Golden August--a sky of cloudless blue softening into the autumn haze
which dims the horizon; golden August, with the whirr of the
reaping-machine, as the yellow wheat falls to the harvest, blending with
the cooing of wood-pigeons among the leafy shades of the park; golden
August, with its still, rich atmosphere, and roll of green champaign and
velvety coppice, and honeysuckle-twined hedgerow, and dappled kine
standing knee-deep in shaded pond; in short, golden August in one of the
fairest scenes of fair England.
Here and there red roofs clustering around a grey church tower, whose
sparkling vane flashes in the sun; here and there a solitary thatch. In
front a lovely sward stretching down to a sunken fence, and a gap,
revealing the charming vista of landscape beyond--such is the outlook
from the library window of the beautiful and sumptuous home into which
we will take a brief and only peep, for it has been for some years past
Nidia's home, and is the property of her father. _Has_ been? we said.
That it should continue to be so, forms, as it happens, the
subject-matter of the very conversation going on at that moment between
them.
Nidia herself seems in no wise to have altered; indeed, why should she,
unless to grow more charming, more alluring than before, that being the
only alteration happiness is potent to effect? For on the third finger
of her left hand a plain gold ring of suspicious newness proclaims that
she is Nidia Commerell no longer. The other party to the conversation
is her father.
"It is really good of you, child," the latter is saying, "to come back
so soon to your old father, left all alone. Not many would have done
it--at any rate, at such a time as this. But I don't want to be
selfish. You had been away from me so long, and had been so near--well,
being away altogether it would have been, I suppose, but for that fine
fellow, John Ames--that--well, I did want to see my little girl again
for a few days before she started on her travels, not in an infernal
savage-ridden country this time, thank God!"
"Of course I wanted to see you again, dear--and just as much as you did
me," returned Nidia, meaning it, too. "But even the `infernal
savage-ridden country' has its bright side."
"Meaning John Ames," said the old gentleman, with a laugh.
In aspect Mr Commerell was of about medium height, scrupulously neat in
his attire. He wore a short white beard, and had very refined features;
and looking into his eyes, it was easy to see whence Nidia had got hers.
In manner he was very straight to the point and downright, but it was
not the downrightness which in nineteen cases out of twenty degenerates
into mere brusquerie. He and John Ames had taken to each other
wonderfully, and the old gentleman had already begun to look upon his
son-in-law as his own son.
"What I have got to say, child, is this," he went on; "and mind you, I
don't much like saying it. However, here it is. When you have done
your round on the Continent, why not come back here and make this your
home? I know the old argument against relations-in-law in the same
house and all that, but here it's different. You should both be as free
as air as far as I am concerned. You know I am not of the interfering
sort--indeed, you could have your own set of apartments, for the matter
of that. But when I bought this property to retire to in my old age, it
was with an eye to some such contingency, and--um--well, it could not
have befallen better. Well, what I was coming to is that it is a large
property and wants some looking after, and John will find plenty to do
in looking after it. He will have to look after it for himself and you
when my time is up, so may as well begin now."
But Nidia took the old man's face between her hands as he sat, and
stopped his utterance with a very loving kiss.
"Father, darling, don't say any more about relations-in-law and
interfering, and all that--bosh. Yes, bosh. _You_ interfering, indeed!
And for the matter of that, I know that John is awfully fond of you;
you get on splendidly together. Of course we will come back and take
care of you, and we'll all be as happy together as the day is long."
"God bless you, Nidia, child! Hallo! here he comes."
"Who?" asked Nidia, with a ripple of mirth over the inconsequence of the
remark--which certainly was funny.
"John, of course. He is a fine fellow, Nidia. Didn't know they grow
men like that in those parts"--with a very approving gaze at the
advancing figure of his son-in-law, who, strolling along the terrace,
was drinking in the lovely panorama of fair English landscape,
contrasting it, perchance, with certain weird regions of granite boulder
and tumbled rock and impenetrable thorn thicket. And here it may be
noted that, her present happiness notwithstanding, Nidia had by no means
forgotten her sad and terrible experiences, and there were times when
she would start up in her sleep wild-eyed and with a scream of horror,
as she saw once more the mutilated corpses of the murdered settler's
family, or found herself alone in the shaggy wilds of the Matopos. But
the awakening more than made up for the reminiscence. She was young,
and of sound and buoyant Constitution, and the grim and ghastly
recollection of appalling sights and peril passed through would
eventually fade.
"Am I interrupting you?" said John Ames, as at his entrance the two
looked up. "Nidia was going to stroll down to the bridge with me, Mr
Commerell; but if you want her, why, I shall have to keep myself
company."
"Considerate, as few of them are or would be under the circumstances,"
thought the old gentleman to himself. But aloud he said, "No--no. It's
all right. We've done our talk, John. You'd better take her with you,
and she can tell you what it has all been about. Besides, I have some
business to attend to."
He watched them strolling along the terrace together, and a strange
joyful peace was around the old man's heart.
"God bless them!" he murmured to himself--his spectacles, perhaps, a
trifle dim. "They are a well matched pair, and surely this is a
Heaven-made union if such a thing exists. God bless them, and send them
every happiness!"
And here we take leave to join in the above aspiration; for although
ourselves no believers in the old-fashioned "lived-happy-ever-after"
theory, holding that about nineteen such cases out of twenty, putting it
at a modest proportion, are, in actual fact, but sparsely hedged around
with the a "happy" qualification, yet here we think it possible that the
twentieth case may be found, if only that all the circumstances
attendant upon it go to make for that desirable end.
The End.