dear darling, you have often been lonely, and I wasn't there to comfort
you. But after this----'
'Tell me, Stella, when I return home will you hasten to meet me, walking
buoyantly on the fore-part of your feet like a figure in antique
sculpture, as you walked among the rose-trees just now? Come and sit in
this charming little summer-house--all one mass of jasmine and
passion-flowers! Why, Stella, my darling--good God, you are crying!'
'Anselm, how foolish of you to be alarmed because I shed a few tears!
Did you think I never, never cried? I believe Cuthbert is quite pleased
when he sees me reduced to tears. Not that he has witnessed me often in
that plight. You see, we were so much together, and, as boys do not cry,
I got quite out of the habit.'
'But, my child, all this does not explain why you weep now.
Herzblaettchen, I cannot bear to see you anything but gay--or smilingly
serious.'
'It is because we are too happy, Anselm. All day it comes over me
afresh every now and then like a great wave of incredible gladness.
Sometimes I cannot sleep, thinking it is all too like a fairy-tale. The
first thing in the morning, before I open my eyes, my heart begins to
beat wildly for joy--every bird that sings has a lilt in its song to
which I could dance; and then in the middle of it all comes a sudden
shiver of fear. Ah, there are such frightful accidents--such
catastrophes in life! I think of my old friend Stanhope cut off in a
few days! It all came up so vividly last night.'
'And the tears are in your eyes still, you fearless, fun-loving little
Australian, with strong roots of the Keltic melancholy and superstition
lying deep under all. Get a "paquerette," and pluck the leaves to see
how I worship you. Daisy petals are truer than dreams.'
He drew her close within his arms. Here she was safe. Here the billows
of life's bitter waters could not reach or affright her. The jasmine
summer-house was over-arched by a tall white poplar, whose young leaves
with fair silver lining quivered on the slender stalks with as swift a
motion as on the day that the old Greek poet compared the maidens to
them who spun late and early in the household of King Alcinous. Through
the roof of leaves and blossoms overhead, and the poplar limbs with
their mist of tender leaves, the blue crystalline dome of the sky could
be seen, stretching above all like a great benign smile. How peaceful
it all was! How much more reasonable to believe the waking assurances
of earth and sky than the vague presentiments of a sleeping girl!
'O gentle wind, that bloweth south,
From where my love repaireth,
Convey a kiss from his dear mouth,
And tell me how he fareth.'