her,' the young man said meditatively. He had many good qualities, and
withal a liberal estimate of his own abilities. This had long been a
subject of serio-comic treatment with Stella.
'I hope Stella won't alter much,' returned Alice, who was embroidering a
chair-back for her own future home. 'I began to think she never would
accept Ted----'
'I think she is a very lucky girl, if you ask me. Ritchie simply
worships the ground she treads on. And she must be fond of him, though
she so long kept up that indifferent way. Why, these last few days at
home she spends most of the time with him on horseback.'
Now the last few days had passed, and to-morrow was the wedding-day.
Stella sat in the little library on a footstool at her mother's feet.
Both windows were open; through one Banksia roses were drooping in heavy
cream-coloured clusters; through the other a microphylla rosebush
peeped, with its thick foliage of small green leaves, long-spiked buds
unclosing, and roses fully blown with deep-pink hearts, and outer petals
deadly pale. The sun was setting in golden splendour, and all the
atmosphere was warm and rosy; the lovely Adelaide Hills had caught the
glow all along their crests with magical effect. The pigeons were
flying to their cotes in scores, and the soft beating of their wings in
the garden clove the air like silken banners.
'There is one thing that troubles me a little, darling,' the mother
said, in her tender voice, with its soft Celtic intonations; 'I thought
on your wedding-day you would communicate. It would be possible to do
that with our old friend the Archdeacon, though you have not been
confirmed. I should like you to enter on your new life by drawing near
the visible Church.'
'Mother, I cannot,' answered the girl, with averted face, as she held
her mother's hand in both hers.
'Well, my child, you are in God's hands. I do not fear but you will yet
find Him who is the soul's most precious possession. In our span of
life the rose is ever neighbour with the thorn--the web woven with
threads not all of our choosing. And yet God grants us to reap our
hundredfold even in this life. In marriage itself, when two hearts and
souls cleave together, what deep and sacred happiness has He not granted
to us!'
A burning flame of colour rose and spread over the girl's face. How
unjustifiable did her marriage appear to her in the white light of her
mother's life--one consecrated throughout with fidelity to the higher
ideals that sway human conduct.
But she sternly kept the feeling in check. She reflected that for the
majority of human beings the best possibilities of life never blossom
into fruit. Her marriage had no element of ideal perfection; it
belonged merely to the common ruck of such arrangements. And, on the
whole, it was the best scheme of existence open to both. 'Ted loves
me,' she thought; 'and if I can never love him in the same way, I can at
least tolerate him, and be faithful to him even in thought. It was
never possible for the women of our race to be otherwise.... And then I
am safe from the slow canker of disillusionment. Perhaps, in the years
to come, I may find it possible to think of--of the spring days at
Lullaboolagana as a beautiful dream happily secured from the corrosion
of actual life.'
There was a burning flush on her cheeks and a hard brilliancy in her
eyes, as she raised her head and put her arms round her mother's neck.
'My darling, wherever you may be, morning and night join your thoughts
with mine in prayer,' said her mother. 'And when moments of perplexity
come to you, never forget the words, "In your patience ye shall win your
souls."'
'In your patience'--the words haunted her strangely in the silent
watches of the night. Patience, the great keynote of Nature: of God, so
far as we can apprehend Him; of man, so far as he can rise to accomplish
aught that is to nourish or deliver his kind. That old Gospel of the
discipline of sorrow and pain, how fiercely she had come to spurn it, to
turn from it as the rock on which human lives were ineffectually offered
up! A very Moloch that demanded all, and gave in return a grave and
pale glimmering of a future life so far removed from earth and sense
that its possession was a very doubtful gain. And yet--and
yet--patience and sorrow, what nobility has man attained without these?
what steadfast purpose has he achieved? Would the years here have been
in truth so unbearable as she had pictured, surrounded with all the
precious charities of serene home-life? At last, in utter impatience,
she turned from all these doubts and questions as mere rags of rhetoric
that hid from her the true bearings of what her life would become.
