The tall, soldierly young figure was standing motionless and stiff, as
though on guard, on the river-shore beyond the bend. Whatever
apprehensions, whatever regrets, whatever fears may have warred within
Beauvayse, whatever consciousness may have been his of having taken an
irrevocable step, bound to bring disgrace and reproach, sorrow, and
repentance upon the innocent as upon the guilty, he showed no sign as he
came to meet them, and lifted the Service felt from his golden head, and
held out an eager hand for Lynette's. She gave it shyly, and with the
thrill of contact Beauvayse's last scruple fled. He turned his beautiful,
flushed face and shining eyes upon the Mother, and asked with grave
simplicity:
"Ma'am, is not this mine?"
"First tell me, do you know that there is nothing in it?"
Her stern eyes searched his. He laughed and said, as he kissed the slender
hand:
"It holds everything for me!"
"Another question. Are you aware that my ward is a Catholic?"
"My wife will be of my mother's faith. I would not have her of any other."
The Mother gave Beauvayse her own hand then, that was marred by many deeds
of charity, but still beautiful.
Those two, linked together for a moment in their mutual love of her, made
for Lynette a picture never to be forgotten. Then Beauvayse said, in the
boyish tone that made the man irresistible:
"You have made me awfully happy!"
"Make her happy," the Mother answered him, with a tremble in her rich,
melancholy tones, "and I ask no more."
Her own heart was bleeding, but she drew her black draperies over the
wound with a resolute hand. Was not here a Heaven-sent answer to all her
prayers for her beloved? she asked herself, as she looked at the girl.
Eyes that beamed so, cheeks that burned with as divine a rose, had looked
back at Lady Biddy Bawne out of her toilet-glass, upon the night of that
Ascot Cup-Day, when Richard had asked her to be his wife. But Richard's
eyes had never worn the look of Beauvayse's. Richard's hand had never so
trembled, Richard's face had never glowed like this. Surely here was Love,
she told herself, as they went back to the place of trodden grass where
the tea-making had been.
The Sisters, basket and trestle-laden, were already in the act of
departure. The black circle of the dead fire marked where the giant kettle
had sung its hospitable song. Little Miss Wiercke and her long-locked
organist, the young lady from the Free Library and her mining-engineer,
had strolled away townwards, whispering, and arm-in-arm; the Mayor's wife
was laying the dust with tears of joy as she trudged back to the Women's
Laager beside a husband who pushed a perambulator containing a small boy,
who had waked up hungry and wanted supper; the Colonel and Captain Bingo
Wrynche had been summoned back to Staff Headquarters, and a pensive little
black-eyed lady in tailor-made alpaca and a big grey hat, who was sitting
on a tree-stump knocking red ants out of her white umbrella, as those
three figures moved out of the shadows of the trees, jumped up and hurried
to meet them, prattling:
"I couldn't go without saying a word.... You have been so beset with
people all the afternoon that I never got a chance to put my oar in. Dear
Reverend Mother, everything has gone off so well. No clergyman will ever
preach again about Providence spreading a table in the wilderness without
my coming back in memory to to-day. May we walk back together? I am a mass
of ants, and mosquito-bitten to a degree, but I don't think I ever enjoyed
myself so much. No, Lord Beauvayse, the path is narrow, and I have a
perfect dread of puff-adders. Please go on before us with Miss Mildare.
No!... Oh, what ...? You haven't ...?"
It was then that Lady Hannah dropped the white umbrella and clapped her
hands for joy. Something of mastery and triumph in the young man's face,
something in the pale radiance of the girl's, something of the mingled joy
and anguish of the pierced maternal heart shining in the Mother's great
grey eyes, had conveyed to the exultant little woman that the plant that
had thriven upon the arid soil of Gueldersdorp had borne a perfect blossom
with a heart of ruby red.
"Oh, you dears! you two beautiful dears! how happy you look!" she crowed.
"I must kiss you both!" She did it. "Say that this isn't to be kept
secret!" She clasped her tiny hands with exaggerated entreaty. "For the
sake of the _Gueldersdorp Siege Gazette_, and its seven hundred
subscribers all perishing for news, tell me I may let the cat out of the
bag in my next Weekly Column. Only say that people may know!"
As her black eyes snapped at Beauvayse, and her tiny hands dramatically
entreated, he had an instant of hesitation, palpable to one who stood by.
In an instant he pulled himself together.
"The whole world may know, as far as I am concerned."
"It is best," said the Mother's soft, melodious voice, "that our world, at
least, should know."
"And when--oh, when Is It To Be?" begged Lady Hannah.
Confound the woman! Why could she not let well alone? A sullen anger
burned in Beauvayse as he said, and not in the tone of the ardent lover:
"As soon as we can possibly manage it."