'It is because I am going to leave it all that there seems to be healing
in the thought of resignation, and leisured quiet, and daily communion
with Nature and great thoughts. There would be no end to these eventless
days, and the prospect stretching out before me would have frozen me
into one of those whimlings to whom nothing is so real as the wan
promises of joy that fade into nothing. It has always made me
incredibly dreary when I have seen people stranded in some little inlet
of existence; growing gray and faded in trying to persuade themselves
that life is not without savour because once on a time they were going
to be happy--they were going to hear music, but the harmony never began.
With Ted I shall at least keep hold on some of the realities of life.'
She even laughed a little as she recalled the way in which Ted had
attempted to reconcile her to the prospect of being so much in his
society--reasoning on the subject in his eminently practical, direct way
as they rode that morning beyond Coromandel Valley. She had lingered,
looking at the views so familiar and well-loved from childhood. Wide
fertile valleys irradiated with running water, dotted with prosperous
homesteads, folded in by vines, and olives, and fig-trees, surrounded by
fertile fields and orchards; sloping hillsides clothed with slender
white-stemmed gum-trees; gullies masked with the unbroken shadow of
tall, slim stringy bark trees, growing so thick together that one could
scarcely walk between them. And then those first glimpses of the silver
line of the sea on their return, sparkling in the distance through the
quiet shadowy woods like the beginning of a fresh mysterious world. How
often had the sight thrilled her with thoughts of the great old classic
countries, famous in song and story, which lay far beyond those
countless leagues of dividing water--countries whose history and stores
of man's highest achievements make so strong a claim on spirits touched
to sympathy with the wider issues of human life. All was now within her
reach; but as she looked her farewells at these primeval woods, at the
calm, beautiful, uncommemorated scenes of her native land, a great pain
had fastened upon her heart--a pain, dull, deep, and insatiable, that
made her pulses beat slowly, mechanically, as if it were sapping her
life-blood.
'Don't look like that, Stella,' Ted had said, after a long silence.
'You will see these places all again as often as you like. We can spend
part of each summer among the hills. Did you know my father is going to
settle Wattle Cottage on you--that pretty little house on one of the
spurs of Mount Lofty?'
'Oh, mercy, Ted! is there no end to the possessions that are to be
heaped on me? And then I must not even take the liberty of looking a
little sad, because I am a glorified edition of Curly-locks!'
'Who was Curly-locks? But don't tell me if it's one of those wretched
little yarns you make up, with some sort of a ghost in them.'
'No--there is never a ghost, or a banshee, or a lost soul in
Curly-locks. It is quite after your own heart:
'"Curly-locks, Curly-locks, wilt thou be mine?
Thou shalt not wash dishes, nor yet feed the swine;
But sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam,
And feed upon strawberries, sugar and cream."'
'But the girl after my heart is fonder of a saddle than a cushion. I
was reading a novel the other night, Stella, and there was something in
it about a strong bond of sympathy between the young man and woman who
did most of the spooning. I'm not sure I know exactly what the fellow
meant, but don't you think it's a bond of sympathy between us two that
we are both so fond of horses?'
Stella recalled all this, and some more seriously personal talk that
followed. After all, she reflected, there could be no one else in the
whole world she would marry without being in love with him, except Ted.
In the midst of these thoughts she fell fast asleep. Alas! the
mysterious phantasies of dreamland were not so reasonable and reassuring
as her last waking thoughts. She dreamt one of those life-like, vivid,
consecutive dreams with which she had become increasingly familiar of
late. She was at Lullaboolagana, out in the Home Field, walking with
Anselm Langdale. 'My beloved, there is no one between us--no one,' he
was saying. 'To-morrow is our wedding-day. Come and get a wreath of
the hymenosperum. That is what I want you to wear instead of
orange-blossom.'
They went down beyond the Oolloolloo close to the orchard, and, lo!
there was the hymenosperum sheeted with blossoms, and all around the air
was rent with songs of birds, and the whole world was glad and
surpassingly lovely--even like the holy city, the new Jerusalem, which
John saw coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned
for her husband. How wide and full was the tide of joy that welled up
in her heart! How starry and fragrant were the flowers they plucked
together for her bridal wreath! The sun was warm in their faces, but
they could not have too much of these slender, pale cream blossoms. She
heard herself laughing happily; and then Anselm held her face to his,
and kissed her repeatedly.
'My darling, I am so glad to hear you laugh so on your wedding morning.'
It was her mother who was kissing her softly.
'Oh, it is quite true, then; it is my wedding-day!' said the girl,
starting up, her face dyed with happy blushes.
And then her mother kissed her once again, and gently left her, thanking
God that her fears had been misplaced. For on the previous evening some
curious misgiving had crept into her mind. But now she knew that all
was well.
Ritchie had called a little after sunrise with a magnificent bridal
bouquet, composed entirely of white fairy rosebuds shaded with
maidenhair fern. The mother had taken it softly into her daughter's
room. The windows looking eastward were wide open, and the blinds up,
according to Stella's invariable custom. The sunrays were falling on
her face, which was flushed and radiant like a child's. The mother's
heart leaped with grateful joy; and when she heard Stella, still
slumbering, break into a ripple of silvery laughter, she could not
resist stooping to kiss her awake.
'Thank God my child is so happy!' she murmured gently, as she closed the
door behind her.
*CHAPTER XLIV.*
Summer threatened to set in early this season. On the fourteenth of
October, two days before the Ritchies were to sail, a high easterly hot
wind was blowing, and there was something of tropical ardour in the sun.
It was exhaustingly unseasonable weather. At Monico Lodge the Venetian
blinds of the veranda were closely drawn, and there was that hushed,
darkened aspect throughout the house which almost cheats us into
believing that without the sky is gray and cool.
'I do envy you, Stella--going straight into the middle of a northern
winter,' said Laurette, fanning herself slowly with a wide fan of gray
curled ostrich-feathers. She sat opposite to her sister-in-law in the
drawing-room, and as she noticed the sharpened outline of her face, and
the hectic flush that burned steadily in her cheeks, she was devoutly
thankful that the newly-married pair would soon be afloat.
'She is quite capable of having a downright fever,' thought Laurette,
'but the sea-breezes will prevent all that.'
It was indeed curious to notice how the few weeks that had elapsed since
Stella left Lullaboolagana had subtly changed the character and
expression of her face. The cold look which sometimes marked it before
when in repose had hardened into an air of listless hauteur. When she
smiled, her eyes, instead of sparkling and gleaming with soft radiance,
remained brilliantly hard and unmoved. We are at times almost appalled
by the scornful disdain imprinted on women's countenances. Do not let
us judge them harshly. Tolerance is not the prerogative of the weaker
sex, but often their most savage bigotry of blame is directed against
the _role_ into which they have been cheated by circumstance and their
own fatal impatience of suffering. It is not shallow and wilful
disesteem of others that makes the hardest lines in their faces, when
the tie which is the fount of all human tenderness proves to them an
intolerable bond.
'If the summer is to go on from now till March, we certainly must take a
little cottage at St. Kilda or Brighton,' Laurette went on, raising her
voice a little, doubting whether Stella heard the first remark. Before
she could make any response to this the door was hastily opened and Ted
came in.
'Isn't Stella here?' he cried--not seeing her at first in the shadowy
corner in which she sat with an open book, whose leaves she did not
turn. 'Oh, there you are, Curly-locks! Why the deuce do you make the
house like a cave, Larry?' he cried, turning to his sister.
'I'll go and amend my ways this instant,' said Laurette, gliding out of
the room.
'You mustn't make the room any lighter,' said Stella in a languid voice.
'Why, I thought you were so fond of light and heat. I've often found you
in blazing December weather out in the Fairacre garden sitting in the
shade without even a hat on. But I'm only too glad, Curly-locks, to hear
you wish for anything; besides, I'm going away for the rest of the day,
if you can spare me.'
'Oh yes. Where are you going?'
'To Randwick with two or three other fellows. And do you know, Stella,
I'm going to sell Konrad and four or five more colts. I expect John
Morton will be here before I get back. Now, before I go would you mind
telling me your new name? No larks, Stella. Say your proper go-ashore,
newspaper name.'
'Ted, don't be tiresome; and try not to look so complacently, abominably
glad. It makes my eyes ache. Most people never look so silly as when
they are pleased.'
Ted laughed in an exultant way.
'By George! I hope I'll always look silly in that way. Do you know,
Stella, you haven't asked me to do a single thing for you since we were
married yesterday.'