The Mother's voice said, coldly and clearly:
"I do not approve of long engagements. If the marriage takes place, it
must be soon."
With the consciousness of one who is impelled to take a desperate leap,
Beauvayse found himself saying:
"It cannot be too soon."
"Then ... before the Relief?" cried Lady Hannah, and Beauvayse heard
himself answering:
"If Lynette agrees?"
The rapture of submission in her look was intoxicating. He reached out his
hand and laid it lightly on her shoulder. Then, without another word, they
went on together, and the tall, soldierly figure in brown, and the
slender shape in the green skirt and little white coat, with the dainty
plumed hat crowning the squirrel-coloured hair, were seen in darkening
relief against the flaming orange of the sky.
"A Wedding under Fire. Bridal Ceremony in a Beleaguered City," murmured
the enthusiastic journalist. Her gold fountain-pen, hanging at her
chatelaine, seemed to wriggle like a thing of life, as she imagined
herself aiding, planning, assisting at, and finally sitting down to
describe the ceremony and the wedding-veil on the little Greek head. She
babbled as her quick, bird-like gait carried her along beside the tall,
stately-moving figure in the black habit:
"Dear Bridget ... I may call you that for the sake of old days?"
"If you like."
"This must make you very happy. Society mothers of marriageable daughters
will tear their transformations from their heads, and dance upon them in
despair, when they hear that Beau _s'est range_. But that I don't hold
forth to worldly ears I would enlarge upon the immense social advantages
of such a union for that dear child."
"Of course, I am aware that it is an excellent match."
Were her ears so unworldly? The phrase rankled in her conscience like a
thorn. And in what respect were those Society mothers less managing than
the nun? she asked herself. Could any of them have been more astute, more
eager, more bent on hooking the desirable _parti_ for their girls than she
had shown herself just now? And was this, again, an unworldly voice
whispering to her that the publicity ensured by a paragraph penned by this
gossip-loving little lady would fix him even more securely, bind him more
strongly, make it even less possible for him to retreat, should he desire
it--by burning his boats behind him, so that he had no alternative but to
go on? She sickened with loathing of herself. But for her there was no
retreat either. Here Lady Hannah helped her unawares. With a side-glance
at the noble face beside her, pale olive-hued, worn and faded beyond the
age of the woman by her great labours and her greater griefs, the arched
black eyebrows sprinkled of late with grey, the eyelids thin over the
mobile eyeballs, purpled with lack of sleep and secret, bitter weeping,
the close-folded, deeply cut, eloquent mouth withered like a
japonica-bloom that lingers on in frost, the strong, salient chin framed
in the snowy, starched _guimpe_, she faltered:
"You don't shy at the notion of the par--the announcement in the _Siege
Gazette_, I mean?..."
"Upon the contrary, I approve of it," said the Mother, and walked on very
fast, for the bells of the Catholic Church were ringing for Benediction.
"Is it good-night, or may I come in?" Beauvayse whispered to Lynette in
the porch.
She dipped her slender fingers in the little holy-water font beside the
door, and held them out to him.
"Come in," she answered, and held white, wet fingers out to him. He
touched them with a puzzled smile.
"Am I to----? Ah, I remember!"
Their eyes met, and the golden radiance in hers passed into his blood. He
bared his high, fair head as she made the sign of the Cross, and followed
her in and up the nave as Father Wix, in purple Lenten stole over the
snowy cotta starched and ironed by Sister Tobias's capable hands, began to
intone the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary. The Sisters were already in
their places--a double row of black-draped figures, the Mother at the end
of the first row, Lady Hannah in the chair beside her, where Lynette had
always sat until now. It was not without a pang that the one saw her place
usurped by a stranger; it was piercing pain to the other to feel the
strange presence at her side. But something had already come between these
two, dividing them. Something invisible, impalpable as air, but
nevertheless thrusting them apart with a force that might not be resisted.
Only the elder of the two as yet knew clearly what it meant. The younger
was too dizzy with her first heady draught from the cup of joy, held to
her lips by the strong, beautifully-shaped brown hand that rested on
Beauvayse's knee as he sat, or propped up Beauvayse's chin as he knelt,
stiff as a young crusader on a monument, beside her. But the Mother knew.
Would not the God Who had been justly offended in her, His vowed servant,
that day, exact to the last tittle the penalty? She knew He would.
Rosary ended, the thin, kind-eyed little elderly priest preached, taking
for the text of his discourse the Introit from the Office of
Quinquagesima.
"_Esto mihi in Deum protectorum, et in locum refugii, ut salvum me
facias._"
"Be Thou unto me a God, a protector, and a place of refuge, to save me:
for Thou art my strength...."