'Yesterday! Three hundred and fifty-six years ago! What frightful lies
people tell about life being so short!'
'Well, now that I think of it, it is a week and a day. But in sober
earnest, Stella, do tell me one little morsel I can do for you. I'm
aching all over to do something you would like. Now, didn't I tell you
that was for good-luck?' he said, touching the pearl-brooch at her
throat.
'Send me back, with Dustiefoot and Maisie, to Strathhaye till you
return.'
'And me go to foreign countries without you? I meant something that I
could do, Stella. But of course you are joking--you sly little
Curly-locks! Do you know what you said in your sleep last night?'
Ted's face was wreathed with smiles; but though the flush on her cheeks
did not die away, a certain pallor deepened about Stella's mouth and
eyes.
'Did I speak in my sleep? I don't think I used to. What a dangerous
accomplishment to evolve!'
'Dangerous? I think it is very jolly, when you are so proud, turning
your cheek to me when I want to kiss you. But, you see, I don't mind
when you give yourself away in your dreams, calling me by such fond
names!'
'You are making that up as you go along, Ted,' she said, with lowered
eyes.
'Upon my soul, I am not. You moaned a little. I thought you were
having a bad dream, and I stroked your cheek; and then you sighed and
said--I heard it quite distinctly--"Dear little leaf of my heart!" Now,
you know, you never said anything half as pretty as that to me awake.
There, don't go so scarlet! I won't bring it up against you, if you put
your two arms around me and say, "I want you not to stay too long away,
Ted," and open that little parcel when you are tired of reading.'
Reading! What book has ever been written that can enchain the mind when
the heart is throbbing with feverish despair--when the face is blistered
with a sense of scorching shame? Yes, she had put up her hands and
whispered the words after him in the quiet darkened room; and even in
the act it rose up before her like one of the scenes in the 'Inferno'
which stamp themselves on the mind of those who are intimate with
Dante's 'Divine' poem, like lurid pictures that have been absolutely
witnessed. She seemed to see herself among those who smote their hands
despairingly above their heads, borne along in ceaseless tumult in the
atmosphere eternally darkened as with sand driven by the whirlwind. A
sudden catch came in her breath. She unfastened a slender ribbon that
was fastened low on her neck, and drew out the ring that she had daily
worn against her heart since the evening she had parted from Langdale.
She kissed it as a mother kisses the face of her dead child! 'No, no,
no!--I must not wear it,' she moaned; 'I must drive all this away from
me. Sleeping and waking I become more enslaved with these memories. I
thought to drive them from me by brute strength--to put a barrier
between them and my heart; and in place of that they overwhelm me in my
sleep--they come back as to a chamber swept and garnished. And now I
learn to juggle and deceive. O God, God!--save me from the leprosy of
falsehood to which I have been betrayed!'
Yes, it was true. She had fought down soul and instinct find memory
with ruthless violence; but Nature is not to be lightly trifled with.
She has strange Nemesis powers which find their own modes of reprisal.
What the girl in her ignorance had dreamt would turn her love and fierce
jealousy into a forsworn, perjured and impossible passion had but opened
its floodgates. The moment sleep came to her the uncontrolled visions
of unconsciousness, the mysterious play of the brain which lies awake
and remembers, and keeps time to the beating of the heart, and calls up
all the masking simulacrum of life apart from our volition, practised
the cruellest treacheries upon her. Forces which had hitherto lain
dormant in her nature pulsed into being only to reinforce her forbidden
love.
The thought of Ted's untroubled confidence smote on her conscience with
intolerable pain. She saw, as with a lightning-flash of insight, all
the falsity and degradation of her position. She would tell him
all--she must; he was good and generous to her, he would have patience
with her, he would give her time to live down the past.... This double,
treacherous existence was impossible. It would be terrible to speak to
him of Langdale--but she would make him understand. He had implored her
to let him do something for her, and he would not go back from this wish
when he knew all. She would make her confession, and appeal to him....