Then the _O Salutaris_ was sung, and followed by the Litany of the Holy
Name.
The church was crowded. A Catholic congregation is always devout, but
these people, well-dressed or ill-dressed, prosperous or poor, pale-faced
and hollow-eyed every one, joined in the office with passion. The
responses came like the beating of one wave of human anguish upon the Rock
of Ages.
"_Have mercy on us!_"
Hungry, they cried to One Who had hungered. Sinking with weariness, they
appealed to One Who had known labours, faintings, agonies, and
desolations.
"_Have mercy on us!_"
He had drunk of Death for them, had been buried and had risen again.
Death was all about them. They could hear the beating of his wings, could
see the red sweep of his blood-wet, dripping scythe. And they prayed as
they had never prayed before these things befell:
"_Have mercy on us!_"
They sang the _Tantum Ergo_, and the cloud of incense rose from the censer
in the priest's hand. Then, at the thin, sweet tinkle of the bell, and the
first white gleam of the Unspeakable Mystery upheld by the servant of the
Altar, the heads bowed and sank as when a sudden wind sweeps over a field
of ripened corn. Only one or two remained unmoved, one of these a man's
head, young and crisply-waved, and golden....
And then came the orderly crowding to the door, and they were outside
under the great violet sky, throbbing with splendid stars, breathing the
tainted air that came from the laagers and the trenches. But oh, was there
ever a sweeter night, following upon a sweeter day?
Beauvayse's hand found and pressed Lynette's. She looked up and saw his
eyes shining in the starlight. He looked down and saw the Convent lily
transformed into a very rose of womanhood.
"I am on duty at Staff Bombproof South to-night. What I would give to be
free to walk home with you!"
Lady Hannah's jangling laugh came in.
"Haven't you had the whole day? Greedy, unconscionable young man! Say
good-night to her, and be off and get some food into you. Don't say you
haven't any appetite. I am hungry enough to be interested even in minced
mule and spatch-cocked locusts, after all this. Good-night! I must kiss
you again, child! I hope you don't mind?"
Lynette gave her cheek, asking:
"Where is the Mother?"
The voice of Sister Tobias answered out of the purplish darkness:
"She has gone on with Sister Hilda-Antony and Sister Cleophee, dearie. She
is going to sleep at the Convent with them, and I was to give you her
love, and say good-night."
Say good-night! On this of all nights was Lynette to be dismissed without
even the Mother's kiss? She gave back Beauvayse's parting hand-pressure
almost mechanically. Then she heard his voice, close at her ear, say
pantingly:
"No one will see.... Please, dearest!"
She turned her head, and their lips met under cover of the pansy-coloured
darkness.... Then he was gone with Lady Hannah, and Lynette was walking
home to the Convent bombproof, explaining to the astonished Sisters that
the Mother knew; that the Mother approved of her engagement to Lord
Beauvayse; and that they would probably be married very soon. Before the
Relief ...
"'Before the Relief.' Well, no one but Our Lord knows when that's to
be.... And so you're very happy, are you, dearie?"
Even as she gave her shy assent in answer to Sister Tobias's question, its
commonplace homeliness, like the feeling of the thick dust and the
scattered debris underfoot, brought back Lynette for a moment out of the
golden, diamond-dusted, pearl-gemmed dream-world in which she had been
straying, to wonder, Was she really very happy?
She asked herself the question sitting with the Sisters at their little
scanty supper. She asked herself as she knelt with them in prayer, as she
lay in bed, the Mother's place vacant beside her--Was she happy after all?
She had drunk sweetness, but there had been a tang of something in the cup
that cloyed the palate and sickened the soul. She had learned the love of
man, and in a measure it had cast out fear, that had been her earlier
lesson.
To be held and taken and made his completely, what must it be like? She
glowed in the darkness at the thought. And then the recollection of a
ruthless strength that had rent away the veil of innocence from a
woman-child surged back upon her.
Just think. Suppose you laid your hand in the warm, strong clasp that
thrilled delight to every nerve, and set your heart beating, beating, and,
drawn by the shining grey-green jewel-eyes and the mysterious, wooing
smile upon the beautiful lips, and the coaxing, caressing tones of the
voice that so allured, you gave up all else that had been so dear, and
went away with him? What then? Suppose----
Suppose the smiling face of Love should turn out to be nothing but a mask
hiding the gross and brutal leer of Lust, what then? She saw that other
man's dreadful face, painted in hot and living colours upon the darkness.
She writhed as if to tear her lips from the savage, furious mouth. She
shuddered and grew cold there in the sultry heat. The clasp of the
protecting mother-arms might have driven away her terror, but she was
alone. It would have been sweet to be alone that night if she had been
happy.