Something of relief came gradually with the thought. The adamant
reserve with which she had guarded this terrible crisis of her life had
been part of her crushing burden. Yes, Ted would forgive her; and when
the keenness of anguish and memory had passed away, she would be a true
and loyal wife to him. She might still prove in a faltering, imperfect
way, that love and a noble life are one.... There was a white gauze
scarf looped and interwoven in front of the pale cashmere morning dress
she wore. She detached this scarf, and taking the ring with the narrow
white ribbon to which it was fastened, she enveloped it, fold upon fold.
'I will not look at it again for long years.' A sudden thought came to
her that she would think of Langdale as dead--dead and taken from her
for evermore. 'Oh, my love! my love! my love!' she cried, putting down
her head, and suddenly her tears fell like summer rain.
She was weeping for the dead. Yes, he was really dead to her--the lover
from whom she had parted on that serene night when heaven was flooded as
with the twilight of dawn, and the soft mystic glow crept in through the
interlaced foliage which hung round the veranda of that quiet house near
the borders of the Peeloo Plain. Never again would they stand
hand-in-hand looking with radiant faces to the years that were to be all
their own. It was a crime to love him; but she might weep for him. She
would tame this wild passion which came stealthily back in the visions
of the night, when reason was drugged with the poppies of sleep, and
conscience had relaxed its vigilance. Day by day she would think of
silent graves, and of departed ones who return no more. Her whole frame
was convulsed with a storm of sobs. She gave herself up to her long
pent-up grief, till its very intensity brought some ray of consolation.
She had been so hard, and bitter, and scornful--but she must weep for
her dead; she must try and creep back to God, whom she had disbelieved
and forgotten. He had wounded her so incurably; it must be that He knew
of her poor, maimed, anguish-stricken existence.... Let the bells toll,
and dust be given back to dust, and let her bow her head and her heart
in submissive prayer. Even if God does not care for us, we must still
stumble back to Him when the billows of dark despair dash against the
frail skiff in which we are launched on the wild, uncertain sea of life.
She had joined the sorrow-smitten throng--the great army of earth's
bereaved ones. The inextinguishable craving of the heart for communion
in prayer overcame her. Crouching low, with folded hands and
tear-stained face, the words rose to her lips, joining her petitions
with those others, beaten and chastised as she was:
'Our Father who art in heaven, forgive the days of utter rebellion and
agony and despair. Forgive the storms of unlighted darkness that toss
our souls; those for whom we poor stricken ones mourn are in Thy
keeping--safe from the world's slow stain, from the infirmities of old
age, from the bitterness of disillusion, from the subtle decay of
enthusiasm for all that is good and great. They have reached a
continuing city; they are bathed in the light of everlasting life. The
currents of time and change, the distraction and vainglory and delusion
of the world--these touch them no more forever.
'Our Father, we would that Thy will were ours.... We would fain lift up
our eyes to Thee, but they are blinded with tears. Yet let us come to
Thee, Infinite Source of all good, though our only offering is that of a
bruised and broken and sinful heart. The pangs of loneliness and
isolation; the rapturous dream of happiness changed into a sword within
the bosom; the desolation of days emptied of joy--these are the poor
oblations that we bring. Yet may they become to us an inspiration and a
stay. When the cruel waves of anguish overcome us; when despair, like
an angry sea, threatens to engulf us; when the heavens are dark and
starless; when the earth seems empty of all that makes it endurable;
when it seems given over to the hopeless mediocrity of natures mildewed
with commonness in aim, intention, and achievement; when our days
stretch before us blank and purposeless, spent and disconnected,
unmeaning and futile as grains of quicksand that a great storm has borne
far inland; when hope is dead and faith far off, and fears troop round
us like a horde of plotting rebels, saying: There is no God--no soul--no
immortality; when the mind is flooded with unbearable recollections of
lost joy; when we are listless and indifferent, and overcome with
fruitless grief--then, O Kindly Light! let thoughts of Thee and of the
great souls whom Thou hast vivified enlarge our natures and illuminate
our minds.'
Her sobs died into silence, the bitterness of her grief was spent. The
door was opened, but she could only half raise her head, and Tareling,
who caught one swift glimpse of her--her face pallid, grief-stricken,
and tear-stained--as she crouched in silence like some dumb creature
mortally wounded, retreated noiselessly with a startled, almost
horrified look. He was in search of Laurette, to make some arrangements
for the evening, before he went to his office. He met her in the hall.