Why had the Mother shunned her? She knew that she had. Why had she felt,
even with the glamour of _his_ presence about her, and the music of his
voice in her ears, that all was not well?
Why, even with the lifting of her burden, in the unutterable relief of
hearing, from the lips that had been her law, that her dreadful secret
need never be revealed, had she felt consternation and alarm? The words
were written in fiery letters, on the murky dark of the bombproof, where
the tiny lamp that had hung before the Tabernacle on the altar of the
Convent chapel now burned, a twinkling red star, before the silver
Crucifix that hung upon the east wall.
"He is not to be told. I command you never to tell him!"
The doubt germinated and presently pushed through a little spear. Had
those lips given right counsel or wrong? Ought he to be told? Was it
dishonest, was it traitorous, to hide the truth? And yet, what are the
lives of even the upright, and clean, and continent among men, compared
with the life of a girl bred as she had been? The sin had not been hers.
She, the victim, was blameless. And yet, and yet ...
To this girl, who had learned to see the Face of Christ and of His Mother
reflected in one human face that had smiled down upon her, waking in the
little white bed in the Convent infirmary from the long, recuperating
sleep that turns the tide of brain-fever, the thought that a shadow of
deceit could mar its earnest, candid purity was torture. Months back they
had said to her--the lips that had given her the first kiss she had
received since a dying woman's cold mouth touched the sleeping face of a
yellow-haired baby held to her in a strong man's shaking hands, as the
trek-waggon rolled and rumbled over the veld:
"The man who may one day be your husband will have the right to know."
It was a different voice to the one that had commanded, "You are never to
tell him!" Lynette lay listening to those two voices until the alarm-clock
belled and the Sisters rose at midnight for matins. Then she lay listening
to the soft murmur of voices in the dark, as the red lamp glimmered before
the silver Christ upon the wall. The nuns needed no light, knowing the
office by heart:
"_Delicta quis intelligit? ab occultis meis munda me, et ab alienis parce
servo tuo_"--"Who can comprehend what sin is? Cleanse me from my hidden
sins, and from those of others save Thy servant."
The antiphon followed the _Gloria_, and then the soft womanly voices
chanted the twenty-third Psalm:
"_Quis ascendit in montem Domini?_"--"Who shall ascend to the Mount of
the Lord, and who shall dwell in His holy Sanctuary? Those who do no ill
and are pure.... Who do not give their heart to vain desires, or deceive
their neighbour with false oaths."
Or deceive ... with false oaths. To marry a man, letting him think you ...
something you were not ... did not that amount to deceiving by a false
oath?
Lynette lay very still. The last "Hail, Mary!" over, the Sisters returned
silently to bed. Wire mattresses creaked under superimposed weight. Long
breaths of wakefulness changed into the even breathing of slumber. The
only one who snored was Sister Tobias, a confirmed nasal soloist, whose
customary cornet-solo was strangely missing. Was Sister Tobias lying awake
and remembering too?
Sister Tobias was the only other person in the Convent besides the Mother,
who knew. She had helped her faithfully and tenderly to nurse Lynette
through the long illness that had followed the finding of that lost lamb
upon the veld. She was a homely creature of saintly virtues, the Mother's
staff and right hand. And it was she who had asked Lynette if she was
happy?
Somebody was moving. The grey light of dawn was filtering down the
drain-pipe ventilators and through the chinks in the tarpaulins overhead.
A formless pale figure came swiftly to Lynette's bedside. She guessed who
it must be. She sat up wide awake, and with her heart beating wildly in
her throat.
"Dearie!" The whisper was Sister Tobias's. She could make out the glimmer
of the white, plain nightcap framing the narrow face with the long,
sagacious nose and wise, kindly, patient eyes. "Are you awake, dearie?"
"Yes," Lynette whispered back, shuddering. The dry, warm, hard hand felt
about for her cold one, and found and took it. Lips came close to her ear,
and breathed:
"Dearie, this grand young gentleman you're engaged to be married to ..."
"Yes?"
"_Has he been told? Does he know?_"
The long, plain face was close to Lynette's. In the greying light she
could see it clearly. Her heart beat in heavy, sickening thuds. Her teeth
chattered, and whole body shook as if with ague, as she faltered:
"The Mother says--he is not to be told."
There was a dead silence. It was as if an iron shutter had suddenly been
pulled down and clamped home between them. Then Sister Tobias said in a
tone devoid of all expression:
"The Mother knows best, dearie, of course. Lie down and go to sleep."
Then silence settled back upon the Convent bombproof, but sleep did not
come to everybody there